Almost Timely News, Febuary 18, 2024: From Comment to Content

Almost Timely News: From Comment to Content (2024-02-18) :: View in Browser

Almost Timely News

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Almost Timely News: From Comment to Content (2024-02-18)

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What’s On My Mind: From Comment to Content

I strongly recommend you watch the video version of this week’s newsletter for the live demo that uses generative AI to showcase the points being made below.

This week, a bit of a tactical, how-to recipe as I get ready to hit the road on a 9 day world tour. Over on LinkedIn (which is where I’m spending most of my time these days, there and Threads), Ashley Faus and Hannah Szabo were chatting (separately) about building thought leadership and presence with, as Ashley calls it, meaty comments. I shared a comment there about extending your comments into a full-blown content strategy, and thought I’d follow my own advice and do that here.

First and foremost, you need raw materials, and the raw materials are meaty comments that you’ve left on other people’s LinkedIn/Threads/social network of your choice. This part is critical – if you haven’t had anything to say, then this strategy falls apart completely. This is also the same strategy that my friend Brooke Sellas recommends in her “think conversation” strategies.

So, start putting in effort to leave meaningful, meaty comments, comments that add to the conversation and provide value, perspective, and knowledge that wasn’t present before. This, by the way, is what thought leadership really is. Your thinking advances the field as a whole. If you do it right, it’s not narcissistic grandstanding nearly as much as it is conversation that leads to changes in how others think of the same topic – the thought in thought leadership. As I’ve said before, my definition of thought leadership is that your thinking should change how I lead.

So you’ve got some meaty comments. Copy and paste them into some kind of storage system like Joplin, Apple Notes, google Keep, Notion, Evernote, OneNote, whatever works best for you. At this point it’s still just a meaty comment, but that’s not a bad thing.

Next, using the generative AI language model of your choice, have it perform four key tasks:

  • Fixing up grammar, spelling, and the usual housekeeping
  • Make a list of the things you got wrong or didn’t finish thinking about
  • If needed, reorder your thoughts into something more coherent, because we all kind of foam at the mouth in the comments
  • Highlight stuff you missed

Here’s an example using Google’s Gemini Advanced:

Gemini Advanced Screen Shot

You can see in the screenshot that I’ve given it discrete instructions on those four tasks, and this is its feedback on my original comment.

Now, you can implement the language model suggestions by hand or by machine, depending on your comfort level and what copyright you do or don’t want to have. Remember that from a copyright perspective, if the machine outlines and you write, you own the copyright. If you outline and the machine writes, no copyright exists because in most jurisdictions, machines cannot hold copyright and it did the work.

Okay, so now you’ve got your content. Now what? Now you turn that enhanced content into a LinkedIn post. Put it up as a post, or if it’s really long, as a newsletter piece. Then move onto your next comment. The ideal is to get a post up every day based on comments you’ve left (this is why generative AI is so helpful). You could also put this on your blog, or the publication platform of your choice, like Ghost, Medium, Substack, etc.

After the week is over, look at the engagement on your content. Which post did the best? Read the comments you’ve gotten on your own posts now and copy both your post and the comments of the best performing post into your generative AI system. Have it draft an outline that revises your piece, incorporating or rebutting the feedback you got. Now you’ve got a nice bit of long-form content.

What do you do with it? Fire up your camera and the streaming or video capture service of your choice, put it on a teleprompter or the closest thing you have to it (I just put it on my desktop and have my phone right over my screen), and read your content aloud. This is a habit that takes time to build skill with, so the sooner you start, the better you’ll get. Congratulations! You now have video content for a YouTube channel or the social video site of your choice.

Take your video content now and feed it to an AI system like Opus Pro, Adobe Express (which is what I use along with Adobe Premiere), or Canva, and chop up the best bits into short form 60 second videos for YouTube Shorts, TikTok, and Instagram.

Next, using any free conversion utility or video editor, take your video and export the audio from it (I use the free ffmpeg). Congratulations! Now you’ve got a podcast episode. If you follow this process regularly, you’ll have a new episode once a week, which is plenty frequent. Publish it to the podcast distribution service of your choice – I use Libsyn.

Got a video that does REALLY well? Take the script you had generative AI help with – you kept it in your notebook, right? – and have generative AI turn that into a slide presentation outline with guidance for what to put on the slides. Congratulations! You now have a coherent talk you can give on your topic.

This is the strategy, from comment to content. The hard part, the hard work, is to spend the time finding ways to contribute intelligently to conversations that are already happening. Once you do that, once you write those meaty comments of your own, you’ve planted the seed that can turn into a rich, full content strategy, and one that you can execute yourself. You don’t need a team of 31 people like the big name creators have to execute this strategy. All you need are your ideas, some generative AI, and the appropriate gear – much of which you probably already have.

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ICYMI: In Case You Missed it

Besides the new Generative AI for Marketers course I’m relentlessly flogging, I strongly recommend the piece on passwords for the world we live in now. Go watch it, and then go do it. Your dependents will thank you for it.

Skill Up With Classes

These are just a few of the classes I have available over at the Trust Insights website that you can take.

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Get Back to Work

Folks who post jobs in the free Analytics for Marketers Slack community may have those jobs shared here, too. If you’re looking for work, check out these recent open positions, and check out the Slack group for the comprehensive list.

What I’m Reading: Your Stuff

Let’s look at the most interesting content from around the web on topics you care about, some of which you might have even written.

Social Media Marketing

Media and Content

SEO, Google, and Paid Media

Advertisement: Business Cameos

If you’re familiar with the Cameo system – where people hire well-known folks for short video clips – then you’ll totally get Thinkers One. Created by my friend Mitch Joel, Thinkers One lets you connect with the biggest thinkers for short videos on topics you care about. I’ve got a whole slew of Thinkers One Cameo-style topics for video clips you can use at internal company meetings, events, or even just for yourself. Want me to tell your boss that you need to be paying attention to generative AI right now?

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Tools, Machine Learning, and AI

Analytics, Stats, and Data Science

All Things IBM

Dealer’s Choice : Random Stuff

How to Stay in Touch

Let’s make sure we’re connected in the places it suits you best. Here’s where you can find different content:

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Events I’ll Be At

Here’s where I’m speaking and attending. Say hi if you’re at an event also:

  • Social Media Marketing World, San Diego, February 2024
  • MarketingProfs AI Series, Virtual, March 2024
  • Society for Marketing Professional Services, Boston, April 2024
  • Society for Marketing Professional Services, Los Angeles, May 2024
  • Australian Food and Grocery Council, Melbourne, May 2024
  • MAICON, Cleveland, September 2024

Events marked with a physical location may become virtual if conditions and safety warrant it.

If you’re an event organizer, let me help your event shine. Visit my speaking page for more details.

Can’t be at an event? Stop by my private Slack group instead, Analytics for Marketers.

Required Disclosures

Events with links have purchased sponsorships in this newsletter and as a result, I receive direct financial compensation for promoting them.

Advertisements in this newsletter have paid to be promoted, and as a result, I receive direct financial compensation for promoting them.

My company, Trust Insights, maintains business partnerships with companies including, but not limited to, IBM, Cisco Systems, Amazon, Talkwalker, MarketingProfs, MarketMuse, Agorapulse, Hubspot, Informa, Demandbase, The Marketing AI Institute, and others. While links shared from partners are not explicit endorsements, nor do they directly financially benefit Trust Insights, a commercial relationship exists for which Trust Insights may receive indirect financial benefit, and thus I may receive indirect financial benefit from them as well.

Thank You

Thanks for subscribing and reading this far. I appreciate it. As always, thank you for your support, your attention, and your kindness.

See you next week,

Christopher S. Penn


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