I finished drinking my souvenir of Malawi coffee last week.
I like the strong, rich flavour of Malawi coffee. It’s strong, it’s chocolatey, it’s earthy.
Each time I wonder how I could help to promote Malawi coffee and its unique taste in Europe. Rather than importing green beans, could we import roasted beans? Rather than mixing different kinds of beans, could we promote single origin coffee? How would I start? What do I need to consider?
Malawi Coffee
If you are interested in learning more about Chipunga, they have a website.
Chipunga Coffee is grown at a high elevation in a cool, wet climate, on terraces of deep-brown-reddish free-draining soils.
There is a cool project where you can subscribe to receive different kinds of Malawi coffee. Currently, on a hiatus it seems, but please check out A Coffee Basket from Malawi.
I’ve been asked to talk about LinkedIn. This isn’t the first time. Most of the talks, I’ve given were about how to use LinkedIn “technically”. Given that LinkedIn has been available for over 15 years and there are many excellent online courses and webinars on how to use LinkedIn features, I suggested a session on “Why do I use LinkedIn?” instead.
From a more personal point of view.
I am planning to talk about my own use of LinkedIn.
Why I am using LinkedIn to build my personal network.
What the perceived added value is for me.
Looking up
I think it’s about what works for me, what benefits me.
Sometimes platforms stick. Sometimes they don’t. Who knows, maybe Instagram is a better business platform for you?
To do list
Why do I use LinkedIn?
Here’s my list:
Recruiting. LinkedIn started out as a recruiting platform. That’s still a large and important part. Example: I actively use LinkedIn to recruit.
Networking. I use LinkedIn to build a net of business connections from my past, present, and future. Providers, external contractors, people I worked with. Example: a contact asked me where to find a UX designer and I shared 3 people that I thought could help her with her search, based on my LinkedIn network. I use the Direct Messaging area for this.
Gathering information. Follow business topics, companies, magazines, and individuals. Example: I actively use LinkedIn to find information about the industry that I am in.
Promoting and distributing information. I use LinkedIn to share info with relevant audiences. Example: A lot of energy is spent on creating content. In today’s world, it doesn’t stop there. Telling people via Paid and Organic that a piece of content exists is equally important as creating and writing the piece in the first place. Distribute everywhere. An Ahref study on 1 billion web pages says approximately 90% of pages do not get any traffic from Google. With a limited paid budget, telling people about the web pages I worked on is 1 way to promote new web pages. Expecting others, that don’t know my employer or my business area, to distribute B2B info, isn’t likely to happen. It starts with me. Raising awareness for the cool projects I work on.
Learning and experimenting. Use LinkedIn to learn what kind of messages and formats work and what doesn’t resonate. Learn how often the organic algorithm shows the message. Which posts it currently prefers. See who interacts with a post. Example: Currently the LinkedIn algorithm favours longer posts with no external links, and a long thread of comments.
LinkedIn has the most accurate database of Job Titles.
Personal benefits:
Networking.
Posting on LinkedIn at regular intervals gets noticed. My LinkedIn activities help me to stand out. Semrush and other social media tools show my activity levels. It’s a way to stay top-of-mind.
Articles that I promote on LinkedIn have a better chance of ranking.
Sharing articles and posting messages gives me ideas on what topics will work.
My knowledge of Organic LinkedIn helps me with my Paid Advertising projects on LinkedIn.
Social Media decision tree
My recommendations:
Think about your topics and your goal on LinkedIn. Do you want to add new skills? Do you want to learn about a new topic? Do you want to position yourself as an expert? Do research. Follow their streams. Attend their online events. Add useful comments or ask questions.
Don’t be a robot.
Try your own text.
Be personable.
Use your own voice.
Add value. Add comments. Contribute.
Be a human filter for your employer and your areas of expertise.
People buy from people.
Fishing net along the Rhine river
Words of caution:
Everything you share on LinkedIn is public or might become public. Don’t post about sensitive topics. Avoid referring to client projects or internal processes.
I would stick to business-related topics for the majority of the posts. There are other networks for your hobbies or your holiday plans. My litmus test is: Would I talk about this in a real-life, face-to-face business context?
You will get advertisers and providers trying to sell you stuff via Direct Messaging. It’s inevitable. Depending on your role, you may want to turn down these requests. Or, learn from them. Sending me a message to connect and then following up immediately with a direct sales request will not be successful. And, it’s an example of robotic behaviour.
The road ahead
Tips:
Use a tool like Buffer.com to schedule posts throughout the week. Free plan allows 10 posts.
In a recent offline conversation, I dropped a comment:
That’s my common social object with so-and-so.
Me in an informal conversation
I realized how much this old blog post from the beginnings of blogging has influenced me.
My observation: If I find a common social object, it helps me re-connect. If I find a common topic, sport, technology, political view, geographic place, hobby, shared past experiences, the depth of interactions changes.
Sounds obvious.
As 2020 has changed many social interactions, routines, and aspects. I am curious to see what will return and in which way.
2020 is a catalyst for changes that started happening already.
I am curious how work will evolve. Language change is an indicator of societal change. I attended a meeting on Friday where one participant said to another:
I Slack-ed you.
ironically on a Teams call
The tools may change. But, the trajectory will probably remain the same.
Note to myself: My blogger skills are very useful.
If I create content for our company (articles for magazines, social media posts, etc), do I need to try to use KEYWORDS within the text as much as possible? And if yes, is there an online tool / website to check how well I did my job before I publish it?
Here’s my answer:
Brainstorm and research as much as you can about your topic.
Ask your sales managers how they describe the service when they talk to people on the phone; write down all the phrases they mention.
Jot down all the phrases and questions you think people will enter into a search engine for your topic.
Check the monthly search volume of your phrases using a tool such as SEMRush or Searchmetrics or Ahrefs. Or use free SEO research tools.
Map out the structure and SEO elements of your article.
Outline the topic you want to target.
Write a draft meta page title and meta description.
Write a draft Heading 1 (H1).
List out the questions you want to answer in your article.
Questions are typically Heading 2s (H2).
Answers are a paragraph or a bullet list.
List out the keyphrases you want to target in the body text.
List articles that you want to use as inspiration for your SEO writing process.
Avoid copy and paste. Google is not dumb and can find out if you copy and pasted from another site.
Review SEO research before starting to write.
Start SEO copywriting process and include all SEO elements.
Include main keyphrase in your meta title tag, meta description, H1, add complementary keyphrases in H2s and body of the text, add alt texts for your images.
There are several tools that you can use to check the keyword distribution and density in your article. I’ve used Ryte.com, Moz, and there’s a new AI tool called MarketMuse that I am testing.
Important: Write for humans. Make the article useful. Think about the phrases people will use to find this article.
Track traffic and keyphrases in a tool like SEMRush or SearchMetrics or Ahrefs or Ryte.com or similar. There’s quite a choice.
I witnessed a motorbike crash this morning while cycling to work.
I was cycling up Elisabethenstrasse when I heard a loud crash.
A motorbiker had crashed on the other side of the street. At a place where the tram tracks and street don’t leave much space for cyclists and motorbikes.
At exactly the same spot which I’ve previously identified as being dangerous.
Not so long ago, the pavement at the tram stop was increased in height so that now the tram doors open at pavement level.
This means the curb is much higher and steeper.
At the same time, the space between curb and tram track is narrower than before and after the tram stop.
Which means on rainy days, you can easily slip on the wet and slippery tram tracks.
Dangerous.
I usually move to the middle of the tracks, away from the curb.
I think I will cycle a different route. Especially on rainy days.
Yesterday, I set my alarm to 6 am and jumped on the 7:33 train to Zürich-Oerlikon. On a Saturday. To attend a barcamp on media.
If you are unfamiliar with the concept of barcamps, a barcamp is a conference that organizes the talks by itself, on the day, Someone provides some rooms and infrastructure such as wifi and screens. And they send out invites via Twitter and other social media channels.
And that’s how i found my way to #medienbc, the event’s hashtag.
In yesterday’s case, the Medien-Barcamp organizers had access to the rooms of SRF, the Swiss public radio and TV station, in Zürich.
It’s not my first barcamp. I’ve attended many and even presented topics at some. Yesterday I was in listening mode.
Here’s a brief recap of the talks that I attended:
First, I attended a talk by Markus on Voice User Interfaces. He provided an excellent intro to the rise of voice. He says many new jobs are being created in this space. And I made a mental note to look up SSML.
Fabian and David invited us to discuss how to get more “old” people engaged on social media. The discussion covered a lot of ground:
The decline in journalistic quality,
The change in speed,
The fact that today journalists have access to less proofreading, fact checking and editorial staff than ever,
Questions like do users want to see and interact with company content on Facebook (apparently yes, 1 attendee described how a Facebook ad influenced her decision to buy).
Next, I listened to Vincenzo talk about the challenges and learnings of setting up an email newsletter for a small regional newspaper. A very honest and useful talk. His newspaper uses a tool called Revue, by a Dutch startup, cos it’s even simpler than Mailchimp.
I peeked into the session on no-budget video production. I would like to learn more about this.
I listened to a talk on analytics. Not new for me, but I was curious to see SimilarWeb. It looks a lot like SEMRush.
We looked at the stats for Nau.ch that had just announced it is now making a profit. The stats showed Nau.ch is investing in organic search. Markus recommended that journalists do keyword research for their articles. I would think that is obvious by now.
In the last session of the day, I got valuable advice on how to prepare to speak in front of audience or take part in an interview. In my own words:
Stand firmly. Before you start presenting, assure yourself that you are standing firmly on the ground and that it will not disappear beneath you.
Find ways to relax and stand in an open, welcoming position, e.g. take deep breaths of air, yawn, make funny faces, turn into a loud and noisy monster shortly before your gig.
Remind yourself that you are valuable, e.g. imagine you were given a really expensive diamond worth more than 100 thousand CHF and walk thru the busy train station in Bern.
Prepare and know the content of your presentation. If you know your topic well, you will be persuasive.
It’s about your attitude and posture.
Thank you to the organisers and participants for an enjoyable and fulfilling event. Good food, awesome location, great speakers. I like barcamp sessions cos we can leave out the sales speak and dig deeper. I feel excited and encouraged.
There are so many beautiful poppies this year. I captured some impressions on Flickr. It must be the additional rain that causes poppies to bloom. The field next to Fondation Beyeler is red with flowers.
Smug Mug acquired Flickr in April 2018. The question every long-term Flickr user is asking:
Should I renew my subscription?
I’ve been on Flickr for a very long time. And seen many ups and downs. Probably more downs. And it’s 2019 and I still use Flickr.
Con:
Subscription has doubled in price: 50$ for 1 year instead of 2 years.
There is an ongoing downturn in community activity. Group discussions are rare.
Pro:
Without VIPs, social media influencers and advertisers, Flickr has become a quieter place far from the crowd. Which isn’t so bad if you don’t need to promote and sell.
The mobile app works. Nothing flashy but ok.
Flickr supports the main functions I need. Easy, structured photo storage that is searchable and shareable.
Currently, no new features are tested on unsuspecting users on a weekly basis.
I have nearly 15 years of links and embedded photos that I would need to update on this blog.
