What Makes Content Stick w/ Victoria Blinova (YouTube)

0:00What I aim to achieve is educate as much people as possible that content creation is accessible to everyone and anyone and anyone. can truly help you grow as a business or as a human being.

0:20Hey, Victoria, welcome to the show. How are you? Hi, Alessandra. I'm good. How are you? I'm very good, thank you, and very excited about this episode. I already know that we're going to get very little gems in different categories, right? and we're going to talk about linking videos and content, you know, and how to do like, you know, employee-generated content and also how smaller brands can really get the best out of influencer marketing, all the creative economies. So I'm pretty sure there's going to be very practical, a lot of actual items for people listening today. But before we get started, why don't you tell us a bit about yourself?

0:53And we use this thing called the map. Basically, it's divided in three different sections. The first one is the mission. You know, what do you aim to achieve with your work? The achievements, anything they are really proud of could be career or life. And the last one is the purpose. So why do you do what you do? This is a very heavy one. I really struggle with this, but I'll do my very, very best. What I aim to achieve is educate as much people as possible that content creation is accessible to everyone and anyone. And that can truly help you grow as a business or as a human being. In terms of achievements, I've been around.

1:30I've done a lot. might look like a teenager, but I have previously worked in management consulting and worked at Nestle where I've led on digital marketing, trained salespeople on how to essentially grow their employee and personal brands way before it was even cool to do that on LinkedIn. We did that on LinkedIn. Some of the major achievements was doing the digital communications for Nestle during COVID in times when everything was closed and I currently work at YouTube initially in marketing and now in partnerships where I work with the biggest YouTube creators and I help them grow from zero to millions of subscribers sometimes in as short as one year.

2:18I'll just add a bit to my purpose where I love working with content creators and And of course, they're incredibly artistic people and have one million ideas. But I also truly enjoy working with startups, especially I've had the honor of working with quite a few female led startups and truly, truly help them grow from, you know, hundreds of profile visits, thousands to tens of thousands traffic or when it comes to social media, quite a lot with content creation. Because honestly speaking, I do believe that social media and content creation is one of these ways to socially elevate yourself, not just through content, but as in a social lift where you're a founder who's very broke to a founder who's actually making a great living.

3:05So that's also really, really feeds into my purpose. Amazing. And I would love to hear, you know, a bit more now also about like tips and tricks, right? Because, again, there is so much these days on the internet. Every day there is a different algorithm, different rules. You have to do this and tomorrow that, right? So let's start talking about, you know, LinkedIn. We already discussed about LinkedIn B2B, influencer marketing, and in general, content creation on LinkedIn in the past episodes. Myself, I also started to do more, you know, short form videos. They are fun to do, in my opinion. Like, you know, you need like the initial hook to get the attention and everything.

3:38And I can see that they work well, especially now with the dedicated section, right? on LinkedIn where you can actually just scroll videos. So you also like went viral on LinkedIn. You also create videos that also teach others how to get potentially viral and how to structure the work. Can you tell me a bit more about the main steps and some tips in your opinion to get the best content out there for LinkedIn for both individuals, but also brands? Sure, sure. So there's around four steps. I'll probably have a fifth bonus tip, but in short, just like you said, the most important thing is the hook.

4:12I'll reiterate that 90 % of your short form video success is from the hook. So if you don't have an interesting hook, just forget about it. Similarly to movies, right? People invest so much money in marketing in that banner of the movie or that cover of the book for a very good reason. If the cover is not good, people are not going to buy. Similarly to this video, if you don't have a very strong hook, people are not going to watch. Just how we work. So that's the one most important tip. Two, I'd say storytelling. Really, really important. Most people missed out on it. I think, Alessandra, like you said, you're trying out videos.

4:50It's such a good way to start. But I do believe that the people who will stay are the ones that have very, very good storytelling. And pro tip here, if you're doing a video, what I've seen worked really well is having a very strong sense of rhythm. So think of it sometimes as a poem, as a music track, whatever it is. Because now we are transformed from just text to listening to something. Even if you're listening without sound, you'll still have the text. So just storytelling will be very, very important, but rhythm too. Three, value. Obviously, if it's a BS piece of content, please just don't even.

5:29But there's different ways to show value. As in, it could be something incredibly educational. It could be something incredibly funny. it could be something incredibly beautiful that is so aesthetically pleasing that it brings value to the user so just make sure it's just something that you're so so so proud of when you upload and frankly speaking i've struggled with this point a lot because you will really really go on and off of what would mean so hook storytelling value and my last point but this is really important but this is more about getting roi from your videos is call to action so i struggle a lot In regards to this, I see so many creators have millions of followers and are, frankly speaking, sometimes not getting a lot of revenue like at all because they don't have strong call to action.

6:14So do think of that, especially if you're a brand listening, have a very strong call to action, not something incredibly salesy, just depends on the video. But it could be always something along the lines of follow for part two. This is probably the last time you're seeing me on the feed. So if you like this content, follow whatever it is. Or it could be just like an animated sticker that reminds you to follow that creator. But the call to action can really make or break your ROI. And on this point, it reminds me when I don't recall VU exactly, but a contact creator was saying many times you just have to say like, hey, give me a follow.

6:49Or if you like these, just like click on the like. Just telling, reminding people is not simple. Oh, 100%. And I mean, a lot of contact creators are really shy about that. They're like, oh, I don't want to beg. I don't want to ask. I'm like, yeah, but how are you going to build loyalty? How are you by not like, I mean, people are asking for investment all the time. People are literally asking for money. You're just going to ask for a follow. You're not asking for much. And two, I can talk numbers since we're being practical here. So I had a video get a million views recently. So around 10 days ago, two weeks ago.

7:21And I didn't have a call to action there because I just, I was posting for brand awareness, nothing, you know, I don't know. I got maybe something embarrassing, maybe like 200 followers from it. 1 million views, 200 followers, something like that. Disaster. Now I would intend to make sure to have an outro where I say, by the way, P.S., I'm ex-Nestle, currently at Google. If you're interested, follow for more tips. Now I got a million views again on a post. I mean, easily, I think 500 followers. So like easily, you know, 5X'd my followership. followership and this is mine to you that a lot of linkedin creators right now are complaining that you don't get followers from the videos but i'm i can bet money on the fact that they just don't have a clear call to action towards the end of their video interesting yeah again you know just saying sometimes like you know follow could help and and and what about the hooks instead because that is also not easy sometimes right because you have to come out with something very i don't want to say clever all the time but getting the attention of people and we are in the tension economy how do you come out with hooks is it just like yourself is it like looking at other things around is it chachivity prompt help is it a combination of things honestly this one i have a very controversial opinion but i just believe just do what works i don't understand when people try to reinvent a hook every single time i personally what i've done is this was easily a while ago maybe six months ago there was a post that literally had 100 viral hooks or something like that i downloaded them and they were generic but very very powerful very very powerful hooks where it said like x tips from x influential person that got me x results in x days or something so you all you do is fill it out and of course i make so one just use hooks that actually genuinely work and change them towards your niche and category obviously don't make it look like you copy pasted but this is what works so why the data shows that these are viral hooks this was from a very good content creator and then just copy paste this is what i believe in or use a structure again that works for your brand for your niche and then again just constantly reinvent no one notices this is these things and even if they do why would someone judge you for using a system that works i don't believe in their cooking hooks every single time got it and And in addition to these tips, have you noticed any other common trends for like getting successful, like on LinkedIn specifically when it comes to videos?

9:50Yeah, yeah. So when it comes to videos specifically. So obviously there's a trend of the talking head, but I believe that that will change. So there's talking head meaning, you know, you open your phone and you're talking to the camera, you're very charismatic, blah, blah, blah, blah. I believe that the reason it's a trend right now is not because it's actually a format that works. It's just a format that's easiest to create. So then all the CEOs and founders are getting on that trend and everyone's saying it's a trend. Works and it is working right now. So good. So just do it. So what works is like just doing it.

10:24And, you know, some creators are speculating about creating content 10 videos a week. This is crazy, but I'm sure it will work because that's volume. That's great. So one thing that works is talking heads and volume. Another thing I believe works even better is value. you and again I'll elaborate here try doing something different so people that are constantly going viral right now on LinkedIn they have out of the box videos so apparently what I have is videos are a bit like they say like Instagram like TikTok like meaning I have a voice over where I try to quite powerfully use my voice to in very nice rhythm talk about a day in my life or something that bothers me throughout the workday a lesson that I've learned with some rhythm talk about something that works or doesn't work in my workday but I use b-roll so I use different videos of me working by the computer going for a walk I don't know um like talking working with a colleague in my office so instead of so this is this like a level higher where instead of just recording myself speaking I have some editing some rhythm something to it and immediately I get a lot more views than a typical talking head.

11:36The reason being is because there's a bit more value there. You're just bringing in slightly more quality content where someone knows that you spend time doing that video. That helps. And the third thing I think will work really, really well is when you go crazy, where there's some creators that do incredibly complex editing skills. And it's also about work and about how their company is growing. That works so well. And is there anything else in addition to videos that still works on LinkedIn? Because all the time, again, the algorithm changes, right? Before it was only text and then text with image and then carousels and this and that.

12:12What is working now? Oh, I think obviously text will still work. And I mean, at the end of the day, that's the bread and butter of the platform or that's how at least I perceive it. Yeah, text still works really, really well. One thing that works really, really powerfully, I'm not a huge supporter of it, but if you're a brand that really wants reach now and I don't know, your CEO is ripping their hair off, try the halo effect, meaning talk about a creator that's massive on LinkedIn. Ideally, if you have a photo with them, great. If not, because creators on LinkedIn are very, tend to be responsive.

12:44So that will give you insane reach. I've tried that. I've met a few creators, posted posts about them and the reach was insane. Interesting. Yeah, because you're getting content plus the network effect, right? And also the authority of the person. Exactly. And the thing is, it's a bit different versus other platforms. On LinkedIn, it's all about the comments, I guess a little bit like X slash Twitter. So that creator, especially if you took a photo of them, they will immediately respond and their community will come to your post, pretty much guaranteed. That's not necessarily the case in all other platforms.

13:16So if you do that regularly, I mean, you can literally maybe do a series where you, I don't know, roast that creator or I don't know, have a collaboration with them or maybe even if it's not a collaboration, but something where you regularly talk to that creator, even if it's a battle, whatever it is, that can be some really, really massive reach. That's how a lot of creators grow, to be honest. Yeah, you're right, because you're going from your first connections to second degrees of connection and even third, right? Because these days, if someone comments that is not necessarily connected with you, but is connected with someone else you're connected with, right?

13:50They're going to see the content and you expand your network and yeah. Yeah, yeah, that's also exactly the way. And then as we know, or as we don't know, LinkedIn is not just about the posts, right? It's highly, highly also about the comments. So whatever comments you have. So if a big creator comments under your post, it's going to be shown on so many feeds. So in a way, you know, every time you post, you want to do at least 10 comments because that way, essentially your profile goes on someone's feed where you don't just basically when you look, scroll through your feed on LinkedIn, you don't just see the posts.

14:22You also see comments. Quite literally, you see Alessandro commented under Victoria's photo saying this, and you will see the entire comment. So that's incredibly, incredibly powerful. So leveraging that on top with massive creators will give you reach. Is your brand ready to amplify its reach? Well, the influencer marketing factory is here for you. We are a global influencer marketing agency helping brands ignite their growth. From influencer identification to campaign strategy, handling legalities and agreements to managing shipping and logistics, we got you all covered. We work with hundreds of brands across different verticals from Fortune 500 companies to direct-to-consumer brands.

15:02And we don't just stop there. With detailed ROI analysis will help brands like yours measure success, transforming impressions into conversions. You can find us at theinfluencermarketingfactory.com or just searching the Influencer Marketing Factory on Google. Fantastic. I could talk about this for hours, but I also want to ask something now on the, it's kind of similar, right? But it's still on content, right? In another episode, we talk many, many times about UGC, right? So user-generated content. We all know about it, you know, it's been more and more popular. A lot of brands are paying, not only like anymore, right?

15:39Influencers with millions of followers or even like niche influencers, but we all know, right? That they pay also creators that might not have either a following, but they are creating content, right? And we already know about that. But something else that has been happening already in the past years, you already kind of mentioned at the beginning of the episode, it's also creating content in a company, but thanks to employees, right? So it's the, you know, EGC, right? Employee generated content. They can like a lot of traction on certain platforms. LinkedIn, but not only that, right? Because I saw in the past, especially when it comes to consumer goods, a lot of TikTok videos of employees in the store, for instance, right?

16:15Talking about a product. And it's always interesting. Certain companies love it. And they actually, you know, either compensate or help creators, like employees becoming creators. Other companies, I was like, you cannot do that. We don't really like this. Please stop now, right? I see both of them. But let's say that instead, you know, the company listening now is I want to look into this. I want to have my employees actually becoming creators and generate content from a company. Let's start with that. Like, first of all, is it something that comes natural? Is it something that should come from management?

16:46Tell me a bit more about that. I think it depends on your organization, but I'd say most organizations can take advantage of this. It's like such a great way to grow, honestly. So Nestle is quite good about it. And I've personally trained salespeople to grow on LinkedIn specifically back in 2018, 2019. So way before it was cool. And I'd say basically, in short, it's not easy, but it's so worth it. So let's say you have a sales force. I think that's typically when you need this the most. So you have a bunch of salespeople that are out there selling your product. They are representing your brand already one-on-one in person.

17:25Why don't you want them to represent your brand on social media? And moreover, I'd say if you're the kind of brand that says, no, we don't like this, don't do this. What? I'm sorry. Excuse me, what? Like these salespeople are already doing this in person by knocking on the door of that person or calling them. Why are they not allowed to do this at scale? What do you mean? I think it's a must that you have a way to give them the right tools to empower them. Like a must. If you're not doing that, you're literally closing down a very significant sales channel for yourself because you believe you can't create a tool to empower these salespeople.

18:02So a way to do this is, one, have a very solid tool. I don't necessarily recommend that that much, but if you have a massive organization, that would be very, very helpful. Nestle was doing that. We had a tool, literally intranet, that you log in and automatically you get these shortlisted posts that you can literally copy paste. You click on it and voila, you have a LinkedIn post, a Facebook post, whatever post that's already approved by the organization. So that's one way you can do it. Then there's the mechanism way of in like you have a person in-house or even an agency, whoever it is, or you are like just a manager that wants to get this kick started.

18:37One, have a quick training with your sales team and explain to them the value of it, the benefit of it, what works, what doesn't work. But don't scare them and say that if you post something, you get fired. Please don't do that. I mean, with social media, it's a risky environment, but that's what it is. It's like high risk, high return. So you need to be okay with mistakes happening. And if they do happen, just ask that employee to make sure they delete things. Obviously, if you're a publicly traded company, that's a bit different. Well, then you have enough resources and you probably don't need this podcast.

19:10Basically, one, train your sales team. Make sure it's like make them not feel afraid. to create a mechanism of ongoing communication. In our situation was we had a WhatsApp group where we regularly posted updates. I created this program called Post Tuesday. So every single Tuesday, I would send a post that they're all more than welcome to just copy paste and put it on their LinkedIn page in a way to incentivize them. Then I also did a repost Thursday where I would recommend people to repost something on Thursday. So that way, the sales team knew that every Tuesday and every Thursday, there was this like post-Tuesday and reposters and it was like an alarm clock falling through.

19:49Now, in terms of how this works, first few months, people will be excited, probably will do this for you. Later down the line, they won't. So here, very, very important part of the mechanism. Keep going. Keep going for at least a year. I know this sounds really difficult or sad, but that's unfortunately how ambassadorship works. It takes time to build this even internally. But what will happen over time over that year some of your employees will be those dedicated people and they'll keep posting every Tuesday and Thursday and they'll keep keep keep following your steps and this is when they become those superstars I had people who grew to 5 ,000 on LinkedIn back then in 2018-2019 that was a big deal and the product was quite difficult it was coffee it wasn't that they were talking about like productivity tips they were talking about coffee machines so that was a bit you know so then I had these people who would grow and this is where the last step comes in is then you do like a stars program where you get these people to train the rest of the sales team so that way you're not the only one you then have like proper ambassadorship internally that way it's just like becomes this very positive mechanism of reinforcing itself so one train your sales team don't make them afraid two have an ongoing communication very very simple to constantly remind them unfortunately you would need to do it for a very long time in order to get true ambassadorship.

21:12Three, once those ambassadors start growing, probably after a year, make sure they truly start representing and training the rest of the sales team. And slowly, you'll have true influencers in-house that will constantly train others and keep growing the brand essentially for free. Fantastic. When it comes to these, would you give still, let's say, you know, one year pass, right? And you have them with the sort of copy-paste it already, you know, approved content, especially as we said, like either a public trade company or a big company with a lot of like, you know, PR and policies in place. Would you then potentially say and allow people within certain guidelines also to come up with their own content or it's too risky?

21:54100%. So yes, I didn't include this as much into the mechanism, but basically what we also allowed people to do as much as possible is we had certain days where we said, this is world's coffee jay how about you know take a picture with your nescafe coffee mug and tell us why you like working in nestle or nescafe or like what inspires you when you drink a cup of coffee at work so we would give prompts to do that for a certain so this great created quite a bit of freedom people took selfies people you know talked about their work day so definitely do that that actually will accelerate engagement but i purposely didn't include that because it is a bit risky and Not everyone is comfortable with it, but ideally you would suggest prompts and give, let's say, content pillars and specific questions that will inspire your employees to be completely, you know, like free and just express their opinion in regards to certain topics because that will help even faster growth.

22:51Amazing. And this can work for, you know, at scale, of course, with bigger companies, but I'm also pretty sure that you can maybe start it a bit smaller also with that. even with a startup it would be even easier right because there are less maybe sleuth we have a different framework for startups which I've also done with SEO so in case you want to write blogging and we got really good results there where one of our blogs was on the first page of Google and got thousands and thousands of traffic so in short here what I recommend you to do let's say if you're a startup you're a bit more free with content essentially have a calendar for every week and decide what is your bandwidth, let's say.

23:31Typically with LinkedIn, it would be ideally three posts, one that inspires, one that educates, and one that informs, which means like talks about the news. So you're saying, okay, every week I need those three posts done. Again, something that inspires, educates, informs. So then you're saying, okay, we want a post about inspiration. So Rita, can you answer one of these 10 questions? And I mean, use ChatGPT, whatever it is. what what inspires me in like what is so inspirational about I don't working in my category or maybe answer a question about what inspires you to get through the week whatever it is basically give that person those prompts so they know how to write that post and they feel like they're answering a question versus writing something from scratch which is very intimidating from any person then there's the educational content you're like okay I want something educational there you're like Bob Bob I know you're an expert in I don't know the most fancy coffee machines on the planet can you write an educational post on how to identify like the best coffee machine and not lose money with your corporate team or just be as technical as possible because this is an educational piece you know and then that person writes that educational piece and then last but not least there's a third piece of content which is news worthy content you want to write something about the news you're like oh jessica like do you mind looking at the news of the week and writing a piece on what is your personal opinion about, you know, sales in coffee in the Middle East, whatever it is, and just write it and refer to the article or the news that you've read and, you know, post it.

25:06So then you can do that. That way, again, you give very specific guidance to each employee, what they write about. And every week, you essentially ask people to submit the content. So that's what I was doing for SEO for a startup ones and we our target was one article per week so every week we would have someone writing those articles and myself as let's say the the lead for marketing i would edit those posts and sure that they're like super polished towards the end but the whole meet was completely written by employees so we had posts about a startup in tech so we had posts about coding games and what does it mean to code with Python versus, you know, another language?

25:45And what does it feel like to be a woman in tech? Or like we had just all sorts of different pieces of content, all written by employees. I would just polish them and help them, you know, bring it to the platform. But basically, as long as you have these weekly kind of guidelines, that really works. Amazing. Yeah, different ton of voices, different point of view, very specific and be consistent, right? And it just helps to be very authentic because it's very hard it's immediately i think the reason we got traffic is because well one it was a co optimization but two it's because because there were so many different voices you could tell was authentic you could tell you know even whatever even there is that type or you knew that this was clearly written by a product manager from this uh startup so you feel like you know you're really connecting with this company i love this approach because i mean it's not going to be that easy i guess right to to organize and have everything like you know everyone be okay i'm gonna do this this week and everything but i like this approach because uh yeah it's easier to have maybe only one writer right but at the end of the day either maybe they finish the the ideas uh you know or or the writing style is gonna be the same and you know maybe again you want sometimes a bit of diversity in that and having different 100 and here's a quick tip in case it's like increase the sounds overwhelming a quick tip to do this maybe you can do a monthly one where you ask 10 very interesting questions let's like you know what gets you out of bed you know what's your favorite movie whatever it is and the employee just needs to answer these 10 questions and then that could be part of your monthly piece of content where you're just inspiring people to join your company essentially you're saying look we have these fun people and they all have these cool answers to these 10 quirky questions that's also a way to truly connect at scale because where else will you get to you know go and truly you know read about what the company culture is like that can just be really really helpful and here again you just need someone to fill out the questionnaire and then someone to publish it love it again i would i would continue for like another good hour or even more just go into all these tips and tricks because i'm very very practical i already knew that this episode was going to be that, you know, that full of it.

27:57But unfortunately, we are, you know, at a time. But I wanted to ask you, Victoria, is there anything else that I did not ask you today that you are either like really looking forward to see in the world of social media? Is there anything else that we, again, didn't ask you that you want to share with us? Well, one, I do want to mention that if you're a LinkedIn fanatic or in general, just really into content creation even on other platforms feel free to send me a dm mentioning the name of this podcast and what will happen is the first 20 people that dm me i'm happy to respond with a personalized voice note giving feedback on your linkedin profile or whatever i see on your page and see as an opportunity i love to do these because again it's all about personal connection I don't believe that, you know, it all has to stay so light touch.

28:46I love the high touch angle. So that's one. Two, I think something I can talk about forever is influencer marketing. And I think there's a very big emergence of B2B and how I'm fascinated how brands get to now use LinkedIn influencers on the platform. I can talk about that forever. But in short, I think it's a massive opportunity for brands. And if you're a brand that has a bit of budget, if you're B2B, if you're not investing in LinkedIn influencers, why are you not? I agree 100%. We did actually, you know, a few episodes exactly on that. We talked about very specifically on the opportunity. It's still a sort of, I would say, a blue ocean right now, right?

29:24There is something going on and moving, like moving pieces, but that much more can be done. And I think that, especially now in terms of, I mean, of course, you know, maybe pricing sometimes could be a bit higher than other platforms because it's very to be oriented and you're paying professionals, right? There might be a bit pickier, right? There may be someone on TikTok because you have a reputation, right? So there are totally different rules, right? Compared to maybe many others, but I agree with you. It's a big one for like a lot of opportunities. And with that said, Victoria, thank you so much again for joining me today, for sharing all your knowledge and also good luck with your next videos.

29:59I'm pretty sure that many others are going to go out. So it's literally going to continue following And we're going to add your LinkedIn link also, of course, in the description. So as we said, anyone who wants to connect with you can easily do that in that way. Thank you. Thank you. I enjoyed this so much. Honestly, great job on the podcast. And I really look forward to connecting more and hopefully see you in LA or USA or wherever. Absolutely. Absolutely. Thank you so much, Victoria. This was the Influence Factor by the Influence and Marketing Factor. And I'll see you next week.