How To Be A Social Media Superstar: Content Marketing And Blogging Tips

00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)

00:00:02.580 | - You're listening to Let's Talk Jobs,

00:00:08.880 | where we give you practical insights into jobs and careers.

00:00:12.160 | I'm Tim Chen, and today, we're talking about

00:00:14.920 | how to be a social content marketer.

00:00:17.800 | Now, it goes without saying, knowing who your audience is,

00:00:21.260 | knowing what they're looking for,

00:00:22.720 | and then authoring content that they'll actually read

00:00:25.820 | is really, really difficult.

00:00:27.600 | And there's a reason why we aren't all influencers

00:00:30.360 | with hundreds of thousands of followers

00:00:32.080 | that read our content.

00:00:33.600 | I'm certainly not one of them,

00:00:34.920 | and it's not due to lack of effort.

00:00:37.000 | So today, we're going to talk to someone

00:00:38.900 | who has achieved this.

00:00:40.640 | We'll be joined by Paul Patron,

00:00:42.420 | a senior content marketing manager at LinkedIn,

00:00:44.880 | and he runs LinkedIn Sales Solutions'

00:00:46.800 | owned channel strategy, where he's the blog editor

00:00:50.220 | and owner of social content

00:00:51.720 | and the recently launched newsletter.

00:00:53.880 | Altogether, this reaches over 400,000 people monthly.

00:00:57.820 | In this video, he's going to give us practical insights

00:01:00.380 | into topics like the importance of immediate payoff

00:01:03.700 | for the reader, examples of blogs that did

00:01:06.580 | and did not perform well,

00:01:08.740 | and then he'll talk about his own career journey

00:01:10.760 | and how he discovered a passion for writing.

00:01:14.000 | All right, let's get started.

00:01:15.760 | Joining us today to talk about content marketing

00:01:17.740 | is Paul Patron.

00:01:18.720 | How you doing, Paul?

00:01:20.300 | - I'm doing great.

00:01:21.140 | Thanks for having me, Tim.

00:01:22.020 | - Dude, I'm so glad you're here today.

00:01:23.300 | You know, I've worked with you.

00:01:24.340 | I've really admired how you do content marketing.

00:01:26.940 | So can you tell us a little bit about your role today

00:01:29.260 | and how long you've been doing it?

00:01:31.780 | - Sure.

00:01:32.780 | So right now, I currently lead our blog and social efforts

00:01:37.300 | for LinkedIn Sales Solutions,

00:01:39.940 | which is roughly a $1.2 billion business,

00:01:42.420 | primarily selling Sales Navigator.

00:01:44.660 | And I've bounced around a few different roles at LinkedIn,

00:01:48.460 | primarily content marketing,

00:01:49.980 | although I've done some product marketing too.

00:01:52.580 | And I've been at LinkedIn for eight years.

00:01:54.960 | So a little bit about my job now.

00:01:56.860 | Basically, my job is to build an audience

00:01:59.260 | of sales professionals.

00:02:00.540 | And I do that through our blog and social channels.

00:02:04.420 | We wanna connect with sales professionals.

00:02:06.860 | We wanna keep them engaged.

00:02:08.940 | We wanna build this community of existing customers

00:02:12.380 | and people who are prospective customers as well,

00:02:16.140 | and keep them coming back and wanting to learn more

00:02:18.940 | about sales best practices, how to sell more effectively.

00:02:24.100 | And then we also pepper in, of course,

00:02:26.300 | some best practices around Sales Navigator

00:02:29.100 | and how to get the most out of our product as well.

00:02:31.340 | - Got it.

00:02:32.180 | So when you're saying you're building this community,

00:02:33.340 | so this is primarily through engagement on your blogs.

00:02:35.580 | Is that true?

00:02:36.900 | - Blog and--

00:02:38.420 | - And social.

00:02:39.700 | - LinkedIn, yes.

00:02:40.540 | - LinkedIn, okay.

00:02:41.380 | - LinkedIn, I would say, is almost the focus

00:02:42.260 | because we have more sales pros use LinkedIn

00:02:45.980 | more than any other type of professional.

00:02:47.580 | So there's this huge community there.

00:02:49.380 | And we're looking to tap into that community

00:02:50.940 | and build awareness with them of Sales Navigator

00:02:53.540 | and just kind of who we are and what we stand for.

00:02:57.260 | - Can you tell me a little bit about,

00:02:59.260 | obviously the community in LinkedIn can be very diverse,

00:03:01.780 | right?

00:03:02.620 | There's all these different people and different personas.

00:03:03.780 | And so how do you go about defining your target audience?

00:03:07.140 | And then how do you then, whether it's through,

00:03:09.540 | you know, journey mapping or understanding their top tasks

00:03:13.820 | or what use cases that they care about,

00:03:15.580 | like how do you then pair the individual to topics

00:03:18.540 | that you think is highly relevant to them?

00:03:21.140 | - Yeah, I think the key to good content marketing

00:03:23.860 | is empathy for the person you're writing to, to your point.

00:03:27.860 | So really our audience is our core,

00:03:31.980 | is the core of the business as well.

00:03:35.420 | So for us, that's 25 to 45 year old sales professionals.

00:03:40.420 | I would say high tech and finance is the focus,

00:03:45.460 | but we really serve a wide range.

00:03:49.300 | But when I think about who I'm writing for,

00:03:51.780 | I think about somebody who's either an SDR or an AE,

00:03:55.820 | who's hungry to advance in their career,

00:03:59.940 | is hungry to get better at selling

00:04:01.460 | because unlike other professions,

00:04:03.180 | there's an immediate payoff.

00:04:04.340 | The better you get at sales, the more money you make.

00:04:06.660 | So I really think about that as I'm designing content,

00:04:09.900 | like what would they care about?

00:04:11.740 | And then of course I talk to sales professionals

00:04:14.220 | all the time.

00:04:15.340 | I hear research from our product marketing team

00:04:17.940 | on what our sales professionals care about.

00:04:20.700 | And honestly, part of it is trial and error.

00:04:23.460 | Like part of it is like,

00:04:24.900 | I produce a lot of blogs and a lot of social posts

00:04:28.100 | and you see, hey, this topic resonates,

00:04:30.140 | this topic doesn't resonate.

00:04:32.140 | And I've written for a lot of audiences in my time

00:04:35.620 | and it's always the same process.

00:04:37.620 | Try to speak to the people who actually do that job,

00:04:40.700 | try to get whatever market research you can.

00:04:42.580 | And then a lot of it's quite frankly, trial and error.

00:04:44.940 | - Cool, so you said two things in there

00:04:46.260 | that really kind of piqued my interest.

00:04:47.700 | One is around kind of gathering and soliciting feedback

00:04:51.220 | to validate what your customers are looking for.

00:04:53.100 | And I definitely want to focus on that.

00:04:54.780 | And then you talked about how you're measuring engagement

00:04:57.700 | as a way of seeing efficacy of your content

00:05:00.300 | or making sure they're engaging.

00:05:01.300 | So I got a question for you.

00:05:03.220 | So, it seems like when you're describing to me,

00:05:06.380 | whether it's your partners in product marketing

00:05:08.700 | or the sales rep themselves,

00:05:11.140 | maybe there's a general alignment to maybe their agreement

00:05:14.500 | on what the customer is looking for.

00:05:16.220 | Now, a lot of companies may not have that luxury.

00:05:20.260 | You could be in a very complex B2B company

00:05:22.820 | where your product marketing

00:05:24.460 | has a very specific point of view

00:05:26.380 | that may differ from another organization.

00:05:28.940 | Have you encountered that in your current role

00:05:30.660 | or previous jobs?

00:05:31.980 | And how do you kind of marry the two together

00:05:33.700 | and really kind of come up with the agreed

00:05:35.980 | kind of source of truth

00:05:36.940 | to identify what they're looking for?

00:05:38.740 | - Yes, I mean, I've worked in organizations

00:05:43.260 | that had no product marketing.

00:05:45.300 | So the whole funnel.

00:05:46.740 | And then I think the ultimate source of truth

00:05:50.740 | is what's performing on the channel.

00:05:52.500 | That's the source of truth.

00:05:53.340 | - Okay.

00:05:54.180 | - I mean, granted,

00:05:57.140 | it needs to be related to the business, of course.

00:05:59.780 | But like, if you're seeing, let's just use,

00:06:02.300 | I'll just continue the example.

00:06:03.700 | So let's see, we're seeing a lot of,

00:06:05.500 | with sales professionals specifically,

00:06:09.420 | we see a lot do really successful

00:06:12.660 | around like sort of the emotional side of sales.

00:06:14.460 | Like how do you bounce back from a tough call

00:06:16.620 | or how do you bounce back from missing quota?

00:06:18.500 | How do you deal with rejection?

00:06:20.500 | Now, is that a direct tie to our product?

00:06:23.060 | Somewhat, but not 100% as like prospecting would be.

00:06:28.060 | Now, we talk about sales prospecting,

00:06:30.500 | we wanna connect with the sales pro.

00:06:32.660 | If we don't build a community,

00:06:34.580 | like our efforts are meaningless

00:06:36.180 | 'cause then we're like talking to nobody.

00:06:38.420 | So you need to look at the engagement numbers

00:06:43.700 | really closely and see what is actually resonating

00:06:46.060 | with the audience and use that as your source of truth

00:06:48.780 | versus even the research you get back from PMM or whoever.

00:06:53.340 | - Yeah, and how are you measuring like success?

00:06:55.820 | Are you looking at clicks?

00:06:56.660 | Like are you looking at balanced rates?

00:06:57.900 | Are you looking at heat maps?

00:06:58.740 | Like what kind of tools you use

00:06:59.700 | and what numbers, what KPIs matter to you?

00:07:02.500 | - Yeah, so there's a few

00:07:04.340 | and I've used a bunch in my times in content marketing.

00:07:06.780 | I think in social, you have a lot more metrics you can use.

00:07:10.380 | You can see how many people engage the post.

00:07:14.540 | You can see the sentiment around that post.

00:07:18.420 | You can see if those posts, if people click down through,

00:07:22.580 | if they go on to convert, although I would not recommend,

00:07:26.700 | and we can talk about this later,

00:07:27.620 | I would not recommend conversions as a key metric

00:07:29.900 | for content marketing for a lot of reasons.

00:07:31.980 | - Okay. - But we can talk

00:07:32.820 | about that in a second.

00:07:33.980 | In blog, it's a little more limited

00:07:35.700 | 'cause you don't have as much visibility into your audience,

00:07:38.820 | but it's, you're really relying on views.

00:07:41.260 | I think time on pages are underrated stat.

00:07:43.380 | Like are people, are they, is it clickbait

00:07:45.500 | or are there people actually like syncing in

00:07:46.940 | and reading the content?

00:07:48.220 | And then if you have some sort of blog newsletter

00:07:51.180 | or subscribing is really critical

00:07:52.780 | because that shows that like they're getting so much value

00:07:55.180 | that they want more of it.

00:07:56.380 | - Yeah. - So I think in some ways

00:07:58.940 | for blog, I would say views is generally your true North,

00:08:02.780 | but subscribers can actually be an even better metric.

00:08:06.100 | - Yeah, you said something earlier

00:08:08.100 | that I really want to revisit again

00:08:09.900 | 'cause it's so important.

00:08:11.380 | You know, you're talking about like, you know,

00:08:12.700 | whether that's empathetic writing

00:08:14.180 | or kind of putting the user or customer truly first,

00:08:18.220 | that's actually really hard

00:08:19.700 | 'cause it's easy for a company

00:08:21.700 | who's passionate about their product

00:08:23.180 | to want to talk about their product first.

00:08:25.060 | And you're going completely different way, right?

00:08:26.540 | You're trying to talk about something that's relatable

00:08:28.900 | that seems like it's taking a topic that's relevant

00:08:31.500 | and talking about maybe a editorial piece

00:08:33.980 | or a story or narrative

00:08:35.180 | to kind of build that kind of a story.

00:08:38.180 | And then you lead them into

00:08:39.540 | maybe why your product matters, right?

00:08:41.940 | Can you share some examples of maybe like

00:08:44.580 | an example of a topic that worked really well

00:08:46.300 | in terms of getting engagement

00:08:47.820 | versus one that really fell flat?

00:08:49.500 | You know, like maybe it was a pure product push

00:08:51.980 | or something that just no one cared about.

00:08:54.100 | - I can think of, so first off,

00:08:58.260 | pure product pushes almost always fall flat

00:09:00.660 | unless there's, I would say actually in my current role,

00:09:05.620 | when we have updates about Sales Navigator

00:09:07.660 | and we can talk about immediate payoff,

00:09:09.780 | then it actually does perform well

00:09:11.860 | because they're just so hungry

00:09:12.940 | to learn how to use the tool better.

00:09:14.780 | But to answer your question,

00:09:16.740 | I'll give you a very specific example.

00:09:18.420 | So I think the key is in writing good content

00:09:22.340 | is you need to identify pain.

00:09:24.380 | You need to figure out like what's something

00:09:26.260 | that like somebody's struggling with right now

00:09:28.140 | that they want to click on and figure out how to solve it.

00:09:32.740 | So, and if the more immediate that pain is,

00:09:36.500 | the more clicks and the more successful

00:09:39.820 | and the more engaged it's going to be.

00:09:41.180 | So I give you a very specific example.

00:09:43.420 | Back when we were working together, Tim,

00:09:45.260 | I worked with somebody else on the team, Carrie,

00:09:48.740 | on this campaign and it was my first big effort

00:09:51.380 | on like a big editorial campaign.

00:09:52.980 | I was really excited about it

00:09:54.460 | and it was called The Future of Skills,

00:09:56.300 | the skills that would be popular in five years.

00:09:58.820 | And we interviewed all of these great people.

00:10:00.660 | We interviewed Reid Hoffman.

00:10:02.020 | We interviewed our head of sales at LinkedIn at the time.

00:10:04.820 | I think we interviewed 40 people

00:10:06.260 | all with really impressive credentials.

00:10:08.380 | And we're like, what are the skills

00:10:09.340 | that are going to be popular in five years?

00:10:11.540 | And it was good.

00:10:12.900 | I actually revisited it.

00:10:14.060 | We did this in 2017.

00:10:15.580 | I revisited it in 2022 and it was amazingly accurate.

00:10:18.900 | Like one of them was like the sales guy was like,

00:10:20.980 | virtual meetings is going to be even more critical than ever.

00:10:23.140 | Now, of course he didn't know pandemic was going to happen.

00:10:26.220 | But so anyway, it was strong writing.

00:10:29.420 | It was, the points were good.

00:10:31.620 | Everything was good.

00:10:33.140 | And the campaign couldn't have done worse.

00:10:35.820 | It was embarrassing.

00:10:36.860 | It was my first big one.

00:10:38.540 | And I was like, why?

00:10:40.540 | Like, it sounds so good.

00:10:42.340 | And it's like, 'cause there's not an immediate payoff.

00:10:44.940 | Yes, like if I were to ask you

00:10:47.300 | what's going to make you successful in five years

00:10:49.660 | and granted I know you can build towards that and everything

00:10:51.700 | but there's not that immediate pain that,

00:10:55.500 | and we had like, it was all,

00:10:57.180 | this was to give a little more context.

00:10:58.700 | This was back when I worked for LinkedIn Learning

00:11:00.460 | which taught all these courses and all these skills.

00:11:02.900 | So the thought was, well, this will inspire people

00:11:05.060 | to want to take these courses

00:11:06.340 | because they want to get prepared for five years from now.

00:11:09.140 | But the reality is people don't think like that.

00:11:11.300 | They want to put out the fire

00:11:13.300 | that's burning inside them right now.

00:11:15.060 | - Yeah.

00:11:15.900 | - So we altered.

00:11:17.660 | And then what we did was,

00:11:20.060 | so they kind of gave me one more chance to like,

00:11:22.060 | all right, we'll do one more of these sort of campaigns.

00:11:24.300 | I felt the pressure.

00:11:25.660 | So we did something around the skills companies need most

00:11:28.700 | where we identified the skills right now

00:11:31.060 | that companies were most hiring for

00:11:34.100 | based on this really cool LinkedIn data.

00:11:37.140 | And that killed.

00:11:38.740 | That was probably the most successful campaign I ever did.

00:11:41.300 | And then we did it again next year and it was even bigger.

00:11:43.460 | And it, again, it addressed that immediate pain

00:11:45.780 | and it was a direct tie to the product.

00:11:47.580 | It was, hey, these are the skills companies are hiring for.

00:11:50.420 | This is how to learn the skill on LinkedIn Learning.

00:11:52.140 | So it's okay to have a complete straight line

00:11:55.500 | to the product but you better match it real closely

00:11:58.580 | to something that's a pain in somebody's life right now.

00:12:01.580 | Not something that's potentially a pain

00:12:03.620 | or philosophically a pain.

00:12:06.220 | - No, that's a really good point.

00:12:07.300 | I'm thinking about even the blogs

00:12:09.660 | that my teams have written in the past

00:12:11.060 | and you're totally right.

00:12:12.540 | They're like, there's two types of blogs

00:12:14.540 | that seem to perform really well.

00:12:15.740 | One is timely and relevant to key events

00:12:19.780 | happening in market right now, right?

00:12:21.260 | So in my world, the previous was around like,

00:12:23.660 | like privacy and security and like online,

00:12:25.940 | like identification and protection, right?

00:12:27.980 | And not being DDoS attacked.

00:12:29.420 | So like having people aware of like,

00:12:31.100 | hey, this attack just happened.

00:12:32.860 | Like, here's what you need to know about it.

00:12:34.100 | Like, that was really practical.

00:12:35.620 | But the one you're saying is even better,

00:12:37.380 | which is like, you need to remember

00:12:39.100 | that users are trying to get their jobs done

00:12:40.900 | at the end of the day, right?

00:12:42.700 | And so they're trying to solve for something specifically.

00:12:45.460 | And if you talk broad stretches, like brushes,

00:12:47.820 | like marketing speak usually turns people off, right?

00:12:50.060 | It's like, connect with me as a human,

00:12:52.020 | use my language, help me figure out

00:12:53.700 | how you're gonna make my job better

00:12:55.140 | and tell me how to do it.

00:12:56.420 | 'Cause then that actually establishes you

00:12:58.060 | as a subject matter expert, right?

00:12:59.860 | Or thought leader.

00:13:00.700 | And again, that kind of probably leads

00:13:02.220 | to more repeat readership in your content

00:13:05.740 | or maybe update and subscribes, et cetera.

00:13:08.140 | So, Paul, you have like actually really interesting history

00:13:12.220 | to me for your career journey.

00:13:14.100 | 'Cause, you know, when I'm thinking about the skills

00:13:16.420 | required to be a successful content marketer.

00:13:18.740 | Now like, you're double downing in blog

00:13:20.900 | and social content for viewers.

00:13:22.780 | You know, there's other types of content marketing as well.

00:13:24.500 | There's eBooks, creating webinars, infographics.

00:13:27.140 | There's a lot of ways or packages

00:13:28.980 | you can put your content in

00:13:29.980 | and I'll create more content around that

00:13:31.500 | to help you guys understand how to do that.

00:13:34.060 | But in your world, can you help us understand

00:13:36.820 | what skills, both hard and soft,

00:13:40.060 | you believe are really critical for this role?

00:13:42.340 | And then I would love to kind of even rewind the clock

00:13:45.100 | a little bit, kind of talk about your career journey.

00:13:46.660 | 'Cause you started somewhere totally different

00:13:49.020 | than where you are now, but all the skills

00:13:51.180 | you kind of gained along the way,

00:13:53.100 | they're all somehow thematically relevant, right?

00:13:55.380 | And it kind of led you to where we are today.

00:13:56.620 | So can you, yeah, start us with the skills

00:13:58.580 | and you believe are required

00:14:00.020 | and then talk about your journey.

00:14:02.380 | - Sure, absolutely.

00:14:03.580 | So first off I'll say,

00:14:04.900 | although I've done mostly blog and social in my career,

00:14:07.060 | I've done eBooks, I've done live shows,

00:14:09.580 | I've done webinars, I've done it all.

00:14:11.860 | And I actually think I've done videos

00:14:13.940 | and I think the skills needed to create good content

00:14:17.380 | across all those mediums are very similar.

00:14:22.060 | So I think the really critical skills is,

00:14:26.020 | the hard skills is,

00:14:27.820 | and it doesn't matter what type of content you're doing,

00:14:30.300 | you need to be able to,

00:14:31.540 | I would say the number one skill you need,

00:14:32.980 | believe it or not,

00:14:33.820 | is the ability to take a bunch of information,

00:14:37.220 | distill it down and figure out

00:14:38.940 | what's gonna be interesting to the audience.

00:14:41.340 | So like, that's what we had to do

00:14:46.380 | and I'll get to it in a second in my career as a reporter,

00:14:48.900 | but that's what we had to do was take a lot of information,

00:14:51.740 | okay, this is a lot of stuff here,

00:14:53.500 | a lot of angles we could go here,

00:14:55.540 | what's actually gonna matter to our audience?

00:14:57.780 | And I think the best way to do that is,

00:15:01.060 | I think of this thing my journalism professor

00:15:04.100 | told me one time is,

00:15:05.260 | he said, imagine you're on a boat

00:15:08.140 | and the boat is casting offshore

00:15:10.660 | and there's somebody on shore

00:15:13.660 | and you have just one sentence

00:15:15.460 | you can shout to that person on shore

00:15:16.900 | before the boat is out of earshot.

00:15:18.980 | And like, what is that one sentence gonna be?

00:15:20.900 | So before you create anything,

00:15:22.780 | whether it's an ebook or a video

00:15:24.700 | or a blog or a social post,

00:15:26.420 | you need to be like crystal clear

00:15:27.900 | on what that one message is

00:15:29.820 | because if you don't have that,

00:15:32.100 | you're gonna have a very unstructured post.

00:15:35.220 | So that's the most important.

00:15:36.980 | It's actually kind of, I would describe it

00:15:38.340 | almost as like an analytical skill

00:15:40.060 | to be able to boil it down.

00:15:42.980 | The other skills you need, I would say,

00:15:45.260 | is obviously the ability to write

00:15:46.860 | and again, that applies to all types of content.

00:15:49.340 | And I really think the only way to become a good writer

00:15:51.500 | is to just write a lot.

00:15:52.660 | You do need the building on the analytical skill.

00:15:58.100 | You need the ability to understand data

00:16:00.020 | and figure out trends from that data

00:16:02.460 | and apply it to your writing.

00:16:03.700 | So you're reaching bigger and bigger audiences, ideally.

00:16:06.580 | Those are the main ones.

00:16:12.660 | And then on the soft skill,

00:16:15.140 | which I think are probably equally important,

00:16:17.900 | not more important.

00:16:19.140 | One of the big soft skills you really need to learn,

00:16:21.460 | which I struggled with earlier in my career

00:16:23.420 | and then it got beat out of me basically,

00:16:25.460 | was the ability to take really strong feedback.

00:16:27.980 | Even in, I've been doing writing for 15 years

00:16:31.860 | and I ghost write for people all the time

00:16:34.140 | and everybody has different opinions

00:16:35.740 | and everybody has,

00:16:37.260 | most people have really strong feedback.

00:16:39.500 | And it doesn't necessarily mean that every single thing,

00:16:42.620 | every piece of feedback you get is right.

00:16:44.740 | But you need to be able to accept the feedback.

00:16:48.500 | Some of it does, is right.

00:16:50.060 | And some of it you need to learn from other,

00:16:51.620 | you just need to chalk it up as,

00:16:52.940 | hey, it's their perspective.

00:16:55.860 | But either way, you need to be able to accept

00:16:57.620 | a lot of feedback and not take it personally.

00:17:00.260 | So that's critical.

00:17:01.380 | You need to be able to build partnerships,

00:17:05.140 | which is so important.

00:17:08.100 | And another thing that I wasn't like,

00:17:09.500 | I was kind of like a little bit of a lone wolf,

00:17:11.220 | probably still somewhat are,

00:17:12.820 | but like you really need to bring people along

00:17:15.380 | and be able to build partnerships.

00:17:16.460 | Otherwise you're gonna be seen as just a writer

00:17:19.020 | and you don't want that in your career.

00:17:20.420 | You wanna be able to build these larger initiatives

00:17:23.620 | and be part of something larger.

00:17:24.780 | You need to have some sort of like strategic view

00:17:27.500 | of what the business is,

00:17:28.580 | which again was something I had to learn over time.

00:17:31.140 | And I would say, I mean, there's many more,

00:17:36.900 | but I would say those are the main ones.

00:17:39.220 | If I had to distill it down to one hard and one soft,

00:17:41.980 | soft skill, most important ability to take feedback,

00:17:45.500 | not take it personally and incorporate,

00:17:48.540 | not lose your confidence either, which is also hard,

00:17:51.380 | and then be able to put it back in.

00:17:54.300 | And the hard skill again,

00:17:55.220 | just be able to take a lot of information and distill out,

00:17:58.180 | I kind of called the bones of it,

00:18:01.540 | but what's the main thing that you really wanna get across?

00:18:04.620 | - Yeah, and I really liked that.

00:18:05.820 | You know, the kind of hard skill you mentioned

00:18:08.980 | just now around being able to take

00:18:11.180 | a lot of complex information

00:18:12.740 | and distill it into the one point that people care about.

00:18:15.540 | I would say that applies broadly

00:18:18.460 | as an effective communicator in business, right?

00:18:20.460 | How many times have we been asked

00:18:22.300 | to put a presentation together for a manager or whatever?

00:18:24.700 | And being in the weeds,

00:18:26.460 | there's so much we wanna talk about

00:18:28.260 | 'cause we're passionate about it

00:18:29.180 | and we should have a strong point of view,

00:18:31.060 | but that audience only has time to remember

00:18:33.220 | one or two things they're gonna say.

00:18:35.300 | And so being able to practice restraint

00:18:37.540 | and kind of bubbling up just the first,

00:18:40.620 | you know, one or two things that matter to them

00:18:42.220 | is really important.

00:18:43.100 | And as a matter of fact, Paul,

00:18:44.500 | I don't know if you remember,

00:18:46.020 | when we started at LinkedIn together at the same time,

00:18:49.540 | in that time in my career, you know,

00:18:51.060 | I was very much an individual contributor,

00:18:52.980 | really passionate about my work.

00:18:55.020 | I had a lot of work to do

00:18:56.860 | in the way of presenting my thoughts.

00:18:59.100 | You know, my mind ran a mile a minute

00:19:01.500 | and my presentations looked like that.

00:19:03.460 | You know, I would create a slide

00:19:05.180 | that would be way too verbose.

00:19:07.340 | And I kind of leveraged too many funny pictures as well,

00:19:09.540 | but that's just my personality.

00:19:10.900 | But like, I think over time,

00:19:13.620 | being just admitting to myself that,

00:19:15.980 | "Hey, look, this is a thing I need to work on."

00:19:17.540 | The thing that I appreciate with even you

00:19:20.340 | is accountability, right?

00:19:21.900 | 'Cause people are gonna wonder,

00:19:23.060 | I am a talkative type,

00:19:24.180 | but a lot of things you say,

00:19:25.220 | "How do I bring it down?"

00:19:27.140 | Letting a few friends or close people who you trust

00:19:30.340 | give you feedback is important.

00:19:31.540 | I remember a lot of times in the beginning,

00:19:32.740 | I would distill my presentations down.

00:19:34.780 | I would do like a dry run through you

00:19:36.780 | or I'd do a dry run through my manager at the time

00:19:38.860 | and say, "Hey, look, does this make sense?"

00:19:40.860 | Or even before I presented something,

00:19:42.220 | I'd be like, "Hey, by the way, before we get started,

00:19:44.380 | I'm trying to work on bringing a better presenter.

00:19:45.900 | So look out for these three things.

00:19:47.300 | And just let me know after the fact, you know,

00:19:48.980 | and I'll deal with that."

00:19:49.820 | And then I would go on.

00:19:51.140 | So I think the same thing applies for you

00:19:52.380 | and your content writing, right?

00:19:53.900 | Again, I'm sending feedback

00:19:55.500 | and kind of like iron sharpening iron.

00:19:57.700 | And I think the ability to take constructive feedback,

00:20:00.700 | like that's so valuable.

00:20:01.940 | Cool, so you kind of teased it.

00:20:04.460 | So you're a reporter before.

00:20:05.820 | So I'm kind of curious.

00:20:07.260 | So there's a lot of people who are wondering,

00:20:08.700 | like, "Hey, look, I want to make a career shift

00:20:11.740 | into let's say content marketing."

00:20:12.940 | And of course, content marketing

00:20:14.580 | is a very broad category, right?

00:20:16.220 | And they may have some skills that they'd be more tangible,

00:20:18.820 | but they may be maybe intimidated

00:20:21.940 | 'cause you've mentioned analytical mindset

00:20:24.180 | and they may not see themselves as the analytical person.

00:20:27.180 | What I don't want them to take away is,

00:20:28.540 | "Okay, I'm gonna just rule myself out

00:20:30.740 | and self-select out this job function or category."

00:20:34.700 | So can you tell us about your evolutionary career?

00:20:36.580 | 'Cause I think that's important for people

00:20:37.700 | 'cause they might be following a similar journey

00:20:39.300 | even though the starting point looks different.

00:20:41.740 | - Yes, absolutely.

00:20:42.980 | So I had a kind of a unique journey to LinkedIn.

00:20:47.700 | So I'll start, I won't tell the whole story,

00:20:52.140 | but I'll start when I was,

00:20:53.980 | I kind of graduated college pretty listless

00:20:56.220 | and I wasn't really sure what I wanted to do with my life.

00:20:58.380 | I kind of had a kind of a generic degree.

00:21:00.980 | I graduated from the University of Connecticut

00:21:02.460 | and I was actually working for my father

00:21:04.580 | at his construction company and I really didn't like it.

00:21:07.500 | It wasn't a good fit and I was unhappy.

00:21:09.860 | And I got this, it's gonna sound crazy,

00:21:13.940 | but I had this dream effectively that said,

00:21:16.380 | "Hey, become a writer."

00:21:17.900 | And I started, I made that my focus.

00:21:20.180 | I was gonna become a writer.

00:21:21.380 | And I went back and got some schooling at UConn,

00:21:24.860 | advanced education around journalism.

00:21:27.220 | Got enough to get into the world of journalism

00:21:30.580 | and started writing for some local newspapers

00:21:32.900 | and then a website called Patch that was like a local,

00:21:36.380 | I ran a local website, news website.

00:21:39.380 | And through those roles, I wrote a lot.

00:21:41.820 | My role, so I paid my first reporting job.

00:21:46.740 | I got, I think $75 a story.

00:21:48.900 | And then actually I got laid off from that job.

00:21:50.740 | And then I had to get another job

00:21:51.740 | that only paid $50 a story.

00:21:53.980 | So to make ends meet, I had to write 10 stories a week.

00:21:56.740 | And that was at only 500 bucks.

00:21:58.140 | I think I did some tutoring too.

00:22:00.380 | So I was barely getting by,

00:22:01.460 | but I was writing a tremendous amount.

00:22:04.060 | And then at Patch, it was even more crazy.

00:22:06.860 | I would do like upwards of five posts a day.

00:22:10.260 | So I was writing a tremendous amount.

00:22:13.020 | And so I was getting, whether I liked it or not,

00:22:15.580 | I was becoming a really good writer.

00:22:17.620 | And I did that for the reporting thing for like seven years.

00:22:22.620 | And then Patch actually went under as a company

00:22:26.020 | and we all got laid off.

00:22:28.260 | And I started working for this really small startup

00:22:30.540 | in Mystic, Connecticut that sold a hiring solution.

00:22:33.900 | And the boss...

00:22:35.340 | So at first I had like a somewhat complicated,

00:22:39.420 | but it was basically like a customer success role.

00:22:42.380 | I was to analyze some customer success records

00:22:46.460 | and make recommendations.

00:22:48.020 | But anyway, he's like, "Paul, you're a writer.

00:22:50.100 | "You should lead our marketing efforts

00:22:51.660 | "and write on LinkedIn for us."

00:22:53.660 | And at the time, I mean,

00:22:55.460 | I really didn't know anything about,

00:22:56.540 | I didn't know content marketing was,

00:22:58.380 | and I knew very little about LinkedIn.

00:23:00.740 | And I was like, "Okay."

00:23:01.940 | And I started writing on LinkedIn about like hirings,

00:23:05.460 | just things that were interesting to me about hiring,

00:23:07.380 | like how Warren Buffett hires,

00:23:09.660 | how "Star Wars" is actually a movie about bad recruiting

00:23:12.820 | 'cause Darth Vader couldn't bring one.

00:23:14.260 | (Paul laughs)

00:23:17.260 | - That's amazing.

00:23:18.420 | - And all of a sudden,

00:23:20.860 | and I should add that my boss at this job

00:23:24.460 | in Mystic, Connecticut was very quick to fire.

00:23:27.500 | And he fired people all the time.

00:23:29.300 | So there's a lot of pressure on me.

00:23:30.500 | And I'm like, he's like, "Keep writing."

00:23:31.900 | And I'm like, "Really?"

00:23:32.740 | I was so nervous.

00:23:33.860 | And I just kept writing.

00:23:34.980 | And then some of these posts started going viral.

00:23:37.740 | And all of a sudden, we sat at all,

00:23:39.500 | and at the bottom,

00:23:40.340 | every post had nothing to do with our hiring product.

00:23:42.220 | And that was generally about hiring.

00:23:43.700 | And I put a little thing at the bottom that says,

00:23:45.660 | "We have the world's smartest hiring tool, VoiceGlance.

00:23:47.780 | "If you're interested, call this number."

00:23:49.300 | And we started getting all these phone calls.

00:23:51.540 | And I was, "Where are these phone calls coming from?"

00:23:53.420 | Like, "Well, it's from your LinkedIn post."

00:23:55.060 | And I'm looking at the LinkedIn posts.

00:23:56.900 | And I remember that one of my first ones

00:23:59.340 | got like 10,000 views.

00:24:00.700 | And like, five people called us

00:24:02.460 | and wanted to learn more about the product

00:24:03.820 | and potentially become customers.

00:24:06.580 | And I was like, "Wow."

00:24:07.980 | And then I started writing more.

00:24:09.780 | And then it was like 20,000.

00:24:11.820 | And then it was like 50,000 views.

00:24:13.780 | And then it was like 100,000 views.

00:24:15.260 | And then, remember, one was like a million views.

00:24:18.380 | And these articles were just so popular.

00:24:22.740 | And it was crazy.

00:24:23.660 | And then LinkedIn actually assigned an editor to me

00:24:26.500 | to be like, "Hey, Paul is this great writer.

00:24:28.060 | "He's writing for us for free, effectively.

00:24:30.300 | "Let's give him story ideas and he'll write for it."

00:24:33.500 | And we were getting so much business

00:24:37.820 | from people just reading my articles

00:24:39.540 | and then, "Oh, what's Voice Glance?"

00:24:40.820 | And then calling or check out the website

00:24:42.300 | and filling out a form.

00:24:43.660 | And we were getting like,

00:24:44.500 | it was almost so much business.

00:24:45.700 | There was like seven of us in the office.

00:24:47.020 | We couldn't even handle all the leads coming.

00:24:49.220 | (laughs)

00:24:50.820 | And it was crazy. - What a good problem to have.

00:24:52.540 | - Yeah, exactly.

00:24:54.180 | So then I was like,

00:24:56.220 | really, I look back on it now

00:24:57.860 | and I'm like, all those years of like,

00:25:00.060 | really barely getting by.

00:25:01.740 | And I think my max salary at the patch

00:25:03.980 | was maybe $42,000 a year.

00:25:06.140 | But I was writing a lot.

00:25:08.060 | And then that writing kind of formed these skills in me

00:25:11.500 | that like allowed me to be successful on LinkedIn.

00:25:14.100 | And then ultimately LinkedIn,

00:25:16.220 | I was so popular that somebody at LinkedIn was like,

00:25:18.900 | "Why don't we just hire this guy?

00:25:19.940 | "He's writing for us.

00:25:20.780 | "We like his stuff."

00:25:21.980 | And they hired me and the rest is history.

00:25:24.980 | I've been here for eight years and I don't wanna leave.

00:25:27.180 | But so I definitely wasn't intentional about it.

00:25:31.220 | I just love to write

00:25:32.580 | and I think I built up my skills enough where,

00:25:35.340 | and then I had the opportunity

00:25:36.820 | to be able to build this platform

00:25:38.340 | that ultimately led me to getting hired at LinkedIn.

00:25:40.500 | - Yeah, that's an awesome story.

00:25:42.060 | So that Darth Vader analogy is hilarious.

00:25:44.060 | I totally resonate with that.

00:25:45.900 | Yeah, I think there's one thing you introduced there,

00:25:48.620 | which is kind of an interesting idea,

00:25:50.420 | which is like earlier we talked about

00:25:52.420 | knowing the right audience

00:25:53.540 | and write something that matters to them

00:25:55.340 | that's actual now that solves a pain point

00:25:57.420 | they're trying to solve for right now that impacts their job.

00:26:00.700 | There's also a piece of it,

00:26:01.660 | which is like whether it's luck

00:26:03.580 | or it's even writing by volume, right?

00:26:05.380 | And I think people need to realize

00:26:07.300 | like five posts a day is a lot of content to be writing

00:26:09.620 | and to kind of get,

00:26:11.140 | whether it's building up your experience,

00:26:12.580 | you're kind of honing the craft

00:26:13.820 | or just finding the right audience and seeing what sticks.

00:26:16.580 | There is a part of this, which is the grind.

00:26:18.260 | Like you just got to put it out, you know?

00:26:20.220 | And I'm assuming your career,

00:26:21.660 | there's some topics you've written

00:26:22.700 | that you're really passionate about it.

00:26:23.780 | Some of them were maybe not throw away or filler,

00:26:27.020 | but again, there's gotta be a volume game

00:26:30.060 | as a part of this, right?

00:26:30.900 | 'Cause then you got to touch a hit and strike the gold.

00:26:32.860 | Then you obviously focus on what works.

00:26:34.700 | But I think until you get there,

00:26:35.780 | you kind of had to be okay with being,

00:26:37.860 | maybe kind of springing yourself a little broad, right?

00:26:40.660 | - Yeah, I mean, I've become such,

00:26:43.780 | so when I first started writing,

00:26:45.660 | I'll be honest, like I was not a good writer.

00:26:47.460 | Like I remember my first few articles for the newspaper.

00:26:52.380 | I remember one time I had a really harsh editor

00:26:54.660 | and he was like, "This is unprincipled, this is."

00:26:57.020 | And then another time I wrote like a,

00:26:59.900 | in newspaper language, I call it a lead,

00:27:01.580 | the opening sentence.

00:27:03.100 | And then I remember it was my first week at this newspaper.

00:27:06.700 | I was all excited 'cause I finally got hired.

00:27:08.300 | I was a freelancer and then I got hired full time.

00:27:10.620 | And my first week there, my editor at the time was like,

00:27:14.300 | "We need to get better leads.

00:27:15.700 | "We've had some bad leads recently.

00:27:17.020 | "And I think this is the perfect example."

00:27:18.700 | And she read out my lead in front of the whole newsroom.

00:27:21.340 | About how terrible this lead was.

00:27:23.700 | So I was like, okay.

00:27:25.940 | So the point is like, to your point, Tim,

00:27:28.940 | like I had skills, I had innate skills.

00:27:33.180 | I was good at what I said before

00:27:34.660 | of like being able to boil things down

00:27:36.420 | and figuring out what was interesting.

00:27:38.180 | And I kind of had, I think I have this unique skill

00:27:40.500 | to figure out like what people are gonna be interested in.

00:27:42.900 | But I wasn't like a strong technical writer by any stretch.

00:27:46.100 | I didn't have, my grammar skills were awful.

00:27:48.380 | I didn't know how to, I didn't have a great grasp

00:27:51.100 | of the English language.

00:27:53.220 | And it was difficult for me.

00:27:55.140 | I like had the idea, but I couldn't get it out.

00:27:57.740 | And only like through years and years of just doing it,

00:28:01.900 | did I actually build those skills.

00:28:03.460 | So point being, there's gonna be like,

00:28:06.420 | when you start writing, like it's gonna,

00:28:09.260 | you're not gonna be great.

00:28:10.140 | Like it's just reality.

00:28:10.980 | Nobody's like immediately great at anything.

00:28:12.980 | - Yeah.

00:28:13.820 | - Even if you're passionate about it.

00:28:14.660 | But like, if you do it over time and you're getting,

00:28:17.140 | the other thing is like, I got, I always got feedback.

00:28:19.180 | Whether it was just really harsh editors or viewership.

00:28:23.020 | Like I always got feedback.

00:28:24.620 | So like, I always kept learning.

00:28:26.860 | And by the end, I, you know, today,

00:28:28.580 | and I still like challenge myself every day.

00:28:30.860 | Like in no ways do I feel like I've figured it out.

00:28:33.060 | Every single day I'm like, I can get better.

00:28:34.660 | We could get more views.

00:28:35.660 | Like I still put that pressure on myself

00:28:38.100 | and I'm still pushing to get better.

00:28:39.380 | So like, maybe not as extreme.

00:28:42.700 | I probably too hard on myself at times,

00:28:44.580 | but like, it's good to like,

00:28:46.820 | to like, you have to accept the fact

00:28:48.380 | that you're going to need to grow into it.

00:28:50.620 | - Yeah. And that's really actually comforting

00:28:52.100 | for someone like me to know, right?

00:28:53.540 | 'Cause one of the kind of maybe factors I would consider

00:28:58.540 | it's sort of skillset that I think I would require

00:29:00.900 | to even qualify this is like strong writing skills.

00:29:02.900 | And like, if I'm not a writer by trade,

00:29:04.900 | I shouldn't even bother to be my tone to this.

00:29:07.180 | I may have a strong opinion on Oxford comma,

00:29:08.940 | but that's as far as I go, right?

00:29:10.260 | So I was like, I think that's good.

00:29:11.740 | I think you're right.

00:29:12.580 | You just kind of got play with it

00:29:14.580 | and kind of get yourself some experience under the belt.

00:29:17.460 | And that'll help you understand

00:29:18.300 | whether you even have a passion to do this or not,

00:29:20.540 | but you don't know if you have the passion,

00:29:21.900 | if you don't try.

00:29:23.300 | I got one last question for you, Paul.

00:29:24.900 | I didn't prep you for this one.

00:29:26.020 | So I don't know if you have a point of view on this one,

00:29:28.060 | but you know, like there's a lot of AI tools

00:29:29.660 | out there right now, right?

00:29:30.660 | And whether it's chat GPT or whatnot,

00:29:33.820 | and I'm glad there's already intelligence

00:29:35.780 | around how people can sniff out AI written content.

00:29:38.740 | Some of that is just pulled from plagiarized content

00:29:40.860 | as well.

00:29:41.700 | Do you, how do you use, or do you use like AI tools

00:29:45.260 | to augment your writing

00:29:47.100 | and maybe even refining headlines that are engaging?

00:29:51.660 | - Yeah, it's a great question.

00:29:54.020 | So first I'll say that you can't see these things

00:29:57.700 | as like, oh, I'm against it or anything like that.

00:30:01.620 | Like you have to accept that, quite frankly, the challenge.

00:30:04.980 | That AI, I mean, you think about all the writers

00:30:07.180 | in the world and there's always gonna be new challenges

00:30:09.900 | and you need to figure out how to make it work for you

00:30:14.500 | or figure out ways that you can provide value

00:30:17.460 | and not be like, oh, nobody should use chat GPT to write

00:30:20.940 | or anything like that.

00:30:21.780 | So I always try to do that,

00:30:23.180 | is like never see anything as a threat

00:30:25.180 | and instead more see it as like,

00:30:26.620 | this is just a push for me to get better.

00:30:28.780 | Now, as far as like, how do I actually use it?

00:30:30.340 | I don't use chat GPT.

00:30:31.980 | I actually did a post where I interviewed chat GPT.

00:30:34.780 | - Oh, fascinating.

00:30:35.900 | - I will say a little bit,

00:30:38.620 | like there are tools that I use though.

00:30:40.140 | Like I use this tool called a headline analyzer,

00:30:43.580 | which I love.

00:30:45.060 | It's helped me really use better, write better headlines.

00:30:48.740 | You can Google it.

00:30:49.700 | I use SEO tools to like create outlines for me

00:30:54.700 | that helped me rank for SEO.

00:30:56.660 | And we obviously use a lot of analytics

00:31:00.780 | to figure out what's resonating and what's not.

00:31:03.100 | I mean, there's, I like adding tools.

00:31:07.020 | Like if they're used correctly, they can be stronger.

00:31:09.500 | So I probably actually could do a better job of that

00:31:13.380 | 'cause I'm not like always on the,

00:31:15.580 | searching for new tools that kind of come to me.

00:31:18.820 | But so NetNet, like don't see tools as a threat

00:31:22.420 | or it's taking your job or anything like that.

00:31:24.900 | Instead, like the reality is if it's gonna take your job,

00:31:28.100 | like you're not adding enough value in your job.

00:31:30.940 | You need to like figure out like how you can use the tool

00:31:35.020 | to become even more valuable.

00:31:36.580 | And I could probably do a better job of that,

00:31:38.820 | but that's something I try to do often.

00:31:40.460 | - Yeah, I mean, that's a good point.

00:31:41.780 | I think, yeah, there's definitely fear of AI,

00:31:45.980 | especially as it pertains to AI

00:31:47.300 | embedded into product and workflows

00:31:48.740 | that some people might feel intimidated.

00:31:51.100 | I totally agree that you can totally leverage it

00:31:53.540 | to augment your work.

00:31:55.540 | So in a way that I used, like ChatGPT, for example,

00:31:59.540 | my previous job was in the area of research, right?

00:32:02.740 | It's like ChatGPT, it's just more efficient

00:32:05.500 | than using a broad Google search, right?

00:32:07.100 | 'Cause hey, look, I'm looking for topics

00:32:09.660 | that utilize these specific keywords

00:32:11.460 | 'cause SEO is a part of the game as well, right?

00:32:12.940 | Like you have to have a strong point of view

00:32:14.100 | on what keywords you're trying to grow as a business.

00:32:16.380 | And that can help you at least brainstorm

00:32:17.980 | or at least get the process started.

00:32:20.140 | There'll be times where I even like wrote a headline

00:32:22.660 | that had zero SEO value.

00:32:24.460 | They were like, "Help me rewrite this using these keywords."

00:32:26.860 | And it'll spell some options.

00:32:28.100 | You never use it right out of the box

00:32:29.620 | 'cause it's gotta be validated

00:32:30.660 | 'cause they don't know your business.

00:32:31.580 | But again, it was good to kind of use it as an ideation tool

00:32:35.260 | or I would like write like a 900 word article,

00:32:39.780 | let's say, where my team would.

00:32:40.620 | I'm not gonna take credit for that.

00:32:41.860 | My writer would.

00:32:42.860 | And then they would say, "Help me rewrite this

00:32:45.420 | "utilizing these five keywords for SEO."

00:32:48.220 | And they'll spit something out.

00:32:49.060 | And then again, to your point,

00:32:50.540 | there's tools to evaluate the efficacy of that.

00:32:52.860 | But again, that's an example of just embracing it, right?

00:32:56.220 | And just using it as a supplementary tool.

00:32:59.220 | Well, Paul, I just wanna thank you for this time.

00:33:01.460 | I really enjoyed this conversation.

00:33:02.660 | I think you had a really strong points of view

00:33:04.260 | on how to be a good content marketer

00:33:05.780 | or even how to do the job.

00:33:08.340 | And so I wanna thank you for your time, man.

00:33:10.860 | - Yeah, it was awesome.

00:33:11.780 | Anytime.

00:33:12.620 | - Yeah.

00:33:13.700 | Do you wanna share maybe your,

00:33:15.060 | how can people find your posts on LinkedIn?

00:33:17.220 | - Sure.

00:33:19.860 | So you should feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn,

00:33:22.460 | Paul Patron, who works at LinkedIn.

00:33:24.820 | And you can follow the LinkedIn sales blog,

00:33:27.540 | the number one blog on the internet for sales professionals.

00:33:30.540 | - Awesome.

00:33:31.820 | And I'll put that link in the comments below.

00:33:33.740 | So yeah, feel free to check out Paul's content.

00:33:36.380 | It is a really good sample of a writing style.

00:33:39.100 | And so definitely take a look.

00:33:40.740 | There's a really good content there.

00:33:42.220 | Thanks again, Paul.

00:33:43.060 | I appreciate your time.

00:33:44.380 | - Cool, thanks too.

00:33:45.420 | - Have a good one.

00:33:46.620 | - You too.

00:33:47.460 | you

00:33:49.520 | [BLANK_AUDIO]

How To Be A Social Media Superstar: Content Marketing And Blogging Tips

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