How to slay the social media beast!

Introducing the 'Red Star / Black Star' process, the smarter, more strategic way to create content for social media (includes video).

G’day, my name is Trevor Young and this is my newsletter about positioning ourselves to take advantage of the opportunities that come with being an active participant in today’s ‘Reputation Economy’. You can subscribe by clicking on this button:

Do you want to build a credible thought leader brand in the marketplace, but posting to social media all the time is doing your head in?

I hear you, friend!

Social media is an insatiable beast when it comes to content.

Damned if you do, and damned if you don't, right?

So, you have two choices: You can either slink away from the challenge, tail between your legs, never realising what "coulda been" ... OR you can rise up and slay the beast!

Personally, I prefer the latter approach, and I've come up with a way to deal with it.

I call it my …

'Red Star / Black Star' social content process.

In short, it’s a more strategic and sustainable way to publish credible content to your social channels so you not only reinforce your expert positioning in the marketplace, but also frees you up to get more creative with your posts.

Like the idea? Let’s keep going!

[ Prefer to watch? Check out the video below for a microclass in how it works! 🙌 ]

TRANSCRIPT (edited):

In this credible authority tip, I'm going to be walking you through what I call my 'Red Star / Black Star' social media content process.

What the hell does that all mean? I'm going to walk you through it right now … but before we get into it, this is all about professional personal branding: building your profile and your reputation, and positioning yourself as a thought leader in the marketplace.

That's what we're all about here. So if you are going to be doing that … and this is for people who are taking things a little bit more seriously … if you’re a good, genuine, credible expert, then you want to be taken seriously, right?

So you need to be on social media. I'm not here to talk you into being on social media!

This is just about the content. I'm not really even worried too much around the platforms. This is all about the content that we create for social media.

Now, what do we know? We know that social media is an insatiable beast when it comes to content. It devours content, and we know that, but we've still got to do it.

We've got to be frequent, we've got to be regular with our content and getting it out there, but we don't want it to kill us.

We want it to be strategic.

We want it to be sustainable …

… and we want to continue to build our channels: it's one part of becoming a seen as a credible authority in the marketplace.

All right. This line here, this black line, it represents your narrative, your personal brand narrative - the story that you want out in the marketplace. That's your narrative.

Alrighty. So the Black Star content sits near that narrative. It supports that narrative.

Now, the Black Star content is strategic, and it's evergreen, and it needs to be planned out because … you need to know what your narrative is for starters, and what your story and the message that you want out in the marketplace. These posts, this social media micro-content, support that.

So it's the more strategic, heavier duty content that you're going to be putting out.

They could be videos, could be little podcast snippets. It could be micro-stories on LinkedIn, or little quote cards. It doesn't really matter. I'm not going to get stuck into the creative today. Just be aware that it's strategic and it's going to reinforce your thought leader status in the marketplace.

So you want to be moving that ahead, all right?

Plan it. It's better when it's planned.

Batch produce it and get it all done.

Set aside some time, get a lot done, and then schedule it out.

Make sure it's evergreen, and that way you can schedule it … and out it goes! It's running in the background. Yeah? So your socials are running in the background.

So … Black Star content - thus called, because I have a black texta in my hand.

Now Red Star content - because I have a red texta … this is where the magic happens.

We love the magic on social media.

This is your humanity, your personality, your 'in-the-moment' content … the things that are happening around you.

I'll just give you some quick ideas on what that might look like.

But the great thing is what we're doing is freeing ourselves up to be more creative on social media.

And this is the stuff - the Red Star content - these are the posts that tend to get more engagement.

People love it because it's relatable and it's human.

So what am I talking about there? A couple of examples.

Maybe you're doing a photo of yourself - selfies, folks, selfies! - getting ready for a big conference that you're speaking at, or you're delivering a big boardroom presentation and you know, you are just taking a break and you show a little bit of your screen of that PowerPoint presentation.

So it's behind-the-scenes of what you are doing, what you're getting ready for.

Things that are happening in the business.

Might be some news that's coming up, some little teasers, that sort of thing.

The other types of things you could be doing … there could be some news breaking on a topic or issue that you're passionate about, professionally speaking, and you want to be become known for … it's something that you need to be out there and, and having an opinion, forming an opinion and having a public comment on.

So, reading the news … what's going on?

Jumping on, getting that out there, really quickly!

Fact of the matter is, if your Black Star content is already being planned and done and dusted and it's already just dropping out there in the background, you've now freed yourself up creatively to see these opportunities, to take advantage of these opportunities and to get this more human or topical stuff in the moment, the day to day stuff that we know works really well on social media.

Now, if that's all you do, just the Red Star content, look, it'll be fine.

You'll grow your channels and people will like you and everything. Will it advance your thought leadership positioning in the marketplace? Maybe, but probably not. Black Star is the stuff that will do that. It’s what will get you known.

They're kind of like bookends. If all you did was the Black Star strategic content, you're going to get a bit boring.

So you need to throw in some personality (with Red Star content) … that’s where the magic happens. It's the combination that works.

Black Star content, plan it ... batch, produce it ... evergreen, schedule it out.

Red star content: opportunities, things that are happening in the marketplace. What can you share today? What's happening today behind the scenes … a little bit of fun, people. That's where you're going to have a bit of fun ... rip off a few layers and show a bit more personality of your good self.

It's called Red Star, Black Star content. Give it a go!

Thank you for reading (and/or watching).

Onwards!

Trevor 💪

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P.S. Did you know I've recently launched an online training organisation - the Credible Authority Academy - to help teach, guide and support genuine leaders, entrepreneurs and professional experts to become credible, thought-leading voices in their industry.

It’s YOUR turn to profit from your ideas, your wisdom, and your experience.

Introductory-priced Masterclass (condensed training) now available!)