Networking For The Covid Era: Utilizing Publishing To Go Beyond Conferences

Networking For The Covid Era: Utilizing Publishing To Go Beyond Conferences

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The world will get past Covid in some form or another. As humans, we need personal interaction. In-person meetings are coming back in many instances, and conferences are already returning and proceeding with caution in the face of new variants of the disease.

Most of us built our networking skills for in-person interactions. We know how to connect face-to-face (or now mask-to-mask). And with vaccinations and other precautions, we want to go out there and build our social capital.

For years, conferences and industry seminars have been some of the primary avenues we use to network. Where else can we get in front of five hundred or more industry leaders and managers to share our thoughts? Presenting at these events is a mainstay for many consultants, bankers, lawyers and the like.

Making As Many Connections As Possible

But while a conference is a great idea, there are some downsides. Even before Covid, the returns had seemingly lowered, and it was always very time-consuming to participate. And while a conference gives a chance for you to establish credibility and get noticed, that is only if you are lucky enough to present at the conference.

Most of us are attendees and do not have the platform to present, so we have to connect with people one-on-one. Could you reasonably build a bond with more than ten attendees? How many attendees would you need to meet before sifting out those ten? I would say at least 40 for me personally.

In each meeting, you would need to determine if a relationship can be built. Of those original ten then, at most, maybe three relationships may lead to something. So you need to think about the effort of moving a relationship forward. You need to consider the time and financial investment in the conference, the follow-up and any presentations you would need to do after the conference.

A conference is an active investment. It’s a variable cost of your time. If you don’t spend the time, nothing happens. You may need to travel to another city or even another country; you will need to get up that morning and do the work each day and be your best self in each interaction. Should you have an off day or get sick, the whole thing could be written off. If you cannot make the time and do the work to follow up within days after the conference, everything can evaporate.

If the goal of a conference is to meet people and impress people, why not meet as many people as possible?

Publishing As A Thought Leader

An effective way to meet people with minimum time investment from you is to become a published author. And you don't even need to write a whole book. You can write a chapter and publish that chapter in a book with other leaders. The easiest way to think about this is that a collection of your writing and advice is an asset, achieving superior returns to a conference. It has the potential to generate future streams of revenue and opportunities in one form or another for years to come.

When you are sleeping, it works for you. When you are on vacation, it works for you. When you are at home sick with the flu, it works for you. When you cannot travel to a conference, due to Covid or another reason, someone can still be reading your book somewhere, learning about you and potentially contacting you as a result.

It’s a passive income and passive opportunity creator. It allows you to instantaneously and simultaneously engage with an audience around the world, and it helps remove geographic and even language barriers to meet people and clients.

With published work, you don’t need to seek as many opportunities. Opportunities find you if someone likes your ideas. When you don’t know how to manage small talk, the book or the chapter tells people who you are and helps you build rapport.

In my view, your book could have the same impact as if you were presenting at a conference with no additional work from yourself and no additional cost.

Guidelines On Publishing

One of the easiest avenues into publishing is writing a book chapter. And when the process is managed by a publisher, it can take as little as a few hours to contribute. One option is to be interviewed (in one- to three-hour sessions) and give an interviewer enough valuable content so a good chapter can be written.

While preserving your voice, the publisher can then take over ghostwriting a chapter for you. Once they send you the final draft, make sure to spend some time editing your chapter. I would say for someone who is not planning to be a publisher themself, it is best to work with an established publisher as their expertise can help you save a lot of time and headache.

Generally, you want to find a publisher who will help you market your book. For co-authored books, the publisher usually does the bulk of the marketing work and co-authors can help if they wish. Some effective marketing approaches include promoting your book to your audience through a newsletter, on Linkedin or on other social media platforms.

You can also use ads to promote the book, but be careful as it is easy to lose a lot of money very fast with ads. The goal is to always focus on how you are adding value. For example, on social media, you will want to ensure each post adds value even if the reader does not end up buying your book.

Conferences are an analog way to build your career. I believe a book is a digital, more advanced equivalent. As the world's companies transition to the digital in order to reap the benefits of scale, efficiency and a global audience, you should be doing the same for your career.

Forbes Business Council is the foremost growth and networking organization for business owners and leaders. Do I qualify?

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How to Improve Your Content Distribution Strategies

Content distribution must complement your marketing. Therefore, it’s crucial to learn how to improve your content distribution strategies.

Any solid inbound marketing strategy plan must include exceptional content creation. It engages and entertains your leads, capturing their interest and guiding them through the buyer’s journey until they’re ready to convert into paying clients. However, this can only happen if the content is distributed. Therefore, learn how to improve your content distribution strategies in order to make the most of your content.

However, don’t panic if the term “content distribution” conjures up images of you tweeting a link to your blog. There are a variety of strategies to advertise your material. Some of them are traditional and others you may not have considered. Here are a few of the best methods for distributing material.

Medium: Publish your content for free.

A content publishing or republishing platform such as Medium is a terrific method to share and extend the shelf life of any of your work.

It’s simple and free to syndicate your material to Medium.

Therefore, simply republish a post from your blog one to two weeks after its original publication date. This is one of the best methods to get started with the service. You can also publish the first few paragraphs of your blogs and then link back to your website. This establishes a backlink presence and improves the SEO of your material.

Medium’s high-traffic top page is another amazing feature. You can be featured on it if your material achieves enough views or recommendations.

Sharing your content on social networking networks such as Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn, is a common practice.

However, there are ways to go beyond simply putting links to your information on these platforms. To begin, you may include a “social sharing” button on your blogs. This will encourage your internet readers to help you out.

When it comes to delivering material on social media, however, your team can create a customized message for each of your company’s social sites.

Another option to get further into social media distribution is to look for groups that are in your industry and publish your information there. That way you can reach your target audience rather than sending it out to your whole following. However, don’t post too often to these groups or sound too much like you’re spam or giving a sales pitch.

Publishing Your Content on LinkedIn

LinkedIn Publishing, like Medium, allows users to self-publish, distribute, and syndicate material.

This platform is ideal for creating mini-blogs for your executive team. In addition, it’s good for individual members of your marketing team to re-publish their work. They can take it from your corporate blog to their personal LinkedIn account.

Additionally, you can publish the first few paragraphs of a blog on LinkedIn. After that, re-direct users to your blog’s original link on our website, similar to how you could do it on Medium.

There are other benefits of releasing information on LinkedIn Publishing. One is that your connections will be notified whenever you publish something new that includes the title of your blog. This proactive approach increases the number of views and clicks on your material.

Email Signatures: Helping to Share Content

Using your company’s email signatures is an often-overlooked approach to sharing your material.

You can include content links in your signature. Additionally, you can have your whole marketing, sales, and customer service teams include links to your blog or landing pages in your emails.

The more signatures you collect, the more chances you’ll have to direct others to your material.

Perhaps you’re concerned that your signatures won’t be consistent throughout your various teams. If that’s the case, use Google Business or your in-house graphic design team to ensure a branded look.

Publicity is an important aspect of every business, especially content marketing.

Good old-fashioned public relations is one of the original ways to get your stuff out there.

Maybe you have a dedicated public relations specialist on staff. Perhaps you are ready to hire one. However, either way, you should present your finest material to industry magazines or journalists on a regular basis.

Do you want to do a good thing for your business’s credibility and internet traffic? Have your brand or company featured on an industry website or news channel.

However, journalists receive hundreds of emails per day. Therefore, you must do something to make your press release stand out. Therefore, try using things like thought-provoking subject lines or headlines.

There are tools to help distribute your content if you don’t have the time or capacity to reach out to journalists on your own.

Cision, for example, allows you to send your press releases to their newswire. This allows journalists who cover your industry to quote from it or republish it on their sites.

In addition, you can utilize the resource Help-A-Reporter-Out or HARO. This helps you identify opportunities to talk with a journalist about your firm or service. It can give you a quotation or other information in a news piece or industry publication.

Networks for Content Distribution

Do you want to know how to improve your content distribution strategies? A content distribution network or discovery platform can help you spread your latest posts for a fee or for free.

Outbrain and Taboola are two services that try to get your material placed at the bottom of high-profile blogs. Therefore, you may see them on places like Time, CNN, or ESPN.

In addition, you may make your own magazine with Flipboard, a news aggregator. You may choose which stories or information to highlight, post it, and then promote the link via social media or email campaigns. They, like Medium, feature a front page that highlights the most interesting stuff.

Blogging by Others

Guest blogging isn’t a direct way to disseminate your content. However, it is a way to spotlight and promote your writing on sites that are relevant to your target audience.

In addition, it improves your SEO and boosts your credibility. Furthermore, if you’re lucky, you might be able to form a solid partnership with a like-minded company.

You may backlink to your blog in your guest post. Additionally, you may include links to the most recent piece of content in your guest author bio. This allows you to use it as a content dissemination mechanism.

To Sum Up

Learning how to improve your content distribution strategies is an exercise in creativity. Therefore, when you’re ready to advertise your next blog or landing page, we hope you don’t just take social media at face value.

In fact, you should have more success disseminating your offers to your audience and beyond if you use some or all of these content distribution tactics.

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