Marie, the floor is yours. All right. Well, it is so much fun to see all of your faces or names or your other video or audio here to see all of you popping in. And we see some names that we know and we appreciate all of you being here. And for those of you that we haven't had a chance to interact with in the prior sessions, we hope that you will discuss with us today some of what's occurring for you as you think about creating custom content as an inbound marketing strategy. As you all know, because you're here, this is the third and final session of this final trilogy in 2022, where we've been through all the different elements, as many as we could fit in about marketing, push strategies, pull strategies. We're ending on this pull strategy with inbound marketing, custom content as a way to pull the right people to you and your firm. And as in the last two sessions, I'm joined today by Johnny Swift, who will be one of the people who provide some comments and input today, Rita Chang, Margarita Chang, many of you know her from Blue Ocean. And she's been along with us for the last two sessions, Jodi Jacobson from the Human Skills Institute, and then Natasha Knox. And Natasha, I think it's Althea, I always get the name wrong, but it's a wealth management firm in Canada. So welcome, everybody. And those of you who responded to the survey, know that we're going to call on you. If you said you're bringing something to show us or to talk about, we're going to call on you. And so I have a list of names and topics in just a minute, I'm going to call on the first person. So just to kind of tip my hand so you can get ready, the first person is going to be Alicia Reese, and then Mike Hansberger, and then the rest will be a surprise. But what we're going to do is we're going to ask you to come off of mute, and if you're willing to share your camera so we can see your lovely face as you're talking, even better, that's great. If you have something that you'd like to show us, you'll be able to do that, that should be enabled for you to do as just a co-presenter and contributor to today. So we will go a full 75 minutes if we have that much discussion, and I think we will, historically we have on our other interactive sessions. So let's get started. So Alicia, you wrote in and you said that you have been working on a blog and some written content around saving for retirement and financial planning, and that eventually you would like to turn this content into a podcast. So could you share a little bit about where you're at in the journey and what kind of topic is emerging for you more than just retirement and saving for it? Hi, yes, thank you so much. And I will tell you, I have two little ones in the background here, so not putting the camera on right now, but maybe at some point. So it's now a good time for you because we could wait. Yes. Oh yeah, no. Yeah, it's totally fine. Yes. Thank you. Yes, so I have in the past few months created, I kind of think of it as kind of a financial education, maybe kind of financial literacy arm to my firm. And so on my website, I have a page titled Money Sense, and I've kind of, again, created this, I guess, this financial literacy brand is what I'm thinking of it as. And right now, I've actually just been thinking about topics that come up often in my conversations with clients, and I have used Canvas to put together. So instead of, again, as I was putting, I wrote in that email to you guys that I, yes, I refer to it as a blog, but the way that I am organizing it is, you know, I'm using Canvas to kind of put together these, you know, these little informational blocks of text, I guess, but I kind of use Canvas as a design element, I guess, rather than strictly, you know, just text. So that's how I have them situated. And so separate from that, I was thinking of, and I'm sorry, that's my three-year-old in the background. Separate from putting this together, I had been thinking of starting a podcast and was thinking of different topics. And then I recently heard someone talk about how actually, you know, if you're thinking of starting a podcast, one idea is instead of starting a podcast and just kind of thinking of it as an unlimited project, you can actually do something in a very limited way where you just put together a series, you know, five or six podcasts that kind of go together, you know, putting together whatever content you want to put out. So I thought, well, that's something maybe I would do rather than starting a podcast and wanting to do something every week for the rest of my life, but thinking maybe I would turn these little posts that I've been putting together into this maybe five or six part podcast. So that's where I am right now. So should I, I mean, I have them up on my website. So that's what I was thinking is the easiest way. Do you want me to just share my screen? Yes, yes, please. I was hoping you were going to say that. So the tool that Alicia is talking about is Canva, and it's a great design tool. We create all sorts of graphics for social media. You can create PowerPoints, you can create little videos, and they have a free version and then a low cost version. So we would love to see your handiwork. Okay, great. Let's see, I am showing, let's see, it's asking for a window. Well, we're just, we have time, just no rush, it looks like it's populating. So of our panel of experts, who would like to comment about the strategy about taking the visual and the content like this and then turning it into a blog or a podcast? Jump in. Well, I just wanted to say that I applaud you, your creativity, because the graphics in Canva are so visually appealing and engaging, and I think this is going to be a hit. Oh, thank you. Do you see what I see on my screen? Do you see my website here? We do. And I like what I'm seeing so far. The design looks really nice. I did want to also add that something that we often preach is that it's great to give your audience different ways to digest your content. Some people like to read, some people like to watch or listen. So whenever you can repurpose your written content into a video or a podcast like that, even if it's very similar, if you can just mix it up a little bit, it's always good. You're going to get more visibility on that topic and on that content if you just give different ways and forms for people to digest it. Great. Thank you. So talk us through what we're seeing. It looks beautiful. Yes. So this was my first, the first one that I put up here. And besides on here, I do put it on Twitter. So again, it's just as I think of different things and I'm trying to, I talk a lot. And so what I'm trying to do with these is really, I spend a lot of time in really trying to be very succinct and straightforward. And again, I am taking more of like a financial literacy approach. So this first one here, as you can see, how to create your own financial plan, just try to be very, very straightforward. Let's see. And just let me know. I mean, I can kind of, I don't want to go too fast here, but I'll scroll down. And it's just me thinking, I don't actually consider myself too much of a creative person. I do have a writing background. So that's probably why I kind of approach it in this way. Not necessarily, I'm not artistic in any way, but this is what I like about all of my children are talking to me right now. What I like is, hold on one second. Well, another thing I wanted to say that I really liked is how financial planning was at the center of that visual that we saw. So I appreciate what you're saying about being a writer, an educator, a storyteller. But if we scroll up, you can see that financial planning is at the center. So for someone who is new on that journey, I really liked that. I mean, I like everything, but I thought I'd be remiss, me being the CFP pro ambassador. I wanted to give you a major shout out that personal financial plan right in the center. Thank you. Thank you. Comment on the color choices because they're different. They're feminine. I guess you would describe them as feminine, but the pastels are different and they're very appealing. They're accessible to me. Yes. Thank you. Yes. I have found that I, that is how I've created my website. I do work with individuals, but married couples and stuff, but I do, I am geared more towards women, young professional women. So then I tried to use the same color scheme, although I should try to say, I do try to, it may not look like it, but I do try to, sometimes you'll see as I go through these, some of them are a little bit pink, but I do try to make them more neutral. But yes, you'll see as I come down. So what I was going to say before is I, I've, the way that I've approached this is I'm really trying to put things together again in very clear ways, but I'm just kind of the way I, I don't know if I'm describing it right, but the way I'm grouping things, you know, when I think about, you know, again, questions that I get all the time from my clients and things that I read out and write when I'm looking in financial media, so that I'm trying to be like, you know, rather than have a whole long article, which I have written before, you know, just really like pulling out very clear, important parts of that to say, okay, right, here's like very clear directions without all the other stuff that you may find in an article. So here, three steps to yearly savings opportunities, just very straightforward. So Alicia, I love what you're doing. And I love the visuals. Can you scroll back? I have a couple of ideas or just like a couple of little small comments. Sure. So my preference when I'm on a, on a website is for it to be skimmable. So one of the things I'm wondering is if it is possible, see this chunk at the left hand side? Yes. You know, for websites, like you might want to consider like, yes, it is kind of a paragraph, but you could actually make it into two paragraphs. Like we're not worried. Like this isn't an essay. It makes it more skimmable. So it's like, oh, sure. Small chunk, small chunk, right. That's one thing that I would consider. Okay. I like this. I like this very much. What you're doing here. I think, I think if we scroll down to the next one, same thing, love it. And I love that instead of just the blog, you've broken it out, you've made it visual. One thing I'm wondering about is, sort of from an accessibility standpoint, the red on pink. Yes. Keep going. Yeah. Depending on someone's vision. Yes. That may be something you want to reconsider just to make it really, really, from an accessibility point of view, very vision friendly. And yeah, those are my only comments. Yep. No. And I hear you and understand usually when I'm showing these to my husband, he's like, I can't read that. I'm like, I know. I know. Thank you very much for that feedback. Yes. That is something I, yeah. Alicia, this is Jodi. Natasha mentioned something that I was going to mention too. I think this is beautiful and a message that I get from your website. And I want to come around to the question about the blog post to podcast, but I just want to give you kudos on the website. I can tell without reading one word on your website that you are a very organized thinker. Yes. Yes. And that's, I find that a very important message to convey because one of the biggest mistakes I see planners making on their sites is too many words. And then the mistake that everybody makes, all of us, is that readability issue that Natasha was talking about. Especially if you are working with people nearing retirement or in retirement, I can tell you that contrast vision starts degrading typically in late thirties, early forties. And so black on white is the most readable, the most skimmable text that you can use. But what's so important here is it is totally clear to me that you are very organized and that's the most important message that I'm getting from here. It is very feminine. So it is so organized and clear and I love that. To get to the question, you know, how to multipurpose and how to repurpose the blog posts. One of the things that I favor and I'm sure Marie and Johnny help people do this all the time is to, you write the email and if it's longer, you can always chunk it out into like a series and then if you, or the blog post, you can, you could use the blog post in little bits as an email campaign and then at some point post it as a blog post on your website. But each segment, each snippet you send out could have what's called a call to action, which could be foreshadowing that you're starting a podcast or that if they want to learn more about this, to sign up for your podcast, if you want it to be something behind a, you know, a signup. So you could use, you can chunk out that blog post as emails, Facebook posts, LinkedIn posts that foreshadow that you're going to start a podcast and always include the link back to your website. So for the right, for the same writing, you're getting lots, you're referring people back to your website a few times and you're foreshadowing that you're going to do it as, as a podcast. And then the podcast, you could invite a guest if you, if you love interviewing, you could have a conversation around that piece, that idea. So let's say your blog post has like three keynote ideas in it or one keynote and like three subheadings, you could do a podcast on each of the subheadings where you interview somebody about it or, you know, open the floor for a conversation. The point I'm making is you can use the blog post for promotional content to drive people to the site, to read the post on the site. And you can use them to foreshadow the podcast. And if you want people to sign up for it, they can sign up for it, or you're just reminding them by having a series of posts. Right. Perfect. I want to move on to the next topic in just a minute, but Alicia, I want to make sure that you feel like you have all of the input from our group, Johnny, you would like to jump in? Yeah, I know we have to move on, but I do have one big concern about the graphics. They look great, but unfortunately this page is going to perform really poorly from an SEO standpoint because all of your text is within these graphics. So Google won't be able to read this text, even when people are searching for these topics that you have written all this great content on. So I'm wondering if there's some kind of middle ground where you can have nice looking graphics with the Venn diagrams and the charts and the numbers and things, but maybe include a lot of this text as actual text on the page rather than within the Canva graphics. Because right now Google is seeing very little text on this page and therefore this page will not show up high in search results. So it's always good to try and find the balance between looking nice from the graphics standpoint, but also making sure your page is text rich and content rich. So maybe try and move, as Natasha was saying, some of the paragraph in that first graphic at the top there. Oh, right. Into a text. Maybe if you break that out of the graphic and put that in the paragraph. Oh, that makes sense. Yes. I should say I have not done anything in the way of thinking about this in terms of how it's searchable or in terms of SEO or anything. So that's a great point to think of. Thank you for that. Of course. And just in a limited edition series, you can just say I declare I'm going to do a three-part series on XYZ. And just kind of know where you're headed and declare it and do that, and then go to the next one and the next one, or maybe it's a one. Perfect. Perfect. Thank you very much. Yes. Let's move on. You're welcome. Thank you so much. Mike. Mike Hunsberger on Next Mission Financial Planning, and you are working on a blog. And the topic that you told us you wanted to talk about or to share today is GI Bill Mistakes to Avoid. So Mike, welcome back. You've been a contributor in the past. Do you want to share and talk a little bit with us? Sure. Are you seeing it? Yes, we are. All right. So this is just a blog post. I just pulled it out to PDF to hopefully make it easier to read. Is it case-oriented? Anything you want to point out? So really just, and it's not, there we go. Okay. You know, it's just a standard blog post going through five things that people should avoid when they're looking at using the GI Bill. Military benefit. And that's who I focus on serving is either military or former military personnel. Talk some about the cost of college and then just runs through mistakes that they may not have kind of thought about when they're going to use it. I typically use these, I post something on the blog and then use it, the same thing in the email newsletter that I send out every week. And I'm not sure what I put, I know you're being blocked on some of it. So I'll start off by saying that I love how specific the content is. Obviously it speaks really closely to your niche audience and the types of clients that you want to serve. And also because it's such a specific topic, it's going to show up really high in search results when people are searching for this topic. It's keyword rich, it's content rich. And I've been seeing with a lot of my clients lately that some of the best pages on their website in terms of showing up high in search results are really specific blog posts and content that speaks to a really specific topic that there isn't necessarily a lot of good content out on the web for that. So posts like this are really valuable from that perspective. And I think the three mistakes, just the size of it, even if you're just skimming through and you're going to pick the mistake that calls to you most, like not understanding the school's financial aid model, having those big like this really sets it apart and makes it easy to skim. One idea I had is that following on with these large mistakes, I wonder how it would be if you were to have, you know, mistake one, two, three, with either a hyperlink or like a pop-up that when you hover on it, the full text comes out so that people can right away without having to scroll at all, see those mistakes and realize, I'm making mistake number three without having to scroll down to find out they're making mistake number three. And then they can read like, oh, okay. You know, like, oh, I don't understand my school's financial model at all. So it's like right there, bam, they get to the page and they see, don't make these three mistakes and then they can learn more. Okay. Is that the end of the page? Take us all the way down. Something else you could do within each mistake is, you know, at the end of laying out and you probably already do this in a lot of the text here, but at the end of the section about each mistake is a solution or what you can do now to avoid this mistake. And that's where really a lot of the value is going to come in. And I'm sure you touch on that already in the text but maybe just adding an additional subhead within each mistake about the solution or what to do about the mistake. I think would also be really helpful and would draw attention to that area. Okay, thanks. Yeah, I just quick want to build on a couple of things that Johnny has has said the first one is just kind of for everybody, because, because Mike's done a fabulous job of this is, he has the courage to target really narrow. And, you know, Johnny saying the reward for that, you know, is the SEO value because you attract the person you most want to serve that way, because there's so many different advisors out there there's tremendous amount of content. So, that's really key and this is a beautiful example of how to do that. And then the other thing is that issue of, you know, we were all putting this wonderful free educational content out there. You can ask for an exchange of value which is a call to action. You know, you can put at the end of a blog post or periodically through it, you know, we'd be delighted to to talk with you about how you can set goals. I don't remember the exact name of this but you can a call to action can also be an invitation. You don't want to do that in every single one, but periodically, you can invite people to have a consultation with you or just ask for something. It doesn't always have to be without any, you know, it doesn't always just have to be the giving, because let's face it, we're all doing this to hopefully have more conversations with people. I'm partially covered up there at the bottom of the screen but I do put in. Should that be bolded Do you think or something, you know, a different to just highlight it more is that a suggestion. You could put it inside of a little box highlight box or bolded or or italicized it or something like that. And you also you don't mean Johnny has a lot of experience with advising folks on this but you know you don't have to just put it at the very end. I don't know if Johnny you have other thoughts about that. Yeah, I mean I do think it makes sense to put it at the end and make it stand out in some sense like a highlighted box or at the very least bold it, but you could also, you know, put a I wouldn't put it in the middle of the body content but maybe on the that is like indented into the text something like that, that corresponds, right next to, you know, a blurb about how you work with clients and help them solve for for that issue or what solution you provide and put it in a little box indented into the body text that stands out and has a button to, you know, reach out contact us free consultation to something like that. Okay. Absolutely. I wanted to say that I love this so much, and I start with writing, one of the things if you want to branch out into video you could record all these videos in one day. And just have a quick video about the five mistakes and then you can release them later and then have a tweet. I like how this is very specific. I was going to say something along that line to Rita I love the text it's got great readability great search engine value. I'm feeling like it could benefit from some kind of graphics or visual and Johnny one of the things we've seen is when you copy paste blog there's something called an unfurling that happens when people share on social. So, I want to make sure that you've got some kind of a graphic that will unfurl at the top of your, your blog post you is there something Mike I can't remember. Yeah, there. There we go. Let's see what unfurls. And, you know, this is not a bad graphic but I would just encourage you to think about how you could make something even more relevant to your brand. This looks kind of generic. So, go into Canva, and you could create something it's real easy to do if you haven't done it Mike it's I taught myself how to do it it's like working in PowerPoint. They have a whole library of shapes and stock photos and illustrations and you just put in a keyword, and it'll give you recommendations they might even have something for GI Bill. This image came from Canva but I know we're talking about the templates and stuff and maybe making it a little more specific. So, no, good point. Anything else from you Mike and then we'll move on. If you thank you very much. Okay, so next up I'm going to tell you the next couple people I'm going to call on so you can be thinking about it and so I don't surprise you. So, Holly Holly Donaldson I'm going to ask you to just chat with us next and then after that it'll be Steve under And then we've got three more after that time permitting so we started with those who actually brought something to show. And now I think we're moving into more just conversation I'm not sure that Holly you have something to show but if so it's even better. Holly Donaldson financial planning, talking about a blog, and that pertains to financial, excuse me retirement concerns and let's see here. I'm just going to read your quick comment. All right. So, yeah, jump in Holly I don't think I need to share anything else before you share what's on your mind. Holly are you there. Holly is on mute. Thank you. Yeah, so I just thought, well, if you need some other examples I put myself out there for constructive criticism. So a couple of, I guess I could just go to my blog, or I could go to my LinkedIn profile, because I started having the blog post go straight to the LinkedIn. Do you have a preference. Whatever you think would be best we trust you. Okay. Well, I guess I'll go to the blog, and it's just, it's just a blog on the website. So, hang on a second, and I will get there and then share my screen. Okay. I don't want to get to it within WordPress hold on two seconds and get to it. See it like everybody else sees it. Sorry. Okay. I didn't know you were going to call on me so. It's okay. All right, I'm going to share my screen now. Okay, great. Okay, so here's the website can everybody see it okay. Yes, we can. Okay, and here's the blog. So, I guess, one concern I have if somebody just comes and visits the website and they happen to click on blog which I know few people do that. There. It's not that organized it's just organized by chronological order so they'd have to like search for in the blog I doubt anybody's going to do that. I view the blog more as I guess for SEO purposes than really. I don't expect visitors to really read it. Does that make sense. You may be surprised. You know a lot of people want to a blog gives you a great place to show your knowledge and your expertise and for people to get an idea of your style of thinking and writing. So you may be surprised them and it might be worth, you know, asking client current clients or prospects and, you know, did you check out the blog on the website, what did you think. I do know that a lot of blog platforms, looks like you're using WordPress I think most WordPress platforms and templates, give you the ability to categorize blog posts, and then on that right hand side it would show the different categories to people wouldn't have to search. They can see retirement planning, estate planning, whatever. So I do categorize them I just need the categories to show up. Yeah, there you go. Okay, I'm making it a good categories. Yeah, so they could see like a table of contents thing. Pretty much taxes, estate, aging. Yeah. Yeah. I have a combination. So, my, my niche is more of a service model niche in that it is, it's pre retirees who don't want. They just want planning, not someone to manage their money. So, it's a pretty small narrow niche but it's a niche based on the business model. I haven't really figured out how to. I mean, I've got content on there on the, on the front page it says you know we don't manage your money, but I'm more interested I guess in the whole psychology of money about pre retirement, and what are you calling it pulling people in on based on that, then just based on. I don't manage money. Is there anything wrong with that. I'll jump in on that I was thinking that a blog post on why you don't manage money would be a good idea because that way you could just send that out as a link on your social media from time to time, even though you may have it on another blog page you could just take the best of that and kind of freshen it up and give it a new spin. I love your stories is something that would be very helpful for people if they're interested in aging well or creating a legacy. I loved your titles, some of them were rather intriguing what was the one about estate planning opioids and addiction I mean I want to read that what is that all about I have that problem or concern but maybe I should know about it. Intrigue factor is good death by 1000 indecisions you've got a really good knack for creating curiosity and drawing people in so I feel like this is an underutilized resource for you. You've got a lot of great assets here. Are there graphics that go with each one if we click read more Could you just show us what would the visual. Yeah, I usually have a little picture that I've brought from Canva in. And I've got the alt tags on it. Perfect good so you've been paying attention to all that good stuff. You could even brand some of these so it's your company, so it's not just a photo, you could work with you know just having anything that goes out from your blog the graphic have your company logo or brand on it as well. Oh, put my logo on the blog. Well on the photo on the photo. There you go. So, for instance, if you're in Canva and this is the image that you like that's a great image there's white space in the upper right, I could see your logo going in the upper right, or just to learn more at more great resources at that kind of a call to action. Oh, okay. So do that in Canva and then import the image that way. Okay. And then there's a branded image when this unfurls when you share it on. Okay, I see what you're saying. Okay. Good. I would have never thought of that of course. Well, thank you Marie I appreciate the comment about, I have a lot of content here and it feels very like I have a great big library with no Dewey decimal categorization. It's just a bunch of stuff. And if there's any suggestions on how to use it better. Are these pretty much all custom pieces that you've written yourself. I've written them all. Wow, that's a lot of really good content I mean you're getting tons of educational value you're getting tons of SEO value from having all this different content around different topics on your website. I just encourage you to, you know, just be as active as possible and trying to get this content out there to your audience through email through social media, you know when you're talking to prospects and you get to know them a little bit and you find out some of their issues or pain points I'm sure that with all 127 pages of content here, you have at least one or two pieces that are going to resonate and be relevant to what they're, they're going through, and that might help them connect and see how you can help so just try and, you know, if you can categorize them, that would help you as well be able to track them down a little bit quicker, or even just send the link to, you know, specific topic of category that you know would be relevant to that, to that individual so you know I just say lots of good content here just make sure you are utilizing and harnessing it as much as possible. Yeah. Okay. Do you mind navigating to your LinkedIn so we can see how you're using it. You have a phenomenal voice that comes through it's very distinct in your writing. So, yeah, yeah. Okay. I'm curious to how this content is being shared on LinkedIn to see if maybe there's something that can be leveraged there or. Yeah, I only just recently started posting on LinkedIn. Let's see. Is this where I go activity. Yeah, that's. Yeah. Can you click on that one. What is retired husband syndrome. Okay. Read. Have you considered maybe engaging a couple friends like that would agree to engage on your posts like maybe tag them, let them know you're going to do it. So you can tag them and say, you know, like, hey, would love to know your thoughts, something to get a little bit of engagement on these posts. This is really really great content. And if you can call in a couple favors to get some engagement on your content, then it'll start to be shown to their networks and, you know, I feel pretty confident that based on how distinct your voices, and based on how interesting your titles are, that if you could get a couple people early on engaging with your posts, then other people would be sort of tempted to click on it and read more. Okay, I've heard of this before. So I tagged the friend and I say, hey, so-and-so, what do you think about this post? Something like that. Okay. Yeah. Something along those lines, yeah. Yeah, I had a NAPFA colleague friend and he and I were talking about, cause he was thinking posting and stuff and then it just kind of fizzled, we didn't do anything. So I call him back up and if I tag him, then he gets a little notice that he's been tagged and then he can go in and put something, right? Yeah. You could start a little group with other advisors or other just professionals in different industries that are also sharing content on LinkedIn and either tag each other or whenever you guys have a new post, send a link via email and just have an agreement where you all try and engage with each other's content as much as possible, because that'll help it be shared in each other's audiences. And just one other comment I would make on this post here is I think it's really engaging. It draws your attention and curiosity with the question and it's a little teaser here. And then I think it's just missing a call to action, like read more in my latest blog post or something like that, so people know what the content is and if they wanna read more, click here. Okay. So when you're introducing the post on LinkedIn, you have to say, this is my blog post, read more here. Yeah, read more here, check out my latest blog post and learn more about this topic, but I do like the language you've used here and it's very, it draws your attention, just missing a call to action. Okay, all right. And make sure, this could be an article for US News and World Report for somebody who's not paying attention, oh, what is retired husband syndrome on hollydonaldsonfinancialplanner.com. Go ahead and take credit for this and say, don't hesitate to share this, please be sure to read this on my blog. Jumping in? Yeah, and I wanted to add, when you opened up your LinkedIn, I really, I prefer the banner on your LinkedIn to the banner on your website. And since you already have a really nice banner for LinkedIn you might wanna replicate that or something similar on your website. The other thing, just a couple of things about your website, I love your blog post titles. Again, it's like Alicia's website. I said, I know she's an organized person. Well, I can tell from the titles of your blog posts that you have a sense of humor, that you're thoughtful. You probably have a slightly different take on things than what I might typically think of for a financial planner which are, I think all very positive attributes of a brand. I mean, they speak to having a personality and this is somebody who could help make a painful process actually fun and enjoyable. So I would love to see your, I mean, others might disagree with me on this one but I love the titles of your blog posts so much that I actually would prefer for you to use a smaller font. Now it's very unusual for me to recommend a smaller font because readability is everything to me but I'd like to be able to see more of those bolded blog titles when above the fold. When I go to your blog page, I don't have to scroll down or go to the next page. So I think if you could compress them a little bit more so a few more show up all at once, that would hook me. And yeah, and I just wanted to mention also your, I would pull some of that humor and creativity over onto your landing page and speak more directly to your ideal client on that landing page, a little less about what you do because you can always say that in bullet points, the fee only, the fiduciary or I don't remember exactly what it was. Yeah, I mean, if you scroll up, go back up to the banner I had a little bit of a sense of humor up there and speak directly to what your ideal client is feeling, thinking and wanting because what you have here you can always include as a bullet points elsewhere in the, either the about or, yeah. So I think what you're saying about what their, the prospect is coming from is the next section and you're saying kind of reverse it, put the prospects concerns and where they're coming from first with a sense of humor and then everything I do next or last. Yes, because they assume, if they've gotten this far they assume you know what you're doing. It's likability and credibility and a lot of credibility is about likability and your ideal prospect feeling like you already know them and they already know you before you ever have a conversation and you're, I think the spirit of those blog post titles, I mean, that certainly speaks to me and it creates curiosity and it's sort of like what Marie was saying. And so, yes, if you just put some of this up into the banner so it's the first thing that they see, I think that that would be better. This looks a little vanilla and I don't think that you're a vanilla person. All right. I have something for you and this is for all the NAPFA members that are tuning in. I did this with my peers. We created a LinkedIn engagement pod of a dozen of us and what we would do if appropriate, if people had the bandwidth, the capacity, they would engage. The other thing to be mindful of is some hashtags as well. So I know you already have lots of friends in NAPFA but you can create a LinkedIn engagement pod where there's like about a dozen of you and that's how you get engagements. Thank you. And adding those hashtags around whatever topic is really valuable. And one more quick thing before we move on, Jodi's point about having more blog posts show up on each page, you can probably change that setting in your WordPress blog and increase it to like 10 posts per page. That'll decrease the number of total pages but it'll give more blog posts per page and make it more likely that a website visitor sees a blog post that is relevant to them on that first page or the second page or so on. Got it. Yeah. Okay. I'm on it. Johnny, I wanna ask you one other question. I know these post parties, these engagement pods, isn't it true that the sooner they engage with your content that LinkedIn rewards that content? Yes. Ideally first 15 to 30 minutes of a post going up, if you get a lot of engagement right off the bat, that is going to tell LinkedIn that's a really valuable, really relevant post that's appealing to lots of people and therefore it's going to be pushed out on more people's newsfeeds. So ideally if you do create one of these groups or pods and you can all engage as soon as possible, that is best. But I know we're all busy professionals and so that's not always possible. So even if it's a couple hours later or later that day, that still does have some value but as always, the sooner the better. Yeah. The other thing that I think we should remind everybody, I think we covered this in one of the classes, is that LinkedIn rewards content when you do not link away from their site. So this native content in the form of just a graphic or a post that people can read without leaving LinkedIn site, that diminishes your opportunity to drive people to your blog or your website. But what we've seen others do and what we're testing now is say the link is in the comments below, therefore your native post is native to LinkedIn. And so you get rewarded more visibility for that. And then you put the link to the blog or the webinar in the comments below. I would just put, here's the link I promise and put that in the comments. Yeah. In that case, you would wanna just post the native image. So you still have a visual with the post and you would post the same kind of language and then the link in the comments. I think that there's a trade-off, you know, it makes it a little bit harder for someone to click over to your website, which is ultimately where we're trying to drive traffic, but it's a good trade-off and something to experiment with and see where you get the most engagement and maybe just mix it up every now and then and try different versions. The last thing I'll say, Holly, is you've got 127 posts from what I can tell, probably a hundred of them are evergreen. You could turn it into an ebook or even a book that could be printed on demand on Amazon, just put a new wrapper around it. We've worked with a couple of practitioners who did just that and it's, oh, there you go. So look at that. All right, so are they blog posts or did you just write this independently of the blog posts? I don't know which came first, the material in the book or the material in the blog, but there's a mixture in there. Right. Yeah. If you have everything that you would like to get from the group here today, I think we'll move on. Thank you. Yes, I appreciate it. So Steve Underrider, we're gonna call on you and you're gonna talk about a blog, but then after that we've got three more people who wanted to share a video idea. So I wanna make sure that we get time for Kayla Kling, Ryan McClung and Bob DePasquale. So Steve, you're up. Are you there? Freedom Financial Planning Solutions blog about transitioning from a military career to a civilian career. Yes, I'm here. And my main question is, and I'll share my screen here. This is my website where I wanna focus up. I wanna, the only thing I've been doing up to this point in terms of content, and I'm on the other side of the spectrum that Holly is. I have very little content other than a newsletter, which I'll show you very quickly. And my question regarding blogging is whether I should use what I've called here in the website insights. And this is where I post my newsletters. Whether I should use that or go with a separate blog that, you know, such as WordPress and do a lot more content with that and then point potential readers to the website. That's kind of where I'm trying to develop my strategy for moving forward. This is one of the newsletters. I'm not seeing your screen. Which is a PDF. Oh, I'm sorry. I forgot to share a screen. Let me go back to the website here. Johnny, while we're waiting for Steve to get that up, what is the best time to post LinkedIn posts? I was just typing out a response to that. I think it kind of depends on your audience and when you see them being most active on LinkedIn and social media. But I think in most cases, mid morning is a good time. So your post is up and visible around midday, around lunchtime as people are taking lunch breaks, possibly scrolling through social media and just getting it up earlier in the day. But I would say, you know, you don't wanna post anytime after mid to late afternoon as people start wrapping up their day and heading home for dinner and family time and things like that. You know, a lot of people do scroll social media later at night or early in the morning. But I think that if your post and your content is relevant, it's going to stay on people's news feeds throughout the day. So in most cases, I would say mid morning. Okay, are you seeing my screen now? I do. Yeah, so I think what you should be seeing now is my website. Is that correct? Yes. Okay, so this is the website. And as I was saying, my concern was whether or not I should be blogging in this section of my website or work with a separate blogging thing where I can put a separate blogging application where I can write my content. So right now, all I have in here, insights, although I started categorizing things are where my newsletter resides. This is an example of one of the newsletters I wrote back in March. And it's basically a PDF that's posted in this site. But I've also put this out via email on an email campaign using that distribution process. And I get pretty good responses on it. Most of it's focused on general economy and not so much focused on specifically transitioning to the military, which I think is where I need to start making my focus. So where should I start my blogging as I go forward here in the future? Yeah, hey, Steve. So it looks like you're using 20 over 10, which I love working in 20 over 10. They have really good blogging platforms. You can actually set up multiple blog pages. So I'd recommend keeping your news brief section as a blog, like you currently have it, and then creating another blog, just called blog and having it live underneath that insights tab. So when people hover over your insights tab, they see news briefs, and then they also see blog that has the more traditional blog content. With these news briefs though, rather than just posting the link to the PDF, I think you should copy and paste all this text and put it into a blog post on the page. So you really harness that SEO value. And also that's just one less click for people to be able to read and digest your content. So I think keep up with the news briefs in this separate blog, but copy and paste and get the content onto the page rather than the PDF link. I know it'll be a few extra steps, but I think it'll be worth it. And then also set up a separate blog. You can create multiple blog pages in 20 over 10, and then also have that live under the insights tab. Okay, great, that's a great recommendation. Any other of the coaches wanna jump in? I do have a question, Steve. On your website, do you have like links to your social? Yes, I do. I have it to LinkedIn and to Facebook. That's where most of my clients reside. Wonderful, thank you so much for sharing. Yeah, I want to just real quick add, I really liked the photos that you're using. Especially the people ones. And I would just encourage you, use those and make sure you fill in the, Johnny knows the correct terms for this, but all the SEO stuff for your, for the pictures, too. I love these pictures. They're, they're emotional, and they tell a story. So beautiful work on, on picking the photos. And I would keep doing that and get some SEO value out of them also. Thank you. I used Canva and played around with getting those photos all into the basic background. Yeah, nice job. Thank you. Canva spreading around. Jody, you're talking about the alt text. So make sure whenever you upload an image to your website, you add that alt text to it and also name your image files properly instead of just random characters, have the image files titled with keywords and things that are relevant to the image. And with these banners, you should be able to upload those attached to each blog post as the image. And that will show up at the top of the blog post page in 20 over 10. And also on the landing page for the blog post that shows all the different posts, they'll show up there as well. Okay, thank you. I do love that photo on the homepage. It's beautiful. Thank you. Natasha, I really wanted to tie into the military thing here, particularly those getting out of the military and transitioning to civilian life. There's a lot of issues. Yeah. Thank you. Dave, I was sort of reflecting on your content and in your newsletter. And if you can just click on it again. I've just been thinking about your newsletter. Can you tell us a bit more about how it goes out, where it goes out, when, like how often? I have not been consistent. It's going out right now every two months. Most of it, like I said, focuses on various subjects. And usually at the end, I put something that is actual real life that either occurred to me or to a family member. So this was an interesting one. But I try to keep just general, basic stuff here. I get a lot of comments. It goes out via what I can't think of the name of the thing, the monkey one. It goes out via that. MailChimp. I have about 95 people on that list. And I've had several people come back with some pretty good comments and picked up one potential client that way. But I also have a LinkedIn web page. And I have not posted as much on there as I should have. Well, one thing I'm thinking about is looking at, I mean, you didn't even scroll through the entire thing, but looking at some of the titles of, you know, sort of the summary of what's in your newsletter, you actually have like, your newsletters are content rich, actually. And I'm wondering if, you know, following on Johnny's comments, you know, so you would sort of post it, but I'm wondering if there is some way to expand or sort of repurpose some of what is in your newsletter. I think that you actually have quite a lot of content. It's just not being like effectively deployed yet. So for instance, you know, I saw something like a real life story about why everyone needs an umbrella policy. I want to read that real life story about why I need an umbrella policy. You know, so that that could be its own, you know, something like that could be its own thing. So I'm wondering, you know, maybe Johnny has some thoughts on it, like, I know, you don't want to duplicate your content on your website, because that's not great either. But, you know, I'm thinking that you actually have quite a lot of content. And so you just need to be strategic about how you're putting it out there, how you're expanding it, or abbreviating it, because there's a lot of, there's a lot of richness there that just needs to be sort of harnessed, I think. Yeah, I follow what you're saying, in particular, in some of those items that I can make those a whole separate blog, each one of those subjects, or as particularly the ones that happened in real life that are personal that somebody has experienced that I'm aware of. Yeah, chunk them out into blog posts, chunk them out into LinkedIn and social media posts. And then you know, that call to action to click here to read more. And then, you know, just you can even put that in native posts on LinkedIn and things like that, rather than linking outside of LinkedIn, as Marie was talking about that native content. But with that, Steve, thank you so much. We have a couple more I want to get to. We have three more, we're going to spend four to five minutes each on them. And these are all video ideas and concepts that want to be discussed. So Kayla, we're going to start with you. And then we're gonna go to Ryan McClellan, and hopefully Bob DePasquale. So Kayla, are you here with us? Let's see, I don't know if I see Kayla. So, Kayla, if you are here, and you're just on mute, and I don't see you feel free to jump in afterwards. But for now, let's move on to Ryan McClellan. Ryan, are you here? I don't hear you, Ryan. I don't see Ryan. What about Bob DePasquale? I don't know if Bob's with us either. Too bad. Well, Johnny, would you read what they said in their comments to the survey, just so that the group will know what they were thinking about? Yeah, we can give some thoughts on that. So Kayla Kling is thinking about starting a video series around retirement planning advice, as well as tax workshop advice. So both really important topics that I think would work well with video. Obviously, there's lots of subtopics within those very broad ideas. So it would be great for doing a couple different video series around different issues in retirement planning, different tax planning or tax tips, things like that. You could even do, she says, tax workshop. So that makes me think of more of a longer form webinar or something like that, where you could do a whole tax workshop, tax prep, tax tips, things like that. So any other thoughts there from our coaches? I just wanted to say, for those who might be very tentative about being on camera, about doing video, I know for myself, when I first started doing webinars, I did not want to be on the camera, on camera at all. And somebody encouraged me, be on camera at the beginning, and then come back in at the end. And in between, I used very visual PowerPoints to tell a story which I could narrate. And done, good enough is better than remarkable, because done is the most important goal. And so for anybody else who shares the trepidations that I had starting out, that is a trick, a way of, you can put yourself on camera just a tiny bit at the beginning to say hello, put some PowerPoint, but very visual picture focused, pull from Canva, whatever, and then just come in at the end. If it's keeping you, if you're seeing yourself on camera or being worried about it, it's keeping you from doing it, then just sandwich some content in between. But again, the hardest part is getting started. The hardest part is just doing it. So don't worry about doing it badly. Assume that people are cheering you on, and they recognize that it takes courage to do this stuff. So it's better to do it than to not do it. I would agree with video. It's like I tell my daughter who's applying for colleges, obviously you don't want to throw just something together, but the best essay is the one that's done. And you will write better essays, you will create better videos as you build confidence. And just a couple other tips for video in general, if you're going to be filming these kinds of educational pieces in your home office or something like that, I think you either have the option of doing it on your computer webcam. And that's ideal for a lot of people because you don't need a tripod or anything like that. You might just need some better lighting, a ring light that clamps onto your laptop or a ring light that sits on your desk or something like that, just to brighten up your face, even out the shadows, unlike how I look on camera today, since I'm in a hotel lobby in Denver, but some good lighting, maybe a better microphone, a USB microphone, like a blue Yeti mic that plugs into your computer can really help your audio quality in your videos. And then your other option is to do it on your phone. iPhones and other smartphones have great cameras nowadays. And in a lot of cases, again, you might just need some better lighting, some kind of ring light on another mini tripod. There are tripods that have a ring light built in and also a phone mount. So all in one, and then you would get some kind of microphone that would plug directly into your phone. So an auxiliary microphone, obviously, if you have an iPhone, you would need that little adapter. But Comica is a great brand, just comic with an A on the end. They make great microphones, both for USB for your computer and for auxiliary for your phone. And so you can get a little one that sets up on a tripod on your desk or a handheld one or a lavalier one that clips onto your lapel. So there's lots of different formats. But in most cases, either just decide whether you want to go with your computer webcam or your iPhone, and then get a tripod, a light and an upgraded microphone, and you'll be ready to go from the technical aspect. Here's something that I learned. Now watch this. I'm on just a Mac in a dingy hotel room. If I turn down the brightness of my computer screen, did my visual for you get darker? Now when I brighten it up, you get brighter for me and I get brighter for you. There you go. Well, if anyone else has any other questions or anything like that, let's see. We just got another one from Jennifer. I'll answer this really quick. So she said, how do you position lighting when you wear glasses? I always see the glare of the lamp. And often with ring lights, you see the circle right in the glasses. So it's always best to position it up above your head, up above your eye level. Obviously, if it's directly at eye level, you're going to get that reflection in that glare. But if you have it up above and angled down on your face, and as long as you don't look up into the light, you're not going to see the reflection. So that's how I use my ring light at my desk at home. I have a clamp, one that clamps onto my desk, and I angle it up and shoot it down on my face. And so I still get the shadows evened out and the great lighting on my face without getting the reflection in my glasses. So that's always a good tip. And then if anyone else has any other ideas they want to throw out, we have five minutes left. I did want to touch on Ryan McClung's topic that he is planning for a video series, and that is exit planning and financial planning for business owners. So really good service that not every financial advisor offers. Working with business owners is definitely a niche, and exit planning, succession planning are things that all business owners need, and they're really good keywords and very specific topics. So I spoke before on how being as specific as possible in the content you create is going to help it resonate more with your ideal audience, and it's also really going to help from an SEO and search perspective. So creating a video series around exit planning and succession planning, I think, will be a really good topic for a video series. And just, you know, getting on video in general really allows your prospects and your audience to see who you are, not only as an advisor, but as a person, start feeling like they can relate to you, start building that trust and authenticity right off the bat. So, you know, I think that having a good mix of content from blog to video to podcasting is always good, but video does have that special ability to, you know, start letting people see who you are as a person and start building that trust and authenticity. Any other thoughts, coaches? I would just add, I totally agree with you, and I love the suggestions that you've made. And again, you know, if you're shy about being on camera, like I was to start with, and I sometimes still am, but I feel the fear and I do it anyway, you can podcast without video. That's what gave me the courage to be on camera more, ironically, was allowing myself to do some podcasting without the video with a really nice microphone. And then I use an app called Audacity, A-U-D-A-C-I-T-Y, I believe, because I happen to love sound editing for some weird reason, but it allows you, especially for women, you can make your voice a little more bass and you can play around with those things. So I guess what I would encourage is, you know, start with what you have the courage to do, because I think Johnny just mentioned, or maybe it was Rita, I'm sorry, confidence takes time. So you sort of cloak yourself in your authority and do what you do have the courage and the comfort to do, because it's better to do something than to do nothing. And as you progress and you get great feedback, you build the confidence, and then you can try the next thing. So you don't have to throw yourself in the deep end to start with, it's just good to do something that pushes the envelope a little bit. So there's one thing that I do that has sort of helped me get over that, and it's sort of my tiptoe into the shallow end, which is, I actually, when I get questions from clients that are, you know, something that's going to take me a long time to respond to, but maybe not quite enough to justify a meeting, but I have to get back to them, sometimes I send them a video. So I share my screen, and I respond to them on video. And it's actually been really interesting, because it has helped me with some habits that I have in my speech that I wasn't aware were there. And so it's sort of practicing, and it's productive, it's getting my clients a response in a timely fashion, and helped me get accustomed to how I look and sound on screen, which is not how I sound in my head, and all those good things. So it's, you know, that could be a little tiptoe in just to getting accustomed to being recorded and getting work done. Well, we've got one minute left. So if there are any other comments, thank you all for your kudos. I see your direct messages, I see your other notes here. We appreciate that you joined us this year. We have not yet announced what will be happening next year, but there will be something. So stay tuned, there will be an ongoing playbook series in next year, and we're going to rejigger the format. So if you have any comments, or topics, or presenters, or co-presenters, Johnny and I will be again returning as the master ringleaders of sorts. And so I know that Kristen, Keith, and the group at NAPFA are all ears. If you have any feedback about this year, what you'd like to see next year, I think we're going to branch out and do more than, quote, just marketing, but do all sorts of practice management again next year. So with that, we wish you well. Thank you all for being here, and we'll see you again in 2023. Thank you, coaches. Thanks, everyone.

custom content

inbound marketing

retirement planning

financial planning

military transition

exit planning

video content format

SEO

newsletter repurposing

LinkedIn engagement

visibility