Author: Bridget Willard

  • What is SWOT Analysis in Marketing and Why Should I Care?

    What is SWOT Analysis in Marketing and Why Should I Care?

    Have you ever seen an image on social media that made you turn your head sideways? Or maybe a billboard or even a written post. There are whole accounts on Instagram dedicated to Photoshop fails and the like. 

    Sometimes a bit of tongue-in-cheek humor is appreciated by your audience. And sometimes good intentions get separated from the intended message. It could be your body language, word choice, or accessibility. (I can’t even get going on the PDF flyers I see on IG that no one over 40 can read.)

    So this is why you need a professional to not just “manage” your social media. You need a social media marketer. You need a bit of pushback to make your ideas better. They should think about all of the possible outcomes.

    This is why a good marketer always does some version of a SWOT analysis.

    They don’t just post and hope things work out.

    SWOT Analysis Basics

    SWOT stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. An experienced marketer just automatically thinks of these with each new idea they encounter. But you can definitely make a chart, especially if you’re presenting to an internal team or an external client. 

    “A SWOT analysis can help you to challenge risky assumptions, uncover dangerous blindspots, and reveal important new insights.” Mindtools 

    Many large agencies use focus groups as the research arm of a SWOT analysis. Politicians use opposition research. You have to really understand your audience. How they think and their values will determine their perception of your campaign. 

    Strengths

    Before you post a photo on Instagram, think about what it says about your brand. What’s good about that social post? How does it make people feel about your brand? Does it have easy-to-read text, great captions, and a call to action? Do the colors evoke the feelings you’re hoping it would?

    Weaknesses

    What will people say about your brand if you do that? If you wear that? If you post an image of a QR code on a mobile ad? They’ll think you don’t know what you’re doing. You can’t scan a QR code on an image on your phone with your phone. Make sense?

    Opportunities

    How does this social post give you more opportunities? Does it make people think? Does it give them a tool? Does it encourage them? Do they want to see more of what you have to offer?

    Threats

    How could this image damage you? Do you think people will make negative comments? Will your competition use this against you? Will your hashtag come across wrong? Are there double entendres that you didn’t intend? Will women be offended? Men? Non-binary folks? 

    Example: Swot Analysis of Black Friday Deal by a WordPress Plugin

    A SWOT analysis graphic for a Black Friday sale related to WordPress plugin sales. The title "Black Friday Sale" is at the top, followed by "SWOT Analysis" and the website "bridgetwillard.com." The diagram consists of a semicircle divided into four color-coded quadrants: green for Strengths (S), blue for Weaknesses (W), yellow for Opportunities (O), and orange for Threats (T). Each section is connected to a corresponding text box with bullet points: Strengths (green): A well-executed marketing plan around Black Friday/Cyber Monday can bring in new business. Email marketing, social media, and PPC can drive attention to a new WordPress plugin. Weaknesses (blue): Black Friday is traditionally for retail, not software companies. Cyber Monday is a more relevant time for online sales. Opportunities (yellow): Black Friday deals increase visibility and keep your plugin top-of-mind. Competing WordPress plugins participate, making it a strategic moment to be seen. Threats (orange): Price integrity is at risk—discounting devalues the plugin. Customers may be trained to wait for sales instead of paying full price. Annual license renewals could cluster around Black Friday, creating financial instability.

    Strengths

    A well-executed marketing plan around Black Friday/Cyber Monday including email marketing, social media, and PPC can bring in a bunch of new business and attention to a new WordPress plugin.

    Weakness

    Having a sale on Black Friday for a software company doesn’t make sense. Black Friday is for retail stores to shore up their finances before the end of the year. If you want to have an online sale after Thanksgiving, keep it at Cyber Monday.

    Opportunity

    The reason why so many WordPress plugins jump in on Black Friday is to get in front of people’s eyes. It does give you visibility and keeps your plugin top-of-mind.

    Threat

    A major threat of Black Friday deals is price integrity. Not only are you devaluing your plugin, but you’re training your customers to wait for predicted sales. Furthermore, if you have an annual license, all of your renewals will come back up at the same time next year. Essentially, you’d have to reverse engineer the cost you really want and charge that on Black Friday if you want a sustainable business. 

    Bertha.ai decided to skip Black Friday sales for this reason. I also talk about this in my book, “How to Market Your Plugin.”

    Get Marketing That Works

    If your marketer just says “yes” to your idea they aren’t doing their job.

    Sometimes it seems offputting or even rude but it’s always better to let you know before you proceed. That way you can execute a well-thought-out campaign that achieves your business goals.

    I’m always open for a quick sales call or you can just book a paid consult.

    She’ll tell you what she thinks is best regardless if it is what you think you want to hear, she’ll challenge you to think broadly about your vision and goals with social, and she’ll curate storytelling into each component of your content strategy.” Michelle Keefer, MA MBA 

  • Social Media Marketing in the New Year

    Social Media Marketing in the New Year

    Start Your Year Strong with a Social Media Strategy That Works

    New year, new goals, and—let’s be honest—a fresh chance to stop winging your social media.

    If you’re reading this — this is your chance to stop winging your social media. Don’t wait for January 1.

    If you’ve been posting sporadically and hoping for the best, now is the perfect time to get a real plan in place. That’s where I come in. My social media strategy services help businesses like yours build a sustainable, effective online presence without the stress and guesswork.

    Why the New Year Is the Best Time to Reset Your Social Media

    The start of the year is all about fresh starts and setting the tone for success. Whether you’re a small business owner, consultant, or nonprofit, your audience is actively searching for new solutions, fresh perspectives, and brands that stand out. A well-thought-out social media strategy ensures you’re positioned exactly where you need to be—front and center.

    Plus, let’s face it: social media isn’t going anywhere. If anything, it’s more crowded than ever. The businesses that thrive? They have a plan. Let’s make sure yours does, too.

    What My Social Media Strategy Service Includes

    Forget cookie-cutter approaches. My service is tailored to your brand, goals, and audience. Here’s what you get:

    • A full social media audit – What’s working? What’s not? We’ll figure it out.
    • Customized content strategy – A plan that makes sense for your business, not just trends.
    • Engagement tactics – Because posting and ghosting is not a strategy.
    • A scheduling framework – No more scrambling for what to post.

    If you want to see real results this year, it’s time to invest in a strategy that actually moves the needle. Learn more about my marketing strategy services here.

    How to Get Started

    You don’t have to spend another year feeling overwhelmed by social media. Let’s make it work for you. I’ll help you create a strategy that aligns with your business goals, attracts the right audience, and gives you peace of mind.

    Ready to start the year with a solid plan? Contact me today, and let’s make this the year your social media finally works for you.

    (This post was written by ChatGPT based upon January’s new AI prompt in the New (2025) Launch WIth Words Starter Pack.)

  • SEO: Fix It As You Find It

    SEO: Fix It As You Find It

    So many people want to wait for a full SEO audit before they fix internal links or update articles. I get it. It feels like that may be the most efficient way to tackle the beast.

    But it’s like waiting to vacuum until professional cleaners do a move-out clean in your apartment. And this analogy is top-of-mind because I’m looking in the mirror here. I would love to get a deep clean done and reset my apartment.

    But it’s still going to get dusty. I still need to wash my bedding. I still need to mop the floor. I still need to sweep and vacuum.

    So, you want to wait for an SEO audit. Okay.

    Most SEOs charge a fee for that audit (like my friend Warren Laine-Naida does) but the fee doesn’t include doing the work.

    So, when is the work going to get done? How outdated will that article be?

    And, by the way, also talking to myself here — don’t forget to look at Google Search Console to see your top ranking keywords. This will give you ideas on HOW to adjust those internal audits.

    Because if you give the SEO consultant the wrong coordinates (content and business goal) that SEO ship will sail you in the wrong direction.

    Watch Video

    Notable Timestamps:

    00:56 You still have to fix things that you’re linking to.

    02:29 People who do SEO audits don’t do the work.

    05:00 Your homepage shouldn’t attract every customer.

    Full Transcript

    (00:01):
    Hey everybody. Sometimes you’re just cleaning and you’re doing stuff. You come up with a good idea.

    (00:06):
    And I was thinking about how as we’re cleaning vacuuming, we come across something and we’re like, Ooh, I need to dust this. Do you ignore it and wait for years? This is how people do SEO audits or, um, redoing their whole site. Like they come up with this idea that they have to have some person, some shiny salesperson come and tell ’em that they have a complete overhaul. That would be like, I’m not gonna vacuum anymore until the cleaning company comes in my apartment and does a move-out clean. And then I’ll have a fresh start. So everything I do from then will work out. That makes no sense. You still have to clean your apartment. You still have to vacuum. You still have to dust. You still have to do laundry.

    (00:56):
    And that’s the same way with SEO. You still have to fix things that you’re linking to.

    (01:03):
    Now, Pew Research came out with some findings that 40, 43% of all, um, links are broken on government sites and whatnot. And we link internally and we link out. So there’s checking for broken links on external sites, which is something I definitely need to do. I mean, I’m saying this as a reminder to myself, too. And then there’s internal.

    (01:33):
    And even though the link works, you may need to update some of that content. For example, the video I did the other day about Twitter still being super relevant in 2025, I linked to the text of my book ’cause you can get this Definitive Guide to Twitter Marketing book as a blog post. And I did some updates to that real quick.

    (01:58):
    But it’s, it’s the internet, it’s not print. So it’s very easy for us if you, if you have access to your own website, very easy to re redo that content. Um, I’m sure there’s articles that are published on bridgetwillard.com that I need to go through. And if I did a whole SEO audit and paid somebody five to two to $5,000, like 500 to $5,000 to do that SEO audit, I would still have to do the work.

    (02:29):
    People who do SEO audits don’t do the work. They just find out where the work needs to be done. It’s like a home inspector. They come in, they tell you all the things that are wrong and they give you a list to go get it done. So when you hire somebody like that, they’re not doing the SEO work for you. They’re just telling you where the SEO of work needs to be done.

    (02:54):
    Oh, Bob, this toilet needs to be fixed. Oh, there this room is isn’t level. It’s like that. It’s a list of tasks that somebody else needs to do. And that audit itself almost always comes up with a list of things that need to be done. Now, they also may for hire, like I said, I was in construction, so we would do building surveys and we would do ’em for a really good price in order to get the work that comes from the building survey. It’s a loss leader.

    (03:29):
    So instead, when you’re writing your content, um, for your website and you do notice that you’re linking to, um, an internal page, either a page or a post that you wrote, go ahead and make a note. Send yourself an email. Make it a to-do list on a kanban board, whatever it takes for you to spend five, 10 minutes on that one article to make sure that it’s, um, you know, done correctly or up to date with.

    (04:08):
    Um, it might not be wrong, wrong, but it still might say things that you don’t necessarily agree with. Um, so that’s a good time to update those.

    (04:18):
    Also, you may think, oh, I don’t really wanna do work with these kind of people anymore. So this language doesn’t make sense. Because sometimes when we’re writing pages, we’re experimenting with language to get that kind of traffic or to meet that person’s needs. Then you might wanna word it a different way.

    (04:38):
    For example, my homepage, um, is all about being a marketing manager’s best friend. Like, I got you. You need four articles more a month. You can’t do it. You have the budget to outsource. I’m your girl. Oh, you’re supposed to do Twitter and LinkedIn. You can’t focus on both. I’ll do one of ’em for you, no problem.

    (05:00):
    But then again, I also do a lot of white-labeled work for WordPress, uh, freelancers and agencies of one who do, who build the website, but maybe they’re not writing the page content. I don’t have a landing page for that. This is a good opportunity to have one.

    (05:21):
    And sometimes we forget that not everybody is our customer. And that’s why when you come across it, that’s a good time for you to go ahead and fix it. I was just vacuuming. I saw a big pile of paper as I moved from my table to under my tv. It’s all dusted. Do I just leave it all dusty? No. I am gonna go get the pledge and clean it up. Maybe the pile of paper comes in my office, but I do need to file those . But you see what I’m saying?

    (05:56):
    You don’t wait for. You can. You can wait until it’s a total mess. But then you have this giant overwhelming task. Instead of doing it as you come across it yourself on your site as you’re thinking of thanks to post on X Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, um, to share on a story link and Instagram, to pull content from to make those social posts. And you see something maybe you don’t agree with, or there’s a link to a vendor you don’t work with anymore, that’s a good time to just get in there and get it done.

    (06:33):
    What you’re working on today, let me know in the comments. Bye everybody.

  • Yes, X (Twitter) is Still Relevant in 2025.

    Yes, X (Twitter) is Still Relevant in 2025.

    If you’re thinking of jumping ship to Bluesky or something, I’d hesitate. People be out here randomly deleting accounts that took them forever to build. This is huge SEO no-no.

    Yes, X (Twitter) is very relevant to 2025 B2B marketing.

    Heck, it’s even relevant for B2C marketing.

    How do you know?

    • Google Alerts
    • Leads (SEO)
    • Google Analytics

    Watch The Video

    Google Alerts and X (Twitter)

    To be honest, the easiest way to find out if X (Twitter) is working is to set up a Google Alert for your name, product, service and set it as an “as-it-happens” update.

    You’ll get emails that show you exactly what’s going on and when Google Bots noticed it.

    google alert screenshot

    Search (Leads) On X (Twitter)

    Any platform that has a search bar is a place for you to optimize how you’re displayed. So, yes, X is good for SEO for on site search. It’s also good for SEO as a result shown in Google for your name or topic. This is why we set up Google Alerts and/or pay attention to Google Analytics.

    Dustin had an epiphany that, to be frank, inspired this post/video. He got a lead and did what all smart owners do, he asked where the lead came from. To his surprise, the client searched “WordPress” in the search bar on X (Twitter). That’s some SEO magic right there.

    What Dustin did right (to be found on X) is posting about his area of expertise. You could do this for any industry.

    “Apparently, I am feeding X properly.

    I got a new client over the weekend and I couldn’t figure out where he came from. So, I asked him. This is what he said.

    SEO for X is now a thing I guess.” Dustin Hyle

    SEO on X (Twitter)

    Check out your analytics on Google. I love real-time analytics. It tells me if someone clicked on a link I posted on X (Twitter). That is, of course, if you’re posting links to your website on X (Twitter).

    Just to show you I posted a link to this blog post on X (so meta). You’ll see people on it.

    Now, this only works if you’ve not published it elsewhere. Think scientific method.

    The first result, for example, was a referral from mail.google.com. So someone subscribed to my blog clicked the link.

    image

    The Definitive Guide To Twitter Marketing Paperback

    Hire Bridget Willard to Manage X (Twitter)

    Yes, I also have plans to manage X for clients.

    Full Transcript

    (00:01):
    Hi everyone, your friend Bridget Willard here. I wanna talk to you a little bit about the platform X, uh, formerly known as Twitter, which we all loved, uh, for a long time.

    (00:14):
    It’s 2025, January four, and I just want to remind you that this is a valid social network regardless of what you think about who owns it, who’s on it, the noise. I have many tips in a book called The Definitive Guide to Twitter Marketing.” It’s also a blog post on bridgetwillard.com. It’s like five or $7 on, uh, on Amazon. It’s a good way to support if you like this video. Thank you very much. Um, but also, this is what I do. I manage Twitter for clients.

    (00:57):
    It’s really important. It was important in 2004, 2003, 2007. Wait, when did it come out? I’m thinking of my miscarriage. Sorry. Uh, I think it was 2006, seven, whatever. I’ll fi I’ll fix it. It’s been, it’s more than 10 years. Okay? So anyway.

    (01:18):
    It’s funny because I came across this tweet. I’m gonna old school this like a Weekend Update News from Dustin. And he’s saying that like he couldn’t believe that, you know, SEO is a thing for Twitter. It is because there’s a search bar.

    (01:35):
    So, um, I know this sounds kind of like snicky and witty and kind of snippety, but. Anytime there’s a search bar, I want to remind you, anytime there’s a search bar, Reddit, Pinterest, Google Maps, Apple Maps, bing, Yahoo, Facebook. Anytime there’s a search bar, there’s an availability to optimize the search results, which is what SEO is.

    (02:04):
    So he says, apparently I’ve been getting X wrong or apparently, let me, how, how about if I turn around so I can read it? “Apparently I’m feeding X properly. I got a new client over the weekend and I couldn’t figure out where he came from. So I asked him.” Mad props for asking where your referrals come from. That’s a totally different video, but it is underdone. So this is what he said. And then Dustin said, “SEO for X is now a thing, I guess,” to which I replied. It’s always been a thing.

    (02:36):
    So the person who reached out to him on December 29th, 2024 through his website, said, “Thanks, Dustin, for the great work. I found you by looking up WordPress on Twitter, which is where I found your profile.” It cannot be understated that being online and being prolific and being available and like he said, “feeding the X properly.” Right? Feed me, Seymour.

    (03:04):
    So if you’re posting and publishing, you’ve probably seen my video about replying. Replying is the power move it always has been. It’s still the power move in 2025. But also there’s been, uh, conflicting data and opinions on whether or not Google, uh, indexes, tweets or posts on X. It does. And the simplest way for you to deal with this is by, um.

    (03:35):
    Is this mirrored? Is this not? This is, this isn’t mirrored. Oh my gosh, I think you, I think this is backwards, but Google Alerts are the best. It is backwards for you. I’m so sorry. Maybe I could flip this video.

    (03:50):
    Anyway, Google Alerts, google.com/alerts. You can set them up. I have ’em come to me as, as it happens. Um, this email I got, um, yesterday, maybe the day before from something that was posted on January two. So it, it will come to you. It was actually me, um, saying the social trend in 2025 is replying. So I was posting that. Um, I’m sorry, I didn’t realize this would be backwards, but you get, you get the picture. I didn’t wanna do a whole loom anyway.

    (04:29):
    Twitter X is super relevant. It’s super important, especially B2B, um, especially, um, for if you have professional services. Um, I, I always remind people that even newscasters are tweeting Carly from, um, the local news service in Corpus Christi tweets out the weather.

    (04:55):
    Uh, you gotta remember that posting on X is, is like a text message. So when things go down and you have bad storm issues and you wanna get um, kind of emergency things going out, Twitter x it’s the place to be. X marks the spot, it’s the place to be. It’s so important.

    (05:18):
    And the thing where business owners kind of get wrong is they’ll post something as they’re thinking about it, but they don’t keep up the regular publishing of things from their website to Twitter. Um, and the reason why they don’t do this is because they hop on when it’s convenient for them. Or they’re like, what’s going on in WordPress right now? What’s going on with the Green Bay Packers right now? And that is search, you know, going on there.

    (05:51):
    One of the main things I think is really important for um, X is super relevant in 2025 is actually knowing user’s intent. You can read their posts and find out exactly what they’re thinking about, exactly what they’re talking about, exactly where they’re, um, getting their who, what vendors they’re using. Are they using SEMrush? Are they using HubSpot, Mailchimp? Are they using BetterCloud? Are they using Dubsado? Are they using Xero? Are they using FreshBooks?

    (06:29):
    They’re posting about the things that they, like, they’re posting about the things that they don’t. Like. I was posting about hp, I thought that Hewlett Packer was like not letting me use my printer ’cause I didn’t sign up their ink. No, Bridget, you bought HP 64 cartridges instead of 67 because you had bronchitis and you shouldn’t have been ordering on the internet. Right? But I stopped myself before I posted that on Twitter, right?

    (06:56):
    So the thing is, it’s super relevant. If you want to learn how to use it for business, I have a totally free Twitter course on my website. I encourage you to literally do it in the order, do all the things that I say. I did go to college to be a teacher. I, it’s, it’s that way for a reason because a lot of times with platforms, we start using the app and then we think we know how to use it. So when you think about the strategy behind it and what you’re trying to accomplish, then how you use the program or the app is completely different. So I would encourage you to go get on that free course again.

    (07:43):
    I do have this book that came out in I think 2021, “The Definitive Guide to Twitter Marketing – I Double Dog Dare You To Try It.” 2021. Yeah, it’s on, it’s on as a free version is on my blog. Again, this is Kindle. This is paperback. This is your manual.

    (08:03):
    Or you can hire somebody like me. I’d be very happy to create a content calendar for you. Um, I, my, my contracts are an invoice. You pay me, I write your tweets. I can either post ’em for you or not and it’s prepaid. And if you don’t wanna do it any longer then you know, that’s fine. I have three different packages. Go to bridget willard.com/pricing. I’ll put a link, um, to it at the end of this video. Um, actually what I’ll put a link to at the end of this video, yeah, I’ll put a link to that at the end of this video.

    (08:39):
    But I really want you to know that Twitter is super relevant. And if you don’t trust me, you don’t have to take my word for it. Just go use it. Go use it. Set up Google Alerts and see what happens.

    (08:54):
    Your friend signing off up from Corpus Christi. Bye!

  • Social Media in 2025 — Reply is the Power Move

    Social Media in 2025 — Reply is the Power Move

    Everyone tells you to publish content. It’s true. You needed to be blogging in 2011 and 2024 and you still need to in 2025. Call it blogging, writing, posting, or publishing, but it still needs to be done.

    Publishing is just the basic move in 2025. It’s expected. It’s the norm. Mid. No cap.

    The real power move is to take time each day to comment on posts from other people. (Or hire someone to do that for you.)

    Replying gives you access to another audience. Replying exposes your content to other people. Replying helps other businesses see you. 

    Replying is the power move. 

    And, you can do it in five minutes a day. 

    That’s not too much to give in 2025. 

    Bonus: 3-2-1 Method for LinkedIn

    3 connections

    2 comments

    1 new post

    You can do it in 5 minutes a day.

    Watch the tutorial here on Loom.

    Full Transcript

    (00:00):

    Hey everybody, it’s your friend Bridget here. I’m just wanting to talk to you a little bit about replying. Replying to other people’s posts is the power move because all when all we’re doing is publishing, publishing, publishing, publishing, we’re like an RSS feed. An RSS feed is a really, really simple syndication, or real simple syndication, I think. Anyway, it’s publishing, it’s broadcasting. It’s like a radio where you’re just talking, talking, talking, and everybody’s there to just listen.

    (00:39):

    I just recently watched the movie called Saturday Night, about the 90 minutes before the first episode of Saturday Night Live, and there was like a feature of Milton Berle in there talking about when he was on radio, he had the attention of 97% of Americans. Well, he was in a unique period of time where radio — wireless, the wireless — was the only option besides being in person somewhere.

    (01:11):

    Now we have the radio — still works. We have, uh, streaming, uh, we have television, television over the air, cable television, various social media platforms, YouTube, um. There’s just so many, it’s almost too difficult to count. And so trying to be the dominant force on any social media platform or any media platform, because it’s all media, is the, is the medium in which you are performing or publishing or broadcasting. So, social media is, is the behavior of being social on that platform.

    (02:00):

    With Milton Berle being on radio, there was no feedback. There were only advertiser advertisers and purchases, and whether or not there are ratings from Nielsen Company, which still exists. And so we’re constantly trying to monitor and monetize and analyze the metrics by which people are engaging with us, right? If I get a Christmas card from you, therefore I’m still relevant, therefore, my brand is still relevant. You know, if I if I get a present from you or a text on my birthday, then I’m still top of mind. So whether it’s personal connections or small business connections, you only have control of, of so much of everybody’s time because it’s all over the place.

    (02:58):

    If you, if you’re still watching this three minutes into this video, how many text messages did you have to swipe away? How many, uh, phone calls from robots did you have to get rid of? How many children were tugging at your shirt? Um, this is the reality. So while you have someone’s — speaking of children, how many cats are meowing in the hallway? — But when you’re replying on somebody else’s post, you’re able to engage in a different way, in a different space and an audience that may have an overlap with yours. So I’m always talking about this is the power move is the reply.

    (03:43):

    Go look for other tweets, posts, whatever they call ’em on Bluesky. I’m just gonna call ’em posts. Look for somebody else’s post and write a comment on it. Or write a comment on that. Or find a comment that you like and like that comment and/or reply to it.

    (04:05):

    Go on Reddit for the category that you’re talking about and upvote somebody’s comment. Reddit is amazing. It’s been such a good driver of traffic and making actual connections for my handyman friend up in Door County, Wisconsin. I replied to somebody else’s post looking for a handyman in Door County. I said, my friend Michael does this. Here’s his website. Boom. That became a job, which became another job, which became another job.

    (04:39):

    Do you remember me talking about, uh, making a video explanation of epoxy injection for Riggins Construction with a point-and-shoot camera a hundred million years ago, three years after that terrible video? Well, it’s not terrible. It’s just like not the best quality. It was me just doing it, right? It explains, it’s still on the internet. You know, look for epoxy injection, Riggins Construction if you want to see how it works. But that video — three years old — that video filmed on a point-and-shoot camera edited by me, you know, roughly very, very raw, brought in one job. That one job was from a customer who owned 12 more buildings. That one small job became $97,000.

    (05:32):

    We, we forget that the content that we’re putting out matters. So go back into the context of a reply. I know this week I just saw it. I wish I could find it. Somebody was posting on X that they, they, they got a DM from someone after they re um, tweeted some — I’m just gonna say tweeted — after they posted and they got a new customer because they were replying.

    (06:01):

    Also, when you reply to a post, it helps that post get more visibility. And so you’re helping your fellow small business person while also giving yourself more visibility in that audience. Sometimes those replies get likes, like on Reddit, they’ll be upvoted. On Instagram, they’ll be liked with a heart. Um, sometimes they can be taken outta context. Sometimes that context, you know, it’s just, it’s important. But still, like that reply I on on LinkedIn.

    (06:40):

    Replying is such a power move because you’re giving yourself, you know, access to a totally different audience. And so when somebody posts on LinkedIn that they just got a new speaking gig or they just got a new promotion, how hard is it for you to say congratulations? In fact, it’s not even that hard on LinkedIn. There’s always these prompts that say, congrats somebody with, you know, you can either press that button or you can add to it. Um, when, when people are, um, posting about this topic or that topic, you adding kind of your take on it is such a huge thing because of that, I’ve been invited, um, to comment, um, or to add my thoughts to running articles on LinkedIn. And the thing is, I don’t even spend that much time on LinkedIn. It’s that we’re always holding our phone in our hand waiting for something to happen. But in addition to publishing your regular content, and I, I for one am getting back to being what I was doing and just going forward, right? Um.

    (08:00):

    You, you have to do the boring work. ’cause sometimes the boring work is spending an extra five minutes on each platform looking for something to comment on. I have a 3, 2, 1 method. Um, there’s a, a little video I did for, um, uh, on Loom that I could definitely, um, post in the comments or the description of this. But, um, you know, look for three things to comment on or look for. I forgot the exact order, but I’ll, I’ll have to go look it up. ’cause I, you know, I forgot my own advice. But basically I, it was like one new post, two replies, and three connections that you can either follow or, um, connect with, you know, so you can mix that up. Like you can find three things to comment on, one thing to post one friend to like, but either way make it a routine that’s part of your daily function so that you don’t get lost.

    (09:04):

    I mean, how many people have you forgotten? You know, that Dunbar number of 150 people that we can only keep track of? How many people would be like, oh yeah, who’s that one guy that not, he doesn’t just build websites, he makes a recipe app. Or who’s that one lady that teaches Pinterest? Gosh, I forgot. Because you’re not interacting with them and you’re not interacting with them ’cause you are not replying. They’re not replying. And we’re all beholden to some algorithm that constantly changes, changes.

    (09:38):

    Anyway, why don’t you just be, take the behaviors you would have in a mixer at a party, at a Christmas party and chamber event and just do that same thing. Go up to somebody, be part of the conversation. It’s really not difficult, but it’s not sexy, it’s not fancying, it’s not something that I’m gonna send you a guide on. It’s just something you have to do. You know, if, if you wanna make videos every day, then sit down at your desk, clean it off and make your videos. If you wanna send an email out to your people, get a MailChimp account and do it. But I would suggest that you stop making excuses. Don’t get stuck in the weeds of how is this gonna happen. Use the tools you already have and that’s why reply is such a power move. You don’t have to create the content, you just reply to it.

    (10:38):

    Anyway, my name is Bridget Willard. If you haven’t seen me before, or if you’re seeing me now, I write content for websites, articles, long form, short form. I rewrite your web pages, I do social media content strategy one-on-ones, and I’m here for you in the Corpus Christi, Texas area. Um, or online. Put the Zoom consultation and hey, reply to this video. Tell me what you’re working on. What do you need help with, what could I help you with? We’ll see if, bye.