In today’s episode of the Social Selling Show, Daniel and Will go through practical and effective strategies to creating posts that are more likely to go viral and get you insane reach on LinkedIn.
Featured on this episode:
Resources:
- The Daily Sales LinkedIn Page
- The Million Pound LinkedIn Message by Daniel Disney
- Book: Guerilla Marketing: Easy and Inexpensive Strategies for Making Big Profits from Your Small Business
Transcript
Will Barron:
This episode of the show is brought to you from the salesman.org HubSpot Studio. Welcome to the Social Selling Show with myself, Will Baron Founder of salesman.org and the king, the king of social selling Daniel Disney. Daniel, how’s it going sir?
Daniel Disney:
I am very good Will. Excited to be back recording another episode with you and another exciting topic. I know I like to tease the topic when you introduce me in. But today’s topic is big. It’s big because we’re going to be discussing viral content and it is something that fascinated me for years. So I’m excited to share some thoughts, insights, and some tips around going viral because, it’s pretty cool. Right?
Can People Repeatedly Engineer Viral Posts on LinkedIn? · [00:51]
Will Barron:
Pretty cool. And I feel like there’s an air of mystery around viral. I’m intrigued to find and uncover from Daniel whether there’s frameworks, whether there’s strategies, whether it’s just luck. Whatever it is, I want to get into that on today’s episode of the show. So with that said then Daniel, let me ask you this just straight up. Is it actually possible, no BS, actual just truth here. Is it actually possible to engineer a viral post, repeatedly?
“The biggest names out there on LinkedIn that may be creating great content, getting lots of traction, anyone who you see getting viral posts, truly top level viral post on LinkedIn, even the best will be lucky to get those once or twice a year. And you can tell people do try. I’ve tried. I’ve tried to engineer consistent viral content and it’s a near on impossibility. If it’s achieved, the problem is it tends not to be the right traffic.” – Daniel Disney · [01:14]
Daniel Disney:
No. And the biggest names Will, the biggest names out there on LinkedIn that may be creating great content, getting lots of traction, anyone who you see getting viral posts, truly top level viral post on LinkedIn. Even the best will be lucky to get those once or twice a year. And you can tell people do try. I’ve tried, I’ve tried to engineer consistent viral content and it’s a near on impossibility. If it’s achieved, the problem is it tends not to be the right traffic.
Daniel Disney:
So there are a few people Oleg, and I don’t know how you pronounce his surname was prolific on LinkedIn for a period of years. He was the CTO I think, of the daily mail and his posts would consistently go. I mean, he built one of the biggest audiences an individual can have, well over a million followers. So his posts were essentially going viral but to no real benefits.
“Unless you’ve got a million followers, it’s not possible to engineer viral content.” – Daniel Disney · [02:30]
Daniel Disney:
There’s a lady called Bridget. And again, I don’t know her surname. Again, she’s built a huge audience over a million followers and you do get those sort of viral numbers. The biggest question and we’ll dig into this today is good viral versus bad viral. Is it worth having millions of views on your posts if it’s not going to generate any net income or revenue or sales opportunities? Is it better to have less views but more opportunities? So we’ll dig into that a bit to today but no, unless you’ve got a million followers, it is not possible to engineer a viral content.
Will Barron:
I think you have said something that’s super important here. And especially for any of… Well, if we’re millennials what’s the group younger than us Daniel, is it like gen Z? Is that right?
Daniel Disney:
Yeah. I think it’s gen Z.
Will Barron:
Whoever it is, if you’re younger than me and Daniel being the old buggers, right? A lot of people are growing up on YouTube. A lot of people are seeing viral content on YouTube, people getting tens, hundreds of millions of views by doing negative things, by doing stupid things, by doing the Logan Paul, Jake Paul-esque side things of creating a song that’s beating on someone else and then they do it. And of course, some of this is engineered to go back and forth.
Will Barron:
But, they do that because again, advertising revenue from YouTube. YouTube has ads that go to the individuals. So they are monetizing the viral nature things. So sometimes on YouTube, and again, kids are growing up on this. I’ve consumed loads of YouTube content, so I’m privy to it as well. There is value in, even if it’s a negative video getting 10 million views, that’s probably like 15, 20 grand in your back pocket.
Is It Fair to Say That If Viral Content Isn’t Driving Attention and Revenue To The Products or Services That you’re Selling Then It’s Almost Pointless? · [03:45]
Will Barron:
On LinkedIn, we need to go a step removed. In that a viral post, as Daniel’s saying there, that gets a million views or I guess hundreds of thousands of views or thousands of comments. If it doesn’t drive traffic and attention to the product or service that you sell, it’s not quite but it’s almost pointless, isn’t it?
Daniel Disney:
Yeah. I’ll give you a real example of this Will, that happened to me a couple of weeks ago. I don’t know if you remember the baked beans on Weetabix tweet that went viral for Weetabix, and then all these other big brands, there was this big thread. And it was honestly, it was hilarious. Now I re-shared that on LinkedIn and it went viral for me. I had nearly 750,000 views. Something like 12,000 likes, really big numbers but it has generated me to date no business, because it doesn’t talk about my LinkedIn training, it doesn’t talk about my speaking, it doesn’t in any way give the right value to the right type of prospects.
Daniel Disney:
Now, I have created posts about LinkedIn, with tips about LinkedIn, that might generate a tiny fraction of that type of engagement but they’ll generate a lot more business from it. So yes, viral doesn’t guarantee success but if you can get them both together and create right content that does go viral and I’ve got examples of that, then yeah that absolutely can generate good business on LinkedIn, different to the ad revenue you’d get from YouTube. Obviously it’s a lot more B2B based, but you can create good viral content that does generate you business.
Daniel Reveals His Posts That Have Gone Viral and How They Generated Revenue · [05:25]
Will Barron:
Sure. And as you teased on a previous episode, maybe some of this will change on LinkedIn in the medium future, if they do start monetizing posts and paying content creators for their work, maybe some of my opinions on this will change at that point. But right now you’re spot on, we’re creating content to drive thought leadership, to drive attention, to drive lead generation towards our product and services. So with that said then Daniel, do you have an example of a post that you’ve done that has generated revenue, that has been even if not mega-viral, pretty viral.
Daniel Disney:
Yeah. So I did an article, just one of the sort of easy examples to share, I did an article on LinkedIn about two years ago now. And the article was titled, just pick up the phone all in capital letters. And it had a sort of a text style meme image with it, which was kind of highlighting sales people that do anything but pick up the phone and telling the sales manager, “I’ll texted them. I’ll send them an email. I’ll send them another text,” because they don’t want a phone.
Daniel Disney:
Anyway, the whole article was talking about a company I went into train where the sales person talked about an opportunity and how they were waiting for reply to their LinkedIn message. And my response was, “Why haven’t you given them a call?” You’ve done all this great stuff but you haven’t actually tried picking up the phone. It’s been a week, you’ve not heard back from them. Why wouldn’t you give them a call?
Daniel Disney:
And the whole messaging was slightly different to what a lot of LinkedIn and social selling trainers preach. It was very pro making cold calls or picking up the phone, but it also demonstrated the power of LinkedIn and the effectiveness of it. And that post went viral. I think it had something like 30,000 likes and a couple of 100,000 reads, which is big for LinkedIn and articles.
Daniel Disney:
But because it was relevant, because it was engaging and it was relevant to what I sold, I had a huge amount of inbound leads come from that. Some of them were some of my biggest opportunities back then. I’ve got at the time, my biggest speaking opportunity, my first international US-based speaking opportunity, a whole host of other business from training and other speaking gigs that all came from that because it was relevant. It was the right type of content for me.
Daniel Disney:
Now I’ve had posts that weren’t as direct do really well, but not translate as well. So yes, if you can try and get that sweet spot of the right content that goes viral, it can absolutely generate good business.
How Daniel Tracks Posts That Drive Revenue and Leads From LinkedIn · [07:30]
Will Barron:
Slight side topic here just for a second, and we’ll bring it back to viral content. But do you have any way of attributing leads, revenue or any of the metrics on your social media and social content? Do you have any system in place to track some of this whether it be, I don’t know the bottom of your article has links to say contact and each article has different links to what’s driving traffic and attention. Do you monitor or measure any of the revenue attributed to different content or different posts?
Daniel Disney:
So I don’t, being completely honest Will. It’s something that could be done you’re absolutely right. For a large company with a good marketing department, you could absolutely create unique links for individual members that tracks it a lot better. For me, it’s usually 50-50, 50% of the time they’ll mention the post.
Will Barron:
Sure.
Daniel Disney:
In their communication to you, in the inbound lead, they will mention what they’ve read directly. The other 50% of the time it’s usually relatively easy to direct it because I will post something now. And anything that comes in over the next 24 hours before I do my next post is highly likely to be attributed to that. If not, it’s something you can ask in the conversation.
Daniel Disney:
But you are right, for a large company that has the resources to do so you could get really technical and actually include trackable links, individual trackable links into posts, into articles that you’d get a much clearer sort of evidence of people going through to a website. But again, it’s not always going to be accurate because they might consume your content and send you a LinkedIn message. They might not follow any links. So there’ll be a grey area there.
Will Barron:
The reason I ask is, so I don’t do a very good job of tracking anything within our organisation over the paid ads. Paid ads is a relatively straightforward way, whether it’s a paid ad to a live webinar or a training or even a phone call or a consultation that seems relatively straightforward. Well, then when you ask the individual in a kind of post signup interview, how they made the decision, how they were influenced.
Will Barron:
Well, they saw an ad, they watched a webinar, they slept on it, they went and added you on LinkedIn. They asked you a question, you didn’t respond for three days. You got back to them. They watched the podcast. So it’s such a mess. And I’m sure the tracking software, if it isn’t available right now will be more available in the next few years because every brand is having this problem with attributing where to spend money, time and resources.
Will Barron:
So I just wanted to get your kind of what you were proactively or doing or not doing now in the same, it’s very difficult to track. And so I just ask people after the fact, with a kind of an onboarding interview. Where they found us and where they consume content and where they were influenced to make that purchase. So with that said then, and we’re kind of alluding to it here.
Is There a Formula For Creating Viral Posts That Drive Revenue? · [10:10]
Will Barron:
That some posts go viral when they should, some go viral when they shouldn’t. It’s difficult just to track revenue on the back of what posts are doing well, what posts are not doing well. It’s difficult to track whether the post has got the right audience in front of them. Is there a formula Daniel, to creating a viral post that drives revenue? Is there a framework to at least attempting to make some of this happen?
“Viral content can really boil down to sort of the right time, right place. So the only thing you can do is be consistently trying to put out good, well-formatted, value-giving content and then keeping your ear to the ground and looking for opportunities that might help you create something that goes viral.” – Daniel Disney · [10:54]
Daniel Disney:
So viral content can really boil down to sort of the right time, right place. So the only thing you can do is be consistently trying to put out good, well, formatted, value giving content and then keeping your ear to the ground and looking for opportunities that might help you create something that goes viral. So look at trending topics, trending hashtags, things that are happening in the world or in the industry that you’re in, that you might be able to integrate with your content to help it engage more people.
“If you look at a lot of people, the content they put out is great. I’ve put out content that I think, that’s going to go viral and it doesn’t. I’ve tried to engineer it, I’ve done everything that other people have done. It doesn’t guarantee it going viral. So a lot of it comes down to a layer of luck and right timing.” – Daniel Disney · [11:10]
Daniel Disney:
But beyond that, it’s very hard. Often it comes down, I don’t want to say luck, but it is just the right time, right place. Because if you look at a lot of people, the content they put out is great. I’ve put out content that I think, that’s going to go viral and it doesn’t. I’ve tried to engineer it, I’ve done everything that other people have done, it doesn’t guarantee it going viral.
Daniel Disney:
So a lot of it comes down to a layer of luck and right timing. So as long as you are putting out good content consistently, then hopefully it’s a case of trying to find those right opportunities where you can kind of bring the two together.
“You don’t get to choose what’s going to go viral, the market does. You might think your content is great, superb, you’ve got this extra layer of Polish, you’d done what someone else has done but better. But that is subjective and the market gets to choose.” – Will Barron · [11:48]
Will Barron:
For sure. There’s a layer of luck here and this is massively cliche to say but you do make your own luck. You can’t have a post go viral if you don’t post on the platform. You can’t have a post go viral, and I guess it’s a relevant point here as well, you don’t get to choose what’s going to go viral, the market does. You might think your content is great, superb. You’ve got this extra layer of Polish. You’d done what someone else has done but better.
Will Barron:
But that is subjective and the market gets to choose. Same with sales, same with product, same with business. You’re not in control of the end results, the markets and it’s thoughts and opinions on things. Have you read the book Daniel, News Hacking?
Daniel Disney:
I haven’t.
Will Barron:
So it’s an old book and I think it’s, I can’t remember the author, but there’s a similar book called Guerrilla Marketing. I mean, they were written in the 90s and so it’s basically how to go viral pre social media but a lot of it translates to social media as well. And I’ve just got it on the dock in front of me here. They talk about this framework and I’ve pulled it from both of them and combined them just for ease here.
Will Barron:
And they talk about writing, creating content, producing relevant media for a specific persona. So you’re writing to an individual as opposed to a group. Now, if we wanted to write, you and I can comment on this and pretty freely I think. If we wanted to write to American Democrats or Republicans, perhaps for those groups it’s the egos they’re so wrapped up in, a lot of them some of their egos are so wrapped up in their identities as being a Democrat or Republican, that you might be able to write to a group there.
Will Barron:
But typically you want to write to a persona of Bob who is this age, this sex, this location, has these problems. And you want to get right into the nitty gritty of their world. Now, there’s more than one Bob out there, right? There’s more than one Dave, whoever writing towards. And what happens is, those are the spark. Those are the individuals that really comments share, repurpose the content very quickly.
Will Barron:
And then it gets into the people who are, “Well, I’m kind of like this person. I’ve got this little bit of the conversation down. I’ve got this trait,” and then it expands outward. But you need that little element of a spark which is so specific to an individual persona that gets all this going. Then we’re going to try to if possible, and I’ve done this on some of our most viral videos on YouTube.
“I think it’s very difficult to create viral content on a subject that’s evergreen.” – Will Barron · [13:57]
Will Barron:
So we’ve got videos that have done like 600,000 views, couple 100,000 views. They’ve all typically been related to something that’s going on in that moment in time. I think it’s very difficult to create viral content on a subject that’s evergreen. And you did it there with, I guess it was somewhat timely, your post with the anecdote of pick up the phone.
Will Barron:
It was timely in that, there’s this turbulence in the sales industry where social selling clearly works, pick up the phone clearly works. So it is somewhat timely but I like people to go for even more timely than that of not necessarily what has Brittany Spears done this week that I can comment on, which is the whole news hacking idea.
Will Barron:
And you just piggyback on that over and over and over until your audience is big enough that you are the news, but perhaps what’s going on in the politics, what’s going on in the Mars Rover whatever it is, these big one-off events, you can always put a sales spin on this which would be useful for the audience. Include the person in the writing again, we covered that one and pick a side. I think this is really important as well.
Will Barron:
So you kind of and maybe you’re disproving some of these rules here Daniel, because you picked both sides of your anecdotes about pick up the phone. But typically, you want to pick something that’s somewhat diversive and you want to pick one side or the other even if you agree that the crate answer most of the time is the grey bit in the middle.
Will Barron:
Perhaps your title at the beginning of the post is one way or the other. And then you can juxtapose. You can play devil’s advocate in the article, the post, the content, the video itself and come to a more reasonable conclusion. And then the final thing that you need to do, and I’m interested to how you would do this on LinkedIn, is seed the traffic.
Will Barron:
So if I create a YouTube video that I think is going to do well, I’ll put it out on social media, I’ll post a link to it on LinkedIn, I’ll put it in front of our email audience. I’ll do whatever it takes, I’ll comment, I’ll link it in other places, I’ll seed that piece of content just to give it that best chance of igniting and getting going in the first place.
How to “Plant Seeds” For Your Content To Try and Spark Virality on LinkedIn · [15:50]
Will Barron:
We’ve never really had any content that didn’t just go live and do well. In the first few days, I’ve never had a post that I did a year ago that that popped up and did well. So yeah, how would you, I know I just ran a lot at you and the audience so Daniel, but how would you seed content on LinkedIn? If you think you’ve got something special, it’s better than all your usual posts and all of the caveats that I put in earlier on in the show, of you do get to choose the success the market does and all that. How would you start to seed that content and get people in front of it and hopefully spark that little bit of a virality at the very beginning of its genesis.
“If you’ve got an idea, if you’ve got a concept, you got a bit of content, something you’ve written, or you’ve got in your brain that you think could go viral, then you need to make sure you dress it up the right way.” – Daniel Disney · [16:24]
Daniel Disney:
Really good point Will, and everything you’ve just said is absolute solid gold. In terms of the seeding bit it’s all about how you dress it up. So if you’ve got an idea, if you’ve got a concept, you got a bit of content, something you’ve written, or you’ve got in your brain that you think could go viral, then you need to make sure you dress it up the right way. I have seen amazing articles and posts, bomb because they weren’t written the right way. They weren’t put out there in an exciting way. So you need to dress it up the right way, and that can be done as you say, looking at things that are happening in the world and trying to integrate that together.
Daniel Disney:
The other thing you can do is look for how you might be able to amplify its reach when you post it. So that might include Will, trying to get other influential people to engage in it and re-share it, try to get it shared out in front of bigger audiences. If I create an article today and it goes to my 70,000 followers, it’s going to do X engagement. If I then re-share that on the daily sales to the 600,000, then it’s going to reach even more. So there are little things you might be able to do to help gamify that.
How to Drive Traffic and Attention To Your LinkedIn Posts When You’ve Got a Small Audience · [17:16]
Will Barron:
Is there anything that we can do when we perhaps don’t have your audience right? And where I’m going here is clear LinkedIn pods, where is the grey area between the… And tell me if the [RFN 00:17:32] aren’t effective between a LinkedIn pod, which for anyone who is unfamiliar as a group of individuals, they’ve got together and we’ll comment share, and like on each other’s posts together initial bidding engagement. How do we get perhaps some other benefit of that without a formal arrangement which is clearly just manipulating the system?
Daniel Disney:
Well, don’t forget it Will, I mean, I have the luxury of having that audience, but I grew it so you could grow your own big audience so you can then check the content to. But I don’t just share my own content. So I share other people’s content. So if you can build relationships with those people, then you may have an opportunity to get your content out to them. So I don’t think it’s, if you don’t have it you’re at a disadvantage, you just need to find people that are influential in your industry and sector, and then build those relationships. It takes a little bit of work but it can be well worth it in the long term. But then obviously, yeah, going back to it why not build your own community and your own audience that you can then amplify your content through. But there’ll be tonnes of different platforms.
“If you want to drive more views, you want more people liking, commenting and sharing it. Because when they like, comment and share their audience sees it, and you can kind of get that snowball effect.” – Daniel Disney · [18:56]
Daniel Disney:
It might be an influencer, it might be a page, it might be a news channel, it might be an email list. Anything you can do to get your content in front of more eyes, but we’ve talked about this in one of the previous episodes Will. The algorithm isn’t sort of aligned now to early engagement. So it’s not just about those initial likes. It’s about overall views and time spent on that post. So the whole pod thing isn’t as relevant. And we talked a bit about that before, but it’s overall eyes. And all you’re trying to do is get as many people to see your content. What can help drive it further is engagement. So views are one thing, but if you want to drive more views, you want more people liking, commenting and sharing it because when they like comment and share their audience sees it, and you can kind of get that snowball effect.
Daniel Disney:
If you can get more people commenting. So maybe create something where you ask for engagement. So create debate, ask a question. You know I might do a post Will, here are my top 10 LinkedIn tips for 2021. And at the end of it, I’m going to say, right, what would you add to this list? And everyone who wants to be seen as a LinkedIn expert or LinkedIn guru is going to start contributing. When they contribute their audience is going to see that post and they’re going to want to contribute and you get that snowball effect. So if you can drive engagement, you can drive further reach. So it’s just looking for those little things.
“If you do something viral, that does not mean if you do it again it’s going to go viral again. So all these tips might help you get one viral post, but don’t fall in the trap of desperately trying to make every post of yours go viral by constantly following that same formula, because it won’t work on a repeat pace.” – Daniel Disney · [19:48]
Daniel Disney:
What I will say before I finish, you can’t do this every time. So we talked about trying to repeat viral content. If you do something viral, that does not mean if you do it again, it’s going to go viral again. So all these tips might help you get one viral post, but don’t fall in the trap of desperately trying to make every post of yours dove viral by constantly following that same formula, because it won’t work on a repeat paces. I can tell you that from experience and from consistent observation.
Will Barron:
I’ll add another layer of that, which I know works very well on YouTube. I don’t know how well it worked on LinkedIn and it worked prospecting on LinkedIn viral article than a viral post, but you should try the best you can to snowball your viral content. If you have a great post or article that goes out today, do a part two tomorrow.
Will Barron:
And it’s probably not going to be as big as what it was the first time, but you can, especially if an article add a link to the next post at the bottom of the article, so you can get people going from one to the other to the other. And if you build a bit of a thread and it’s going to have a lifetime at some point, then that drives traffic from the first article to multiple, which then is going to add all kinds of alogarithmic benefits to you I’m sure on LinkedIn.
Comparing Virality on YouTube Versus Virality on LinkedIn · [20:48]
Will Barron:
But I know on YouTube, any YouTube trainer, anyone of expertise in the space. This is how channels go viral. You have one video that pops, who the heck knows why it pops for whatever reason it does really well. Well YouTube will then, I keep getting the two between that. Clearly I’ve gotten both of them top of mind, the YouTube algorithm will then show related videos next to it.
Will Barron:
So you need to create as related a video as in exactly the same title part two or the 24 hour updates or whatever it is so that you get that link. Because YouTube algorithm wise works very similar to LinkedIn. In that they’re not concerned about clicks, they’re not concerned or the app, but the less concerned about clicks. They are more concerned about the amount of watch time on a video.
Will Barron:
If lots of people watch a video for five seconds that’s not as viral, there’s going to be less opportunity for viral versus a few people who watch the video all the way through, because YouTube gets to sell more and more ads. And I’m sure LinkedIn will move more and more towards this as we get more and more ads on the platform as well. So just to, I totally agree what you’re saying. Don’t just copy the same post and paste it the next week and expect the same results.
Will Barron:
But, if you do have a post that goes viral and again, this is probably on LinkedIn more appropriate for an article which has a bit more of a lifetime, link it to the next one and see if you can drive some of that traffic across multiple pieces of content, multiple assets, just to squeeze as much as you can from that original bit of virality.
Daniel Disney:
And I completely agree with that. And if you go into my content, you’ll see I do that in all of my articles. I’ll say, if you enjoyed this post, here are several others that you can read. And I see huge spikes in them every time I publish a new article. So it does work on LinkedIn as well.
Daniel Describes The Type of Content He Would Create If He Wanted to Create Viral Content · [22:24]
Will Barron:
Cool. Okay. So a final thing on this, we’ve got a gun to above heads, Daniel. Well, probably a gun to your head and then over it, it’s not me holding it. But there’s a gun to your head mate, so I’m asking you this question. You’ve got to create a viral piece of content today or you’ll do your best job otherwise we’re going to blow your brains out.
Will Barron:
What, would you do a post, would you do an article, would you do a LinkedIn story, would you do a LinkedIn live? What would be in the content itself? What would you, if you had to do it today, all kinds of terrible things are going to happen if you don’t. What would you do to have the best chance of success? Talk me through that process.
Daniel Disney:
I love questions like this Will, put me on the spot and get me to really flex my LinkedIn social selling muscles. Honestly, it would be a motivational quote or a meme because right now both of those are very easy go to viral esque forms of content. Motivational quotes do very, very well. So finding a good one, one that perhaps hasn’t been shared as much but really packs a punch. One that you read and you think, “Oh yes, that’s a good quote.”
Daniel Disney:
But then from a meme perspective, if you can make an industry relevant meme in a popular format, then again it can do very well. I did one Will, that went viral recently which was, I don’t know if you’ve seen this meme. It’s the friends one where Phoebe’s trying to teach Joey something and you kind of go through back and forth. And my one was send, send, A, A nice LinkedIn message and then send a nicely LinkedIn message.
Daniel Disney:
And Joey says, “Send a sales pitch.” And you know again, it did very well. So memes are a nice humorous way to sort of put across a relevant message or motivational quotes, appeal to mass audiences. That would be what I would do. Now, the conversion of those may not be massive compared to an article or a video, but it is a lot more trickier to make an article or video go viral.
Daniel Disney:
You really have to have something very, very good to bring to the table. If I was to do a video and you had a gun to my head and I had to make a video go viral, I would probably try and interview someone very big or relevant in my space. And talk about something as you say, that is very relevant at the time but go to, quote or meme.
Will Barron:
Well, there’s the viral video. There’s you, there’s Oprah and there’s a gun to your head at the side of the video and you’re asking really awkward, inappropriate questions. And Oprah is like, “What the hell is happening?” There’s the viral video. We’ve got this nailed Daniel.
Daniel Disney:
I love it Will. Let’s reach out and let’s make it happen.
Will Barron:
Okay. Anything else to add to this topic Daniel, before we move on to the audience questions?
“Don’t chase viral for the sake of chasing viral. Viral content might make you feel good, it might make you feel really important and really grand. But trust me, the reality is very different. It is vanity metrics. So again, try and do it for the right reasons, look for the business not just the sort of stroke of the ego.” – Daniel Disney · [25:03]
Daniel Disney:
Just the final thought with this, don’t chase viral for the sake of chasing viral. Viral content might make you feel good, it might make you feel really important and really grand. But trust me, the reality is very different. It is vanity metrics. So again, try and do it for the right reasons, look for the business not just the sort of stroke of the ego.
Daniel Disney:
Viral content can be very effective, but unfortunately it’s a rabbit hole and you can end up chasing it to no a positive end. So yes, if you can have good content go viral, well done bravo, but it is by no means the end goal, the finish line or some sort of final marker of success. It is part of many components of LinkedIn and social selling.
Will Barron:
If you get turned on by likes a numbers, go and do some stupid stuff on TikTok. That is where you’re going to get likes, numbers, attention for dancing topless in a fountain to some stupid song. LinkedIn, we’re here for revenue rates. We’re here to drive numbers.
Daniel Disney:
That’s what social selling is all about.
Audience Questions · [26:07]
Will Barron:
Cool. Okay. So let’s move on to some audience questions. If you want a free copy of Daniel’s book he will literally post you a copy himself. The million pound LinkedIn message then drop a question in the comments below this video, wherever you’re watching it on, LinkedIn, YouTube, or on the podcast, you can email one of us and we’ll accept that as well. And so we have a question today from, this goes back to the last video that we did that went out last week Daniel, on YouTube versus LinkedIn names, people’s approach to things and comments and that side of things.
Will Barron:
This individual, unfortunately on his YouTube page he’s called the happy one. Hopefully we share his David, so he asked the question. So we’ve got a question, cue for Will, why when you do a show about producing content, why do you do it on… Right, I’m going to say this again. Maybe we should only accept comments from LinkedIn with someone’s name and they’ve actually wrote it in normal English.
Will Barron:
Question for Will, why when you do a show about producing content and getting attention on LinkedIn, do you focus on YouTube and the pods, the podcasts? And it says PS, if I’m featured, please donate a copy of the book I’ve already got one on Kindle. So you’ve got a fan there already Daniel. So perhaps we can do that. We’ll do a post on LinkedIn and donate a copy of your book. That’s cool of you.
Will Barron:
So the reason, and I’m sure Daniel will have thoughts on this as well, but the reason that we do the Social Selling Show, the reason that I both focus more perhaps on, and we talked about it on the show before, the podcasts and the YouTube side of things versus LinkedIn, where Daniel, you’re clearly a 100% or 99% on LinkedIn and building the audience and adding value there.
Will Barron:
It is very simple for me, the podcasts and YouTube drive direct revenue. So we’ve got ads in all that content, right? And so I posted a video on YouTube and it does a hundred views, a thousand views, whatever it is, that’s driving revenue. If I then have to repurpose it and I guess natively for YouTube and then put it on LinkedIn, that’s great for me. But LinkedIn doesn’t drive that revenue it drives for leadership, which might lead to revenue over time. But it adds to your question Mr. Happy one, I will do most of my content for YouTube and podcasts because there’s literal direct revenue that comes from there as opposed to Daniel, who obviously you do LinkedIn training, keynote speaking. And so that’s more native for you on the platform. Is that fair to say?
Daniel Disney:
Yeah, really fair Will. And you know, you have a business built around podcasts and YouTube, and that’s where you put your attention. There is no right or wrong people have businesses on Facebook, on Twitter, whatever it may be. Obviously I’m here to bring insights into LinkedIn and we’re all going to be working together very soon. I’m going to be coaching you one-on-one to help you utilise LinkedIn more, to generate you more business across the multiple things that you sell. But you are not wrong to be focusing on what you focus on. And actually that helps balance out the insights we provide in the show. Anyway, because social selling isn’t exclusive to LinkedIn. It does include things like YouTube, podcasts and other social media networks. So Will what you’re doing is working. And I’m excited to work with you very soon and start coaching you to get a bit more from LinkedIn as well.
The Estimated Time it Might Take For Will To Go From Having a Practically Dormant LinkedIn Presence to Being a Reputable Brand on LinkedIn · [29:53]
Will Barron:
So that’s a great tease. So we’re going to be doing a case study. That’s going to be going out on a large CRMs branded blog. They’re going to be pushing attention to it as well. I feel like hopefully we win. The scale of the win I think is going to be really interesting. So I’m going to do exactly what Daniel tells me. And I’m going to literally have the team wrapped up for the… Well, let me ask you this Daniel, I’ll put you on the spot slightly. How long could you think from you telling me to do X, Y, Z, 1 to 3. One post a day, whatever you ask for myself and the salesman.org team. How long do you think it is before we see hopefully changes, whether it’s in numbers, attention, leads, whatever it is. How long do you think that timeline is? Approximately?
Daniel Disney:
We will see results after 30 days, and then we will build on those across the first sort of three months. That’s my target with you Will, but I’m pretty confident we will see results pretty quickly. And those first 30 days we should see a big enough change to start talking about.
Will Barron:
Good stuff. Well, so in answer to the happy one, answer to your question. That’s why I focused on podcasts and YouTube so much so far because they directly put money in the pockets of salesman.org, the company. But yeah with Daniel’s help I’m really excited to see what LinkedIn can do and to grow the audience. Because as we’ve talked about on the show before, I’ve just fluidly got that seven or 8,000 followers on my personal profile. And I think there’s a couple of hundred on the salesman.org page with no effort, no strategy, nothing. So with Daniel’s help, hopefully we can blow this up. And this would be a really good case study to get everyone motivated to social selling and build that audience. So with that, Daniel, anything else to add before we wrap up mate?
Daniel Disney:
No. Another good episode Will really good topic and just the sort of re-summarise, viral content is nice, but focus on the long game, focus on consistency, focus on giving value, focus on creating content relevant to your target prospects and customers. Viral is just a nice little cherry on top, but don’t chase it. Focus on the long game.
Will Barron:
Amazing stuff. Well, that was Daniel Disney, the king of social selling. My name as Will Baron I’m the founder over it salesman.org. And that was the Social Selling Show.
Daniel Disney:
See you next time.
