If you’re new here, welcome! I’m Eva Jannotta and I help experts—thought leaders, authors, speakers and academics—grow their online platform via LinkedIn, email, and content marketing.

TL;DR: LinkedIn’s algorithm changes all the time, so I recommend caution with how much you change your strategy to suit an algorithm’s whims. On the other hand, there are tweaks you can make to your LinkedIn strategy—such as putting posts in the comments and changing how you write posts—that will likely boost your reach and engagement. And good news: you can continue to use a scheduling tool, and you can stop using hashtags entirely!

Use the menu below to find the question you most want answered, and you’ll find a list of all my sources below. Now, on to the show:

Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About LinkedIn but Were Afraid to Ask (just kidding)

• Link in the post or comments?
• Do scheduled posts get less engagement on LinkedIn?
• Hashtags: are they dead?
• Just f***ing ask
• Pending: Engagement within the first hour?
• Pending: How important is video content?
• Sources

I also share my favorite social media scheduling tool (hint: MeetEdgar) and what to consider when choosing your LinkedIn content strategy. Let’s get right into it:

Links in the post or the comments (or no links at all)?

You’ve heard the rumors: LinkedIn’s algorithm throttles links in posts. Outbound links in posts hurt reach and engagement. Links in the comments are the way to go.

Is it true? (Yes.) Below I’ll get into why this makes sense, why I hate it, alternatives that still let you share valuable content, sources and more:

• Why discouraging post links makes business sense for LinkedIn
• Alternatives to link posts on LinkedIn
  • Link the comments
  • No links at all
  • Write-post-edit
• How to choose your LinkedIn content strategy

Why, LinkedIn, why?

Kicking link posts to the curb, algorithmically speaking, makes sense from LinkedIn’s perspective as a company. It better serves their bottom line to keep people on their website, seeing the features and seeing the ads. But I called this a rumor. Is it actually true, and how do we know?

YES.

I link to my sources at the end of this post but the conclusion is: multiple tests have shown that LinkedIn does punish posts with outbound links—and I have heard confirmation from a LinkedIn employee that this is true. That means that links to LinkedIn newsletters won’t be throttled; only links to other websites.

Frankly, I hate this. I want to learn from experts and share education I find valuable. The easiest and most convenient way to do both is via—you guessed it!—posts with links: they’re easy to click and easy to publish and don’t require special maneuvering. And, education and information from reputable media sources are important for vetting and quality-control.

HOWEVER, I (grudgingly) concede that there’s an upshot to this. If you focus on providing value in your post content (rather than teasing the value of content in an article on another site), you’re “serving people where they are” (see writing for more on this). That’s good, right?

Right. But still, it’s limiting: you can’t provide much depth in a 3000 character limit post, and again: articles published by reputable media are important.

Nonetheless, LinkedIn will never consult us on their algo decisions so here we are. What are your options to provide valuable, informative, and scroll-stopping content while avoiding link posts?

Alternatives to Link Posts on LinkedIn

1. Put the link in the comments

This is the most common workaround. The problem with it is that it’s a worse user experience. It’s frustrating to have to comb through comments to access the article everyone’s talking about. LinkedIn briefly allowed you to pin comments, which at least ensured it was easy to find the linky-comment, but not anymore.

And, if you’re visually impaired or have challenges with your motor skills, combing through comments to find the elusive link is tedious at best and prohibitive at worst. Per Axbom has a helpful piece with more about this and I recommend it: Why ”link in comments” is a bad idea for LinkedIn accessibility.

I wouldn’t be surprised if the algo starts punishing links in the comments eventually, too. In fact, Sangfroid Studio and SocialPilot state that you shouldn’t be the first person to comment on your own post.

They don’t provide evidence that commenting on your own content hurts reach, but it wouldn’t surprise me—if LinkedIn wants to encourage community engagement and discourage outbound links, punishing self-commenting a link would be a straightforward way to do so. Point is, don’t get too attached, and consider this next approach:

2. Don’t share links at all

Why I like this:

On one hand, it’s a great practice to give people the information they want without asking them to leave and read something else. It’s convenient for readers (and LinkedIn loves it too for bottom-line reasons). You can still provide valuable education (albeit shorter form) by summarizing points from an article, quoting and/or tagging the experts, even including the title of the original article so avid nerds can find and read it at length.

Think of your LinkedIn post as the CliffNotes, plus some networking best-practices. This link-independent format is also The One for riffing and storytelling posts, two post types that we’re investing in more heavily for clients in 2025.

Why I don’t like this:

Pardon me for being a snob but there’s a lot of unoriginal, marshmallow content on LinkedIn. Instead of interesting ideas and stories, I see a lot of mimicry and platitudes and “best practices” disguised as new thinking. Punishing link posts opens the door for MORE of this—in absence of being able to link to a good article, I suspect many will

1. panic and say nothing, depriving us of their contributions or
2. follow suit and share blasé nonsense (lookin’ at you, broetry).

My friend, video producer Andy Robinson, said it this way: “we need more credible experts online.” There are many ways to build credibility, and citing sources, related experts, and resources are involved. So while link-free content appeals to me on many levels, it does have limitations.

3. The “write-post-edit” method

This is where you publish your post sans link, wait for about 20 minutes, then add the link in. John Espirian wrote about it here, and notes:

“I don’t believe this works as effectively as it used to in 2020 and 2021. However, as visibility penalties for editing posts seem to have diminished in recent times, there may still be some value in this method. Note that editing a post to insert a link means that the post will not display the link thumbnail.”

How to choose your LinkedIn content strategy

Let me be clear about my bias: my priority is user experience over what “the algorithm” wants, and my outlook is that LinkedIn is a tool. We use the tool as a means to an end, but as soon as we start pandering to the tool, it’s using us. I think I’m right (obviously), but: I know my bias makes me resist making tweaks to our content strategy that will both provide a good user experience and make the algorithm happy.

Given that LinkedIn can change its algorithm any ol’ time without our consent, we are future-proofing our LinkedIn content strategy by:

• Sharing a variety of post types and flavors. I recommend 50-70% original content to 30-50% curated, and a mix of educational, storytelling, riffing, offer, and feature flavors. I also recommend experimenting with different mediums: text, video, imagery, carousels, and more. Variety helps keep your content engaging with the diverse array of people in your audience, which signals to LinkedIn that your content is popular and valuable.
• Creating posts that serve people with the content alone. We think of this as “synopsis” over “teaser” content. This provides value without people needing to go/click elsewhere and makes for longer posts which signals to the algorithm that folks are spending time on your work.
• Proactively commenting on other people’s work to grow and strengthen your network. It’s my opinion that comments you write yourself are more valuable than AI-generated ones, but that’s a topic for another blog post.
• Respond to comments on your own posts. Don’t ignore the people who engage with you!
• Use DMs, both text and voice memo, to privately grow and strengthen your network. See the Just F***ing Ask section for more.
• Don’t rely solely on LinkedIn for all your lead generation, network growth, audience growth, or really anything.

If you have questions about how any of this works and you’re curious about working with me, fill out our brief inquiry and we’ll talk.

Do scheduled posts get less engagement on LinkedIn?

Another rumor! You’ve probably heard it about social media in general: that scheduling posts using a tool like Buffer or Hootsuite hurts your reach and engagement, and the only way to avoid this is by posting manually in real-time (or, presumably, using LinkedIn’s native scheduling feature) which = inconvenient.

This *might* work for you if you…

• have an employee or contractor dedicated to social media (me neither), or
• do well with all spontaneity and no advanced-planning (me neither), or
• you’ve figured out a Goldilocks social media content calendar that is somehow user-friendly and flexible and easy to maintain (me neither, and I’ve never met another expert or thought leader for whom any of the above is true).

But is the rumor even true? No. Which is great news: There is no evidence that posts using a scheduling software get less engagement or reach on LinkedIn. Cue a deep sigh of relief.

But are there any caveats?? Why wouldn’t you use a social media scheduling tool? Let’s discuss:

• Your scheduling tool is the cake (you can add icing)
• Advice to ignore
• Why people think scheduling tools hurt reach
• The scheduling tool we use at Medusa Media

Your scheduling tool is the cake (and you can add icing!)

The benefits of social media scheduling tools are many (Tactycs has a good overview, plus what to consider if your engagement is low) and this is what I always say to clients:

“Attention goes where energy flows.”

Meaning: what’s great about having your social media consistently prescheduled is you don’t have to think about it. You don’t have to rely on elusive inspiration, you don’t wake up at 2 AM thinking oh-shit-I-haven’t-posted-in-three-weeks, you don’t have to cudgel your brains about what to say and how and when. AND, if and when you ARE inspired, if and when you have something you want to talk about in the moment, YOU CAN DO THAT TOO.

And you may find that those posts outperform many of your prescheduled ones—not because you didn’t use a scheduler, but because you spoke from the heart about something timely and topical and energized. Your audience will pick up on that and respond accordingly.

It’s both/and: have a schedule that lets you reap the benefits of consistency, and add icing to that cake when the spirit moves you.

Some advice you can ignore

“Good” marketing advice can be alienating for experts and thought leaders. You read it and it sounds wise, but it’s often difficult to actually DO, and it’s not clear if doing it will make a measurable difference. Case and point, Google offered me this advice when I was researching this section (bolded emphasis mine):

“Social media schedulers have provided remarkable convenience by allowing us to pre-plan and batch-process content, ensuring a consistent posting schedule. However, there’s a significant trade-off: visibility. Many social networks, including LinkedIn, have started deprioritizing link-based content, which tends to be the bulk of what we schedule through these tools…. That’s because the social media algorithms prioritize fresh, dynamic content that engages users in real-time. Social networks are also in the business of keeping people on their platform as long as possible, which videos and photos (and, in the case of LinkedIn, sheer text posts) help them do.

Living in the feed is essential for understanding what content is currently resonating. Algorithms favor content that garners immediate engagement, and being in the feed enables you to interact with other users and contribute to trending conversations in real-time. This daily engagement provides valuable insights into content types and formats that are currently performing well.”

“Living in the feed”!? No! Just no.

You don’t have to live in the feed to grow your audience, opportunities and authority on LinkedIn (see our Client Impact Reports or capabilities deck for examples of clients success that did not require “living” in any “feeds”).

And if you’re an expert or thought leader who’s writing a book or articles, teaching, consulting, and speaking, I can GAH-RON-TEE you don’t have the time or inclination to live in your feed, no matter how on-point it sounds as marketing advice.

Besides which, this marketing advice doesn’t offer any evidence that the claims are true. I came across a LOT of unsubstantiated claims about scheduling tools throttling reach—some heard it from so-and-so at such-and-such conference, but many didn’t offer even a whiff of a citation for the claim.

Next.

Why do people think scheduling tools hurt reach?

According to a 2020 article by Tim Hill of Social Status, it may be because as social media platforms have created their own scheduling function, it gives the impression they want to replace 3rd party scheduling tools—perhaps for the same reasons I mentioned above about why LinkedIn punishes outbound links.

But there’s no evidence that this is true, and social media platforms making it harder to publish content at all would also fly in the face of their business goals.

He said, she said, and your mileage may vary, but: until I see research-based evidence that there’s a difference in performance between natively-scheduled and 3rd-party-scheduled content, I’ll keep using a scheduling tool for all the additional convenience, archiving, planning, rearranging abilities it offers.

Speaking of social media scheduling tools, I use MeetEdgar

I like MeetEdgar* because of how it’s library and archive are organized, and—this is the clincher—because it has a “ReQueue” feature. This feature automatically recycles content, consistently re-sharing evergreen posts to get the most mileage out of the most enduring thought leadership.

We keep a sharp eye on all our clients’ queues to make sure all content is optimized before it goes out regardless, but this feature means we don’t have to re-schedule the same quality content again and again (which I used to do and it involved a lot of copying and pasting).

I also like that MeetEdgar automatically loads the images associated with links and lets you select the image to create an “image post” rather than a “link post.” This is handy when it comes to the link-in-the-comments thing: you can still use the picture associated with the link, which saves you from having to add an image manually, but add the link in later to make the algorithm happy.

*Also, MeetEdgar is woman-owned!

Hashtags on LinkedIn: do they help?

Short answer: probably not.

Long answer: I see a lot of posts on LinkedIn with hashtags sprinkled throughout or piles of hashtags below post text a la Instagram. Often, these hashtag piles include words already mentioned in the post itself. Great news! Using a term twice, once by itself and once with a hashtag, is redundant and unnecessary.

I learned this from the horse’s mouth, when alumna client Charlene Li invited me to a training with a LinkedIn Community Manager for Executive Voices, who said:

“LinkedIn’s search function searches all text in every LinkedIn posts. Adding a hashtag before a key term doesn’t make it more searchable on LinkedIn.”

In other words: if you use the word “leadership” in your LinkedIn post, it doesn’t help to add #Leadership. If you want to improve reach or searchability you could add hashtags of related terms that you didn’t use in the post, like #CSuite, #CEO, #Management, and more (Btw, you should always capitalize the first letter of each word in a hashtag for accessibility, and this is why.)

HOWEVER. According to research by Richard van der Blom in 2024, hashtags are dead. He writes on LinkedIn, “Over the past 8 months, hashtags have had zero impact on reach, and LinkedIn has quietly disabled many hashtag related features although there is still no official statement from LinkedIn itself.”

If I were a wagering woman, I’d say you could forgo hashtags entirely and focus on tried-and-true engagement tactics instead. My company will likely begin phasing out hashtags soon—while part of me would like to wait for an official statement from LinkedIn, the other part of me is pretty convinced.

Just F***ing Ask (a favorite engagement tactic)

You’re still here! Whether you’ve read this whole honking post or skipped right to this section, I’m glad you made it to my favorite engagement tactic, which I like to call: Just Fucking ASK (JFA).

• Why asking works
• Overcoming the awkwardness of asking
• Reframing the ask from “favor” to “relationship”
• How to start your JFA practice

Why asking for engagement works

There is no shortage of “hacks” and “tips and tricks” to “beat” the algorithm that get published every year. Some of them are handy and useful, but many are, in my humble, unrealistic for the busy authors, speakers, academics, and other experts I work with.

But one engagement tactic I will always standby is the most simple and most vulnerable: asking for it.

Not in a spammy way. Not too often. Not spaghetti-at-the-wall style. But thoughtfully and genuinely, while keeping the sanctity of your relationships in mind. Tom Critchlow explains this beautifully in his oft-read (by me) post on riffs:

“…the REAL MAGIC of the riff is deliberately sending it to people… This means that you’re guaranteed to have at least one person to send the post to in their DMs. And if it’s relevant for that one person, chances are you’ve made it interesting to 3-5 others too.”

When you want engagement, what’s a more thoughtful and selective way of asking for it than reaching out to 3-5 people you know well, and saying “hey, I just wrote this and it made me think of you for X and Y reasons. I’d love to hear what you think”?

The awkwardness of “just asking”

One downside to JFA is that it feels vulnerable. When you imagine doing it, it might bring up questions like: “what if I seem desperate or needy? What if they ignore me? What if they think I’m an upstart for asking?” One client put it this way:

“I felt awkward doing this and I’m not sure I saw a bump in engagement. It felt odd not sending personal messages and I can’t ask you to do that, because you’re not me. Besides, the people I know most about in terms of [my expertise] are often my clients and I would never ask them to share my stuff.”

I get that. It’s normal for this practice to feel awkward/uncomfortable/exposing. But I think it’s worth exploring before writing off the tactic entirely. And my client was right: personalized messages tend to be most effective. They’re not scalable, but that’s okay—“scale” isn’t the only measure of value. 

Now, let’s bring in some math: the semi-personalized messages I sent for this client’s newsletter got a 60% response rate. The resulting comments accounted for 20% of the comments on that newsletter—more if you only count “quality” comments. To me, those metrics are a green light.

Reframe JFA from “I need a favor” to “I thought of you”

What helps manage the vulnerability or awkwardness is to reframe what you’re doing. You’re not begging for engagement favors because you’re a pathetic loser, you’re sharing valuable, relevant work to a few hand-picked colleagues. Your attitude and the energy with which you JFA make a difference. Consider:

• “Hey I really need engagement on this, will you Like it and leave a comment real quick?” vs.
• “Hey Jenn, I just posted about the challenge academics face in building their personal brand, because it isn’t always encouraged by universities. It reminded me of our conversation on this exact topic, and I’d love to know if you have anything to add to what I wrote.”

See what I mean?

How to start your Just F***ing Ask practice:

If you’re curious to try this out, here’s what I recommend:

1. Start by writing out the names of 3-5 people your content makes you think of. Even if you never send them anything, discover what the practice of thinking about people feels like and engenders.
2. Trust yourself. Perhaps once you think of those names, some genuine enthusiasm for their insights will grow. And perhaps not! 
3. If it does, consider sending them a personalized DM. I recommend a private DM or email instead tagging them in a comment or even the post itself. That’s because by nature of being private, DMs and emails make the recipient feel individually sought-out. You making the effort to personally ask for their input is what strengthens your relationship.

I called JFA-ing an engagement tactic above, and yes sure. But it’s as much a relationship-building practice as it boosts engagement on your LinkedIn post. And isn’t that a big reason why we bother to use LinkedIn anyway?

How important is engagement within the first hour on LinkedIn?

How important is video content on LinkedIn?

These are two more FAQs about LinkedIn strategy that I’m happy to expound upon if it would be useful. I marked them as pending because, before I start writing answers (and thereby delay how soon I publish this epic) I wanted to make sure folks are interested. Hit reply on an email from me, send me a LinkedIn DM, or write me at evaj at medusamediagroup dot com to let me know if you’d like to hear my answers to these questions.

Sources

Links in the post or the comments?

• The LinkedIn employee’s confirmation came via a client; she heard it from a colleague whose LinkedIn presence is such that they have a direct contact at LinkedIn, 2024.
• Andrew P. Wheeler downloaded his data and did not find his link posts were being punished: “I don’t see that in my data at all.” 2024, LinkedIn posting and link promotion: impression vs reality
• “The link-in-comments posts performed better and had higher numbers from both an awareness and engagement perspective.” SproutSocial 2023, Sprout Tested: The answer to why you put links in the comments on LinkedIn
• “On average, posts without links got 6x more reach than posts with links.” Hootsuite 2021, Experiment: Do LinkedIn Posts With Links Get Less Engagement and Reach?
• How to Get People to Actually See Your LinkedIn Post, Sangfroid 2024. #4 suggests “don’t comment first”
• Beating the LinkedIn Algorithm in 2024: Expert Tips & Tricks, SocialPilot. #7 suggests “Don’t Comment on Your LinkedIn Post First”

Do scheduled posts get less engagement on LinkedIn?

• I couldn’t find recent research (post 2020) about this, and I’d love to. If you know of any, please send it my way! evaj at medusamedia group dot com
• “Within our data there was no conclusive evidence to suggest scheduling posts with Hootsuite or a 3rd party tool resulted in lower performance.” – Social Status 2020, Does Hootsuite or Buffer cause lower reach and engagement?
• “We did not find a significant difference in social media reach and engagement whether we posted through 3rd-party tools or natively to each network. As you might expect, some pieces of content performed better than others no matter how they were posted.” Buffer 2018, Do 3rd-Party Social Media Tools Negatively Affect Reach and Engagement? Our 200+ Post Experiment and Results
• This article has a good overview of social media scheduling benefits, plus what to consider if you think your engagement is low: Tactycs 2024, Do Scheduled Posts Get Less Engagement?

Are hashtag dead?

• #28 Update on Algorithm Insights 2024, Richard van der Blom on LinkedIn. You can download the full, 30-page report as well.

Just F***ing Ask

• Writing, Riffs & Relationships: Conversation is the unit of content by Tom Critchlow (many thanks to Sarah Eadie for sharing this with me)

The post LinkedIn Strategy FAQs for Experts: Links-in-comments, Scheduling, Hashtags, and the F-word appeared first on Medusa Media Group.

The former want to make the best decision by researching and reading reviews, weighing the pros and cons of each option, and otherwise gathering intel to make an informed decision. 

The latter want to make decisions quickly, opting out of doing research or gathering data and instead going with their gut or the first option that’s “good enough.” 

I nearly always lean towards satisficing, which is why…

I cherish recommendations.

Hearing “I loved this—you should try it” or “I think you’d really like this” is such a gift! It makes my satisficer heart sing to get the scoop from someone I trust, saving me time deliberating and/or sheepishly putting off researching a decision I want to make.

Perhaps it’s why I love giving recommendations too—I know how great they make me feel, and I want to make people feel great as well. Which brings me to some of my absolute favorite resources over the past two years:

1. Relationships: Relating better to yourself + others
2. Networking: 5-mins per day for consistent referrals, reliable leads and meaningful connections
3. Taxes: headache-free, plus warm financial advice
4. Gifts: meaningful (and easy!) gift boxes from Black creators
5. News: the most objective news source I’ve ever met
6. Admin: customized virtual assistance

From courses to gifts to news (yes, I found a news source I truly admire), I am excited to share these six recommendations. Click to the one that strikes your fancy above, or keep scrolling for an overview of them all, including pricing. Enjoy! And I hope you find them as useful as I have.

A Satisficer and Thought Leader Advisor’s Recommendations:

1. Relating better to yourself and others: Yours Truly, $480

Become your most trustworthy self.

I enrolled in Yours Truly while expecting my first child because I wanted to hone my skills at relating to other people, but more importantly to myself in the presence of other people.

There were un-had conversations I’d been avoiding, and I would find myself getting defensive, feeling resentful, or otherwise not being my “best self” around others. I wanted to invest in my own courage and ability to stay with myself when uncomfortable topics came up. Having had the privilege of Jay Moon Fields as a client for several years (you can read about her experience working with me if you want), I knew she was the perfect person to learn from—she’s a somatic educator as well as highly-sensitive and introverted, like me.

During Yours Truly I had two of the conversations I’ve been hiding from: one with a friend of twenty years, another with my parents. They were hard, but not as hard as I’d been expecting and I felt relieved and proud of myself once I had them.

From Jay’s website: “Yours Truly is a comprehensive online program that will give you the tools and understanding necessary to not just know better, but to do better.

It’s designed to help you move from cerebral to embodied living, from conditioning to realness, from self-sufficiency to sufficient self, and from untrustworthy to yourself to trustworthy to yourself.

You’ll have everything you need to have a life where you have the conviction, courage, and competence to be true to yourself and your values in your relationships and in the world.“

For a taste of Jay’s work, you can start with her free Overthinking Archetype quiz (bonus: she uses the word “bejeebers” in the quiz, and if you scroll to the end I share my own Archetype!). I also highly recommend her email list—Jay is a terrific writer.

PSST! Use the code yt-friend and you’ll get 15% off Yours Truly!

2. Growing your network strategically and sustainably: Networking That Pays, $497

The always awkward-free, 5 minute a day path to consistent referrals, reliable leads and meaningful connections.

You could say this is an “underground” program. Founder Michelle Warner doesn’t run launches for it and created it almost as a favor to colleagues and clients who needed it. I learned of it via word-of-mouth (thanks, Carol Cox!) which is pretty much the only way to hear of it. And thank goodness I did—it’s extremely valuable and I highly recommend it.

Michelle teaches a methodical, flexible, intuitive system to intentionally and strategically grow your network. You know how relationships are everything, but it’s difficult to figure out who you need to meet at in-person networking events and you can only have so many “virtual coffees” ? Me too. Enter Networking That Pays.

I enrolled in 2024 when business was slow and I wanted a sustainable system to get things moving again. I love this program and how widely applicable the approach is. Plus, Michelle hosts monthly Q&A calls which are a great place to drop in and get focused feedback from her on any sticky networking points.

From the website: “Networking That Pays is the science-backed system that I created for myself 10 years ago, and it’s how I’ve created those relationships for myself (and why in 10 years I’ve never managed to get around to having to do all those other things everyone says you have to do).”

2. Headache free taxes and financial advice: Exceptional Tax Services, $2000+

Your Business Deserves A Strong Financial Foundation

Led by Nacondra Moran, Exceptional Tax Services provides tax and bookkeeping support to small business owners in the United States. I love working with Nacondra because her combination of warmth and deep knowledge makes me feel comfortable asking questions, but also ignoring the complex tax stuff I don’t understand because I know she understands it for me.

Beyond nuts-and-bolts support during tax season, Nacondra has advised and supported me on changing my business entity, moving states, buying a home, putting away money for my child, and more. I highly HIGHLY recommend Nacondra and her team for tax support. I remember the immediate relief and delight I felt when I started working with her. Stacey Gordon, thank you for the rec!

4. Meaningful gifts that amplify Black businesses: Bifties, ~$30+

Giving B(l)ack Made Easy

I LOVE sending gifts to clients (and, well, lots of people) and I also love buying from small, independent, historically underestimated business owners. Enter Bifties, which makes buying Black effortless, meaningful and gorgeous.

I’ve worked with owner Constance for years, reaching out when it’s time to create gift boxes for clients, and she’s helped me put together really special combinations: for example one year she helped me source gifts from women business owners in Arizona (where I lived at the time). Here’s feedback from a client for that gift box:

“I gotta say, you are knocking it out of the park in my book this week…

My brother and his wife and son are visiting us this week and we’re having a really good time. We were just saying yesterday that we should have mimosas because we had champagne, but that we were going to have to buy orange juice. And then yesterday morning I went to light my favorite orange blossom candle in the kitchen and it had finally died. We went for a hike and came back to find a package from you–with a WONDERFUL orange grove candle and fun mimosa cubes–just add champagne.

I mean, really. 

My brother and his wife were quite impressed by how spot on you were with exactly what we needed to round out our experience. And my sister in law is all about Bifties now!” 

And, a note from another client after she sent me a lovely gift: “You had such a good influence on me; I searched for a day or two to find women-led or minority-led small businesses to find this one”! Talk about the ripple effect!

I’ve also sent Bifties to loved ones, and they’re always surprised and delighted by its beautiful presentation, the information in the box, and the way Constance and her team create thematic gifts for special occasions. You’re welcome for literally never having to stress about what to give someone ever again.

5. News you can trust (because it doesn’t favor a political party): Tangle, $ free+

Every day, we tackle one big debate in American politics, then summarize the best arguments we can find from the right, left, and center on that debate.

Raise your hand if you find understanding politics and global events with a shred of clarity impossible.

Me too. Which is why I am so impressed with and ardently support Tangle (I recently became a paid subscriber). From their website: “Tangle is an independent, non-partisan, subscriber-supported newsletter, read by over 135,000 people in 55+ countries across the world. Our audience is made up of conservatives, liberals, independents, and those who don’t identify with any political tribe.”

Each email I get is a deep dive into a topic that I (usually) barely understand, going over how different politically-minded people view the topic. And then my favorite part: founder and journalist Isaac Saul gives “his take” as someone who describes himself thus here: “I generally distrust authority, government agencies, and politicians, but I do believe it’s wise to consult expert opinions and advice.”

His take is simply his take (and he frequently reminds readers of this face, by doing plenty of what he calls “throat clearing” and I call “caveating”) but I find it refreshing and helpful to read a perspective that isn’t mired in liberal or conservative worldviews.

6. Virtual administrative support: Team Delegate, $ varies

We’re the answer to your administrative overwhelm.

I met Tonya Thomas (CEO of Team Delegate) in a coaching program and I liked her right away. Her deliberate approach and experience (close to 20 years in business, I believe!?) make her easy to talk and listen to. I’ve not hired administrative support through Team Delegate myself, but I have referred her to clients and heard glowing reviews. When I’m ready for more admin help, Team Delegate is the first place I’ll go.

What do you recommend?

Whether you’re a maximizer or satisficer, recommendations feel good to give and receive, and I am so thankful for a) the many clients who have recommended Medusa over the years, and b) the many services that help Medusa (and me) run.

If you try one of these resources, or have one you’d like to share with a glowing recommendation, send me a note at evaj at medusamediagroup dot com!

Bonuses

• Do ‘maximisers’ or ‘satisficers’ make better decisions?
• More recommendations: 4 Things I Learned in the Past Year by Dolly Chugh. My own recommendations were partly inspired by this list from Dolly’s Dear Good People newsletter (sign up here—it’s once a month and it’s great), and not only because I was honored to be among Dolly’s recommendations!
• Eva’s Overthinking Archetype: I’m an Analyzer! What about you?

The post Six Recommendations for Networking, Taxes, Gifts & More (from a “satisficer”) appeared first on Medusa Media Group.

You’d be forgiven for saying, “no need to patronize me. Obviously the point is to make money.”

And you’d be right—sort of. It’s true that nobody’s creating her LinkedIn platform, email list, speaker portfolio, or book proposal for her health. The “point” of growing your audience and authority is to grow your career which is how you make your living. Right?

Right. Sort of.

TL;DR: though many experts are (understandably) reluctant to market themselves, thought leadership marketing is how experts move along the unknown –> known authority spectrum, which leads to more incoming (and well-paying) opportunities and a powerful asset at the negotiating table.

If You’re an Expert, Why Market?

My company helps women and nonbinary experts and thought leaders become household names through content, LinkedIn and email marketing. Yet experts rarely cite “make more money” as their primary reason for seeking out Medusa Media’s services. It’s usually a reason—often in the form of “earn higher speaking fees” or “receive more inbound inquiries” or “negotiate a bigger advance on my next book”—but not the first reason.

And many of these same folks have mixed feelings about marketing. They sense they should be marketing but are dragging their feet (even though not marketing leaves money and impact on the table).

So what’s going on? Why are some experts and thought leaders reluctant to market themselves? When they do invest in marketing their thought leadership, what do they want to get from it? Is thought leadership marketing different from other types? Let’s get into it:

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Click on any of the links below to go directly to the sections that interest you:

• Why experts and thought leaders resist marketing
• What experts want from marketing
• Bar graph: challenges experts face in their marketing
  • Strategy
  • Audience growth
  • Time
  • Leads
  • Topics
  • Book launch prep
  • [BONUS] Embarrassment
• You might be ready for thought leadership marketing if…

Before we go on, let me be clear: when I talk about thought leadership marketing, I mean a type of content promotion and distribution that focuses on providing insights and a strong position in your unique voice and making an intellectual and emotional impact to position you as an authority so you can build power and wealth and drive social change. This can look like sparking and participating in relevant conversations, connecting with leaders in your field, and sharing research and insights and stories as a few examples.

Let me be clear again: sometimes I use “she/her” pronouns in this piece because after centuries of “he/him” being the default pronouns used to describe people, it’s valuable to use language that depicts women when talking about expertise. That said, the whole gender spectrum is welcome here. 

Why Experts Resist Marketing

Online marketing has an “ick” sheen that’s hard to polish off. Think:

• mass growth promises (“how I scaled to six figures in sixty minutes”),
• platitudes and non sequiturs (“I just ate a salad. Here’s what it taught me about thought leadership”), and, a personal least-favorite,
• prosperity gospel nonsense (“all you need to have an Instagrammable life is to change your money mindset/imposter syndrome/blah blah blah by joining my program”)

NO THANKS!

So you’d be forgiven (again) for thinking of marketing as self-serving, deliberately misleading, even inherently desperate or tacky or predatory—because sometimes it IS. Here’s how one woman put it:

“Us academics ‘tend’ to be a bit snobby about [marketing]. Maybe because of anti-capitalist sentiments in our liberal arts educations? Maybe because we can’t see beyond our own cushy salaried jobs? Maybe because we resist the idea of education as a ‘business’?” – Jenn Wicks

But whatever your sentiments about and experience with marketing (I frequently hear from clients about past social media marketers who disappointed them) hear me out:

Writing off marketing entirely is a disservice to experts and to marketing.

Fundamentally marketing is about spreading the word, spreading knowledge, and raising awareness. Marketing is the function that takes something from unknown to known whether that’s a product, service, cause, politician, person, or public good.

If you’re an expert or thought leader, you are somewhere on the unknown –> known authority spectrum. Say you’re a professor, author, researcher, writer, keynote speaker, consultant, or combination thereof. If you sell your knowledge in the form of consulting, speaking, books, or education, it follows that you could do that MORE if you were better known, right?

It’s a virtuous cycle: the more of a known authority you are, the more opportunities come to you and/or the more prestigious opportunities you qualify for, the more you take those opportunities, the more known you are, and on and on. 

Marketing your expertise—by distributing your work and thinking, making it clear what you do and how to hire you, building an intentional community, showing your skills and impact—accelerates the virtuous cycle, leading to more incoming (and well-paying) speaking gigs, sought-after leads, media opportunities, book deals, and more.

This is why obscurity is the enemy of women and nonbinary experts and thought leaders.

What Do Experts and Thought Leaders Want from Marketing?

I will not bury the lede: these are the challenges experts most frequently say they are facing when it comes to their thought leadership and marketing:

1. Strategy
2. Audience growth
3. Time
4. Leads
5. Topics
6. Book launch prep
7. [BONUS] Embarrassment

Some clients who come to us are excited and ready to market their expertise with more vim and vigor (and help from us)! But it’s common for clients to be some combination of reluctant, curious, and uncomfortable—and that’s totally normal and welcome, too.

When prospective experts and thought leaders reach out, the first thing we ask is for them to fill out this brief inquiry form, which gives us helpful info to guide a discovery call. One question is about the “greatest challenges you’re facing with your thought leadership”—in other words, where are you on the unknown –> known authority spectrum? What’s blocking your virtuous marketing cycle from working the way you want it to?

The answers to this question illuminate what experts and thought leaders ACTUALLY WANT, in their own words, from their thought leadership marketing. After this graph (and if you skipped the table of contents above to read this), I’ll unpack the most common answers, plus one not reflected on the graph but which comes up in client conversations (hint: it’s embarrassment):

Challenges experts face in their thought leadership marketing [Bar Graph]

1. “Creating a distribution [marketing] strategy”

Raise your hand if you (like me) have searched “difference between strategy and tactics” more than zero times . The words get used interchangeably but they are not the same: a strategy is an overall plan, and the tactics are the individual action steps in the plan.

Unsurprisingly, most experts and thought leaders need both when it comes to marketing their work and it’s the #1 cited reason clients want to work with us. That’s because a strategy answer that critical question: “What the heck should I do and say?” and its many sub-questions: “How should I say/do it? Where should I say/do it? How often? Who am I trying to connect with? In what ways? And importantly, why am I doing this? What do I want?”

Experts and thought leaders have a lot of valuable ideas to share but usually lack the systems that make sharing them (consistently and without it taking a bajillion hours) simple and effective. Besides, you didn’t become an expert because you love marketing or social media, so it’s understandable if you feel self-conscious and overwhelmed by online marketing strategy and technology. This is what prospective clients say to us when sharing their thought leadership challenges:

“Time and strategy for getting content out there, and building a following/mailing list. I’m also working on a book and trying to build interest and a following in a specific and slightly different topic.”

“Creating a strategy and tactics for engaging on LinkedIn around my upcoming book launch.”

“Too many ideas and obstacles executing (perfectionism, time, etc.); not sure what content is most strategic / best ROI”

Working with me and the Medusa Media Group team is one way to address these challenges.

2. “Growing my [LinkedIn] platform”

Clients want growth: of their audience (on LinkedIn in particular), of inbound inquiries, of engagement, email subscribers, and more. Why? For lots of reasons, but primarily to:

• reach more people and make more positive impact with their work
• enhance their brand and reputation (audience numbers are not everything, but you can’t tell me we don’t all judge books by their covers)
• become better-known authority figures, which leads to more opportunities.

If you’ll allow me to repeat myself:

The more known you are, the more opportunities come to you and/or the more prestigious opportunities you qualify for, the more you take those opportunities, the more known you are, and on and on. When you proactively grow your audience on LinkedIn and on your email list, you are cultivating a community of people in a relationship with you. That means more folks who will want to buy your book, recommend or hire you to speak and consult, enroll in your course, etc.

As for “why LinkedIn” it’s because it’s really the only professionally-focused social media and networking platform available. Our clients are usually highly-educated and experienced individuals who sell professional services—they sell B2B or B2(professional)C. If you’re an expert and you’re going to market anywhere on social media, LinkedIn makes the most sense for your expertise and audience.

PSST! If LinkedIn growth is a priority for you, might I recommend my Stop the Scroll: LinkedIn Content Plan for Experts workshop?

3. “Making time”

Remember that meme which read, “Beyoncé only has 24 hours in a day”? I found it inspiring at first (“Beyoncé exists in the same space-time continuum I do!”) until I realized it’s a lie: when you have the resources to hire teams to manage your work and life, you have way more than 24 hours to get things done.

The more their careers grow, the more experts and thought leaders need help. Experts are busy! They might be managing an academic or contract career, preparing for and traveling to keynotes and workshops, writing articles and books, managing a team, conducting research, and that’s just the professional side.

They recognize the importance of marketing themselves to keep the virtuous cycle moving, but marketing is its own function and skillset. It doesn’t make business sense for them to DIY it, nor to ignore it (because it holds back their growth and impact and can be embarrassing).

It does make business sense to hire someone with a proven track record of marketing thought leadership for experts (you can see our track record here). It saves you time and anguish because it’s more efficient and effective. I call it “worry transfer”—you no longer have to worry about staying in touch with your audience or sharing that podcast episode or promoting your book—that’s our job.

4. “I want more leads”

What does it take for someone to become a “lead,” i.e. a person who has shown interest in hiring your services? They have to know, understand, and trust both you as an individual, and the services you offer. Y’know what helps with this? You guessed it! Thought leadership marketing. 

Having an active and engaged LinkedIn helps generate leads. Having an active and engaged email list nurtures those leads. Creating unique, accessible and memorable content helps you do both. Marketing maintains your connection with your audience so that when they are ready to hire a speaker or coach or enroll in a program or recommend a book to their bookclub, you are the obvious choice.

(There are also a gazillion additional ways to generate leads. My business coach recommended having three: social media might be one, public speaking might be another, hosting or guesting on podcasts might be a third.)

5. “Generating thought leadership topics”

“My biggest challenges are content ideas and consistent execution.” And, “I have lots of thoughts but not sure if they would fall into the thought leadership category.” And, “I’m struggling and anxious about taking my many ideas and operationalizing them CONSISTENTLY.”

Sound familiar? This challenge is two-fold:

1. “Hydra-condition” is the state of having so many ideas, and seeing all the connections between them, that you get frozen with indecision. Having a thought partner (such as yours truly) helps bring focus and clarity to your ideas so they serve you and your audience.
2. “You can’t read the label from inside the bottle.” Experts are so close to their work that aspects of it seem obvious or boring or irrelevant. It helps to have a thought partner (me again) to help the expert see those aspects with new eyes and to tie them to what’s going on in the zeitgeist.

This became a running joke when author, speaker, advisor and coach Charlene Li was a client: during every call as we generated ideas for her LinkedIn livestream and email list she’d say, “when we started I was sure I had nothing to say!” In her testimonial she put it this way:

“I knew I needed a partner to share my thought leadership with excellence and consistency. Eva and her team were exactly that partner. I always looked forward to our meetings! I’d go in thinking I had no ideas, yet Eva always managed to get my creativity flowing, making me feel energized and confident.”

6. “I have a book launch coming—I want to be prepared”

Book launches are career catalysts, paving the way to greater authority in the marketplace, higher speaking fees, more inbound inquiries, media appearances and more. If you want to capitalize on such a pinnacle achievement it’s wise to build, in advance, the backend infrastructure that makes it easy to grow your audience and platform online. Furthermore, a strong LinkedIn presence, engaged email list, and warm network are assets at the negotiating table. 

We work with many authors, but the same logic applies to other big opportunities: TEDx Talks, launching a podcast, doing a pivot or rebrand. These momentous achievements are an excellent time to tap your network for support (people love supporting others, especially when you make it easy for them) and you’ll only improve the virtuous cycle if you have marketing infrastructure and support in place to leverage the big opportunity.

7. [Bonus] “I don’t want to embarrass myself”

Have you ever had one of those dreams where you suddenly realize you’re inappropriately dressed (or maybe not dressed at all)? The cringe is visceral, and feeling that cringe about your neglected LinkedIn or email list or blog is common. We often work with experts who, thanks to their research or a high-profile achievement, start to see a disconnect between the caliber of their work and the way they come across online. 

This challenge usually comes up in conversation, not in our inquiry form. That makes sense, doesn’t it? Feeling embarrassed about your online presence may not be something you’re keen to admit to a thought leader marketing advisor whom you barely know.

I’d love to say, “who cares? Your work speaks for itself!” That’s true to a degree, but if you’ll allow me to repeat myself again, everybody judges books by their covers. For better or worse, your “cover” is your online presence. Imagine someone gets two referrals to keynote their conference: one speaker has an active and engaged LinkedIn presence and the other hasn’t posted in 6 months. Why wouldn’t the conference organizer choose the speaker who can bring those assets to the table?

You might be ready for thought leadership marketing…

If the state of your LinkedIn makes you want to hide behind a tree.

If you have a book being published or you’re growing your speaker portfolio.

If you have plenty to say but no strategy to say it sustainably and effectively.

If you have a wealth of expert content gathering dust on your website or hard drive. 

If you want to grow your audience and network and engage in more meaningful conversations.

Those are strong signs that it might be time to market your expertise and thought leadership more intentionally. And I promise: doing so doesn’t have to mean talking about yourself constantly, adding a pile of work to your plate, or sharing anything that will give you a vulnerability hangover.

It also doesn’t have to mean recreating any wheels (many of our clients have a ton of material that can be repurposed for marketing) or doing anything that compromises your values or annoys the people in your community.

Marketing is fundamentally about spreading the word, spreading knowledge, and raising awareness—of you and your work, yes, but of others in your field, of opportunities that abound, of ideas and creative approaches and resources. It can be a tremendous force for doing good—and isn’t that what we’re all doing here?

To learn more about working with me, head to our trusty inquiry form or peep our capabilities deck .

The post If You’re an Expert, Why Market Yourself? appeared first on Medusa Media Group.

That’s right—this year Medusa’s headquarters moved from Phoenix, AZ to Baltimore, MD. I’m excited to live closer to family and in a timezone between western USA and Europe. If you’re in the DMV, I’d love to treat you to a coffee—details here.

It felt great to return to work (after mat leave) in January, and since we’ve hosted a cohort of our thought leader program Exponential Influence, a workshop, a fireside chat (see the replay), and welcomed new clients and connections.

Clients past and current have achieved big milestones this year: two USA Today bestselling books is just one example, and there’s more below.

Speaking of which, this Client Impact Report has a new section celebrating our fantastic client alumnae, so make sure you scroll to the Celebrating Alumnae section.

Thank you for being here with us.

– Eva and the MMG team

Q1-Q2 2024 Client Impact Report Table of Contents

• Client Feature: Kandi Wiens, USA Today bestselling author of “Burnout Immunity”
• Thought Leadership: awards, speaking & site launch
• Work with Medusa: Grow Your Audience, Opportunities & Authority
• Successes & Milestones: strategy, 35% growth & open discussions
• Celebrating Alumnae
• Medusa News
• 1% Donation Recipient

You can also view of the PDF version (with more images!).

Client Feature: Kandi Wiens

“Burnout Immunity: How Emotional Intelligence Can Help You Build Resilience and Heal Your Relationship with Work” by Kandi Wiens is a moving blend of original research, inspiring stories, and Kandi’s own experience recovering from extreme stress. Buy from your fave retailer here.

It was also a USA Today Bestseller the week it came out and recognized by Financial Times as one of this year’s best business books. Congratulations, Kandi!

The world urgently needs the skills Kandi teaches in her book—global burnout levels were at 63% in 2022. As Kandi wrote, “That’s staggeringly high for something that I know can be prevented. It’s my mission to see global burnout levels plummet, and I know that can happen if more of us understand how to use our emotional intelligence and build resilience.”

If you’re wondering why Kandi looks familiar, it may be thanks to her appearance on the Tamron Hall Show, being selected for the Thinkers50 Radar Class of 2024, her articles in Harvard Business Review or her session at SXSW.

When I asked Kandi to share one of her most meaningful moments this year, she said,

“People stood in line after my session at SXSW (some even missing the next session) to thank me and share their burnout stories. Three women had tears in their eyes, and we’ve stayed in touch.”

Thought Leadership

Selena’s recent wins

The accolades keep rolling in for leadership speaker and author Selena Rezvani:

• Selena’s best-performing post this year highlights the trajectory of her LinkedIn-newsletter-turned-WSJ-bestselling book, reaching nearly 20K people, earning over 300 reactions, and over 120 comments.
• Quick Confidence earned a Book Excellence Award.
• It was also the #1 business download in French and #5 download in English on getAbstract in 2023!
• Selena was named among the top women public speakers by Mic Drop Workshop.

Amy goes global

Author and speaker Amy Gallo has been speaking all over the globe, including to a packed room at SXSW (for the 2nd time) and in London to celebrate the paperback launch of her book, Getting Along.

Amy also launched a gorgeous new website designed by Sy Agency. Congrats, Amy!

Grow Your Audience, Opportunities & Authority

To make intellectual and emotional impact, your body of work must be articulated and distributed. That’s why we help clients:

• Grow engaged & profitable audiences that
• Attract lucrative opportunities and establish authority with our
• Thought Leader Ecosystem (TLE) model, leading to
• Bestselling books, strong speaking fees, awards and recognition, podcast invitations, confidence and authority, and strong networks of fellow thought leaders
  
  

Micro case studies: one client increased her base speaking fee by 200% within the first year of working with Medusa.

Another turned a weekly LinkedIn newsletter into a Wall Street Journal bestselling book.

Our clients see a 94% average audience growth on LinkedIn after one year and 109% growth after two.

We have space for several new private clients in 2024. Our fall thought leader program begins in September. How to work with us.

HOW WE WORK:

Exponential Influence: Command change-making authority, audience and opportunities with a profitable and thriving thought leader ecosystem. Get the details.

Thought Leader Advisory: From training and advisory to ghostwriting, producing and marketing, work with us privately on your ecosystem.

Launch a Bestselling Book: Leverage your ecosystem (from your network to allies and audience) to pre-sell books and earn bestselling status and impact.

Successes & Milestones

Exponential Influence graduate updates

Dr. Katina Sawyer and Dr. Patricia Grabarek, co-founders of Workr Beeing, signed a book deal with Wiley, which will allow them to bring specific, research-based strategies to leaders to help employees thrive. Congratulations, you two!

About being part of our Exponential Influence program, Katina said:

“Working with Eva boosted my confidence by providing me with tools to ensure my content is seen and read by more people. A key conversation changed our strategy for writing blog posts, helping us repurpose content and use AI more strategically, which is saving time, streamlining our efforts, and leveraging our body of work more fully. I feel knowledgeable about how to enhance our reach and engagement, and ready to use the skills we learned in our upcoming book launch. I highly recommended Eva’s program for anyone looking to expand the impact of their content online.”

Caroline’s successes on LinkedIn

Leadership coach and author Caroline Webb saw a 35% increase in her LinkedIn engagement in the first three months of working with Medusa.

Her most popular post this year is The kindness of clear communication: a lesson I learned.

Stacey’s Open Invitation

As a companion to Unconscious Inclusion, workplace culture consultant Stacey Gordon has been hosting free monthly open discussions. Recent discussions have covered censorship and how we use labels, and July’s topic will be effective DEI programs and how to support DEI professionals this year. Join the July discussion.

Celebrating Alumnae

Booklandia

• Author and speaker Elaine Lin Hering launched her first book, the USA Today bestselling Unlearning Silence. We sent free copies of the book to a few lucky email subscribers, including Shonda, pictured right
• Author Ruchika T launched the paperback of Inclusion on Purpose and turned in the manuscript for her second book Uncompete (forthcoming, Penguin/Viking)
  

Speaklandia

• Professor and author Dolly Chugh’s TED Talk just surpassed over 5 million views (with 14 new views every hour, even six years after it first launched)
• Parent coach Sarah Wayland presented at the invitation-only Psychotherapy Networker Conference
• Author and speaker Charlene Li gave the commencement address at her high school, the place where she “found her voice.” Read about the experience (and keep scrolling for a pic of us—we met in person for the first time this year!)
  

& More

• “We launched our Play Facilitator Certification program to teach other facilitators/coaches/consultants how to bring more play and experiential learning into their work.” – Alex Suchman, Barometer XP co-founder
• “I wrote and filmed (in Portugal!) a course for a new B2B learning platform in Europe. The course is Stop Overthinking: Master Your Mind and Start Trusting Yourself “ – Jay Moon Fields, somatic coach
• Dolly exchanged a moderate pay cut for fewer institutional and teaching responsibilities for a year. During her sabbatical she built her skills, knowledge, and CONFIDENCE (the big one!) in creative, collaborative spaces: documentary filmmaking, jazz dance, improv theater, the Artist’s Way & more
• “I am working with an organization that is aligned to my vision around a world where workplaces contribute to greater civility in society and enjoying meeting leadership teams that are working to improve the employee experience. I have the opportunity in my role to write articles and blogs and continue to use what I learned from your thought leader program, which I also apply to the speaking engagements I have done.” – Anne Cesak, Senior Consultant Great Place to Work Canada

Medusa News

How to LinkedIn Joyfully & Effectively

We covered a lot of ground in this fireside chat, from “chaotic” authenticity, unhelpful ideas about authenticity, gender, keeping blinders on, play, awkwardness and more.

The replay is free and ready for you! Get it here.

Media & Features

Why does slowing down feel risky? I open up about what’s changing for me personally this summer, as well as how it’s influencing how I work. I talk about pants on fire, squeamishness, book recommendations, upcoming plans, and more. To get updates like these from me regularly, subscribe.

On having audacity in tackling entrepreneurship without allowing the difficulties to deter you | Allowing your business to grow and develop into a particular niche as your client base and skills develop | How you can take the journey of thought leadership for your niche | That’s a sample of what Kalish Nesbitt and I discuss on her Proactively Present Podcast.

1% of Profits

We donated 1% of our profits from Q1-2 to the National Council. Founded in 2010 by Andrea James, National Council is an organization committed to ending incarceration of women and girls and creating the infrastructure for the systems in support of building healthy, thriving people and communities. Thank you Katie Couric for sharing about this organization.

And just for fun…

Charlene and I met IRL this year! She was in Scottsdale for a speaking event, and we sat outside on a lovely day. She’s a gem and I am so glad to know her.

The post Client Impact Report: Q1-Q2 2024 appeared first on Medusa Media Group.

“Thanks for accepting, Eva! Do you think email lists are a good way to attract new clients?”

Not only did her response ignore my message, but I could SMELL the incoming pitch. It made me want to surround myself in a castle with a moat full of alligators. It made me think, we need better rules of engagement for managing connection requests and deepening relationships. So here we go:

Rules of Engagement for Responding to LinkedIn Connection Requests:

First, I’ll go over why it’s worth having an intentional strategy for responding to connection requests on LinkedIn. Then, I’ll offer three steps for doing it well. I’ll also share how NOT to respond to connection requests, plus some miscellany that might be helpful:

• Why how you respond to connection requests matters
• Creating connection filters
• Deepening relationships on LinkedIn
  • Alternative for “high-value” relationships
• Moving the relationship off LinkedIn
• How NOT to respond to LinkedIn connection requests
• Too long, didn’t read? Get a quick summary here

If you’re an expert or thought leader—entrepreneur, academic, speaker, author, etc—you can be certain the number of connection requests you receive will grow as your platform and authority do.

Some of these requests will come from people who are obviously important or valuable to your network. But most will not be obviously anything, which gets overwhelming very quickly.

(Then you may find yourself with 47 pending connection requests side-eyeing you every time you’re on LinkedIn. You probably feel guilty / resentful / hand-tied, so you slide your eyes over to the Notifications instead—there’s never a dearth of those—and resolve that Future You/Future You’s Assistant will deal with those requests.) 

Responding to connection requests isn’t urgent—most things in networking and marketing aren’t—but they do add up and it can feel bad. Fortunately, managing your connection requests systematically will grow and deepen your network, and make you feel capable and in control, and it’s not very hard. Everyone wins! 

Why Responding to LinkedIn Connection Requests Matters

You might be thinking, Who cares? Do connection requests really need this level of consideration?

And sure, some people are unbothered by increasing connection requests. They might say yes to anyone who asks (which I don’t recommend, for reasons I explain here), they might say no to everyone they’ve never met, no harm, no foul. 

But I suspect that you, like me and like our clients, are deliberate about your network and social media use. You want to be intentional and genuine about how you build relationships with people on LinkedIn (most of whom you’ll never know personally). So when it comes to their growing number of connection requests, our clients express concerns like, 

• Should I accept requests from people I don’t know to grow my audience?
• What’s the correct (polite, customary, effective) way to respond to a connection request? 
• I don’t want to get a ton of DMs from people I don’t know well. So should I say no to anyone I’ve never met?

These concerns make sense: you don’t want to offend anyone or hurt their feelings or commit a social media faux pas. You do want to use LinkedIn effectively and properly to grow your audience, opportunities and authority. Also, your privacy matters (as it should!) and you don’t want to overwhelm yourself.

As with most (all?) questions related to marketing, networking, audience growth etc., the answer to the questions above is “it depends.” It depends on your comfort level, your goals, how you want to use LinkedIn, your business/career model, and more. So let’s touch on that briefly, then get into the brass tacks, nuts and bolts:

Why do you use LinkedIn?

I’m not going to exhaust either one of us with a litany of reasons to you might use LinkedIn. Instead, I’m making an educated guess that you’re using LinkedIn as part of your thought leader ecosystem, to:

• Build a network of professionals for partnerships, referrals, opportunities, education, and to talk shop, and/or
• Grow an audience of highly engaged, eager-to-buy, and ready to refer people who never miss your emails, podcast episodes, webinars, and/or
• Share your articles, insights, posts, research to become a known authority in your field, and/or
• Make your book accessible during launch season

You want a healthy network and audience, authoritative presence, and to share your authorship if-and-when it’s book launch season. Great! If the main action is “Follow” on your LinkedIn profile already, anyone can easily click to follow you—perfect.

But as your platform grows more and more people will send you connection requests, and fewer and fewer of them will be people you know personally. Given the goals above, it makes sense to be strategic about accepting those requests: it’s not helpful for literally everyone to be your connection (there’s a limit!) nor does it help to reject every request from a semi-stranger—that would limit your growth.

So what do you need to simply and easily DECIDE if the juice is worth the squeeze, AKA which requests make sense to accept? A filter.

Step 1. Create a Connection Request Filter

A connection request filter is a set of clear criteria that’s simple to follow to decide whether it makes sense to accept or reject a request.

CAVEAT: it also has to be easy for someone who isn’t you to follow, so you can delegate this task. In other words, your criteria can’t rely on your intuition or mood, because you can’t delegate those (sigh).

As an example, here’s my filter. A request needs to met at least two of these criteria for a team member to know to accept their request:  

• Are they relevant to my work? (i.e. do they fit the profile of a likely future client or potential colleague in the same or a related field?
• Do we have connections in common?
• Have they sent a message explaining their request?
• (Other criteria might be: do we work at the same company? Are they affiliated with my university? Are we in the same field/role?)

A connection who meets none of the criteria is almost always a clear “NOPE” (see below for exceptions*). Same with connections who meet only one criteria—for example, they might send a message that is clearly generic, or we might have nothing but one connection in common.

As for those who DO meet two criteria, what’s next after you accept their connection request? Deepening the relationship.

Step 2. Deepen the relationship

The point of LinkedIn is to build your network, grow your audience, and share your authority—in other words, it’s about relationships, and an accepted connection request does not a relationship build.

Deepening the relationship with a new connection requires acting on it, which puts you in the driver’s seat of how that relationship might grow. I have a simple way I act on new connections (that I’m not already acquainted with), and it’s sending them this short DM:

“Hey NAME, it’s nice to be connected! [if applicable: I see we have some good people in common.] What prompted you to reach out?

I like this low-ball opening gambit because it’s easy for them to answer, and it gives me useful information:

• Did someone mention me to them?
• Did they find me by searching?
• Did they see a post of mine?

Their answer to this question helps me know how to deepen the relationship.

(I used to respond to qualified connections with a Roundtable invitation, which REALLY helped deepen the relationship. I’ve paused those for now [I write this in 2024, after a 7 month maternity leave and during a cross-country move]. I may do them again someday, but with a vetting process so I have more control over the people who join and the quality of conversations we can have.)

BONUS TIP: if you use a tool like Text Expander, deepening the relationship with a DM like mine is even easier for you or your assistant.

Optional Step 2.5 “High-value” relationships

Another powerful opening gambit comes from my friend, fractional CRO Talica Davies. It’s great to use if the connection request comes from someone who is likely of “high value” to your goals.

NOW LISTEN: this is not a judgment call on anyone’s personhood. Every individual is intrinsically “high value”. However, certain people are going to be strong candidates as prospective clients, referral partners, opportunity-sharers, etc. When that’s the case, it makes sense to put extra effort into your opening gambit: take a look at their profile and recent posts. If you see something you like, comment on it. Then send a message like this one:

“Hey NAME, I really liked [this article/post/thing on your profile], and I’m curious to learn more about you and your work. Where do you suggest I start?”

I’d be flattered to receive such a message—wouldn’t you? Who wouldn’t respond favorably to that!?

It’s straightforward and curious, and it lets you quickly get the right information to discover if you’re correct about how you might work with them.

(BTW, when Talica shared this with me, I realized I didn’t have an easy way to answer this question. Send them to my website? Too broad. To my email list? Too soon. Our Work with Medusa inquiry form? Too presumptuous. A virtual coffee link? No way rosé—I can barely stand receiving those, but that’s a rant for another time.) 

Fortunately I was already working on Medusa’s Capabilities Deck, which how I’ll answer this going forward.

Step 3. Move the relationship off LinkedIn

Remember that scene in Season 7, Episode 12 of Mad Men, when Joan picks up the photo of her son and her Rolodex, and walks out of McCann Erickson? Contact information is currency.

LinkedIn is an amazing tool for connecting and corresponding—people are right there and accessible! But we don’t have control of that access—Microsoft does. That’s why you’ll want to take the relationship off LinkedIn and into your metaphorical Rolodex as soon as possible: your contact list or email list.

There are myriad ways to do so, from inviting the connection to do something (attend an event or download a resource), to using tools like these to add their contact info to a spreadsheet.

Finally: How NOT to respond to LinkedIn connection requests:

You can do whatever you want, but if you’re in this to build your network, grow your audience, establish your authority and sell a book, I DO NOT recommend the following:

Don’t say “yes” to everyone

I had a client once who, in the early years of using LinkedIn and growing her platform, accepted every. single. connection. request. she. received. (This was before LinkedIn had the “Follow” feature.)

She learned the hard way that LinkedIn has a connection limit of 30 thousand. She’d long since hit that number (she’s a well-known figure) and had to have her assistant manually delete old connections to make room for new ones.

Another reason not to say “yes” to everyone, including those of us who don’t want anyone to feel rejected? Social media strategist Sharonda Jackson put it this way: “It’s okay to be picky about who’s in your community.”

Don’t immediately ask a leading question or send a pitch

Leading questions like the one I got (“Do you think email lists are a good way to attract new clients?”) and straight-up pitches do the opposite of build connection—they turn people off. Small talk and flirtation exist for a reason.

Don’t invite everyone to a virtual coffee

Potentially unpopular opinion alert: people I know and respect swear by the “let’s meet for a virtual coffee” or “let’s have a 5-minute phone call” technique for new connections, but I do not care for it.

Time is a precious asset, and the women I work with have to manage theirs very carefully. And while I appreciate the spirit with which it’s intended—it’s generous to offer to share your time—it’s a BIG ask, especially of someone who doesn’t know you yet and likely has many priorities competing for their attention.

TL;DR

1. If you use LinkedIn to build your audience, grow your network, establish your expertise or sell your book, then you’ll need a strategy to respond to a growing number of connection requests.
2. First, create a filter that you (or a team member) can easily use to determine if a connection request is a “yes” or a “no”. See examples here.
3. Send the connection requests you accept a DM to deepen the relationship. I like to say, “Hey NAME, it’s nice to be connected! [if applicable: I see we have some good people in common.] What prompted you to reach out?”
4. Finally, move the relationship off LinkedIn (where Microsoft owns the contact information) as soon as you can.
5. Oh, and here’s what not to do in response to connection requests!

Generate Leads with an Effective and Enticing LinkedIn Profile

Connection requests come through your LinkedIn profile, and speaking of which…

A few simple tweaks take your LinkedIn profile from eh to excellent—the kind of profile that pulls its own weight. In this short, free e-course I guide you to make simple updates to your profile so it effectively generates leads and opportunities and grows your network strategically.

Check it out here: Generate Leads with an Effective and Enticing LinkedIn Profile.

The post Respond to LinkedIn Connection Requests: a Guide for Experts and Thought Leaders appeared first on Medusa Media Group.

I enjoyed the heck out of my maternity leave… and it feels great to be back at Medusa Media!

Our clients achieved some terrific personal and professional wins in 2023 and I’m thrilled to share them with you. Think:

• A Wall Street Journal bestselling book
• A submitted manuscript
• Over 500% growth in LinkedIn followers
  

I’m also excited to work with a new cohort of thought leaders in our signature program, Exponential Influence. If you’re ready to grow your audience, authority, revenues and impact, I’d love to work with you. Details on page 3.

A break is a wonderful thing for the mind and body. Several of our clients took sabbaticals this year. How I prepped for mine is on page 8.

To an energizing New Year . Yours,

– Eva and the Medusa team

PS For the PDF-version of this report, go here.

Exponential Influence

The struggle is real: lost opportunities for income and impact, overwhelm from all the marketing options, feeling stuck on where to focus your thought leadership.

The system is the solution.

That’s why clients come to us: to create a simple, repeatable system that leverages their network and content for growth, income, & authority.

Exponential Influence helps you develop that system—we call it your eco-system—by strengthening your core ideology and distribution process.

You’ll walk away with more authority in the marketplace, new opportunities to earn, accelerated audience growth, greater confidence and team capacity. Clients include keynote speakers, professors, founders, consultants, authors, and more.

We begin on February 29th, and I’d love to have you join us. Secure your seat, and I’ll see you on the inside.

Her Words

Professor and author Dolly Chugh:

“Thought leadership, especially social media, used to drain me completely. But since completing Exponential Influence, I see a different way forward. Eva showed me and my team a more intentional, steady approach that feels right for how I want to put myself out there—it’s sustainable and genuine.

Over the weeks we worked together the changes were subtle, but like a ton of feathers adding up, by the end my entire philosophy and approach had completely changed for the better. If you’re feeling overwhelmed like I was, working with Medusa is a must. Eva’s teaching is powerful.”

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP

“Quick Confidence” was a WSJ bestseller!

Selena Rezvani did a beautiful job leveraging her network to boost bulk orders. We also collaborated on leveraging her 100k-strong LinkedIn newsletter audience and email audience. It worked!

Congratulations, Selena, on this dream come true. You did it!

In other book news, speaker, researcher and forthcoming author Kandi Wiens submitted the manuscript for “BURNOUT IMMUNITY: How Emotional Intelligence Can Help You Build Resilience and Heal Your Relationship with Work.” We’re thrilled to work with Kandi to launch her book, which comes out on April 23rd. It’s now available for pre-order!

Author and speaker Amy Gallo’s ideas were highlighted in a “Big Think” video:

Professor and author Dolly Chugh’s book “A More Just Future“ captivated audiences on big stages, including SXSW. Dolly was also featured on many podcasts, including Dr. Phil’s “Phil in the Blanks,” where Dr. Phil praised her work, stating, “This book should be required reading.”

Thought Leader Roundup

• Selena Rezvani was featured on the TODAY show and interviewed by Washington Post and Bloomberg about her creator journey.

• Author and speaker Charlene Li’s LinkedIn Learning course, Generative AI and Workplace Transformation, debuted.

• Somatic educator Jay Moon Fields’ signature program Yours Truly is now evergreen! Jay’s 4th LinkedIn Learning course, Learning to Prioritize and Express Your Needs at Work debuted.

• Leadership consultant Aiko Bethea and the RARE Coaching and Consulting team debuted their LinkedIn newsletter, Street Lights.
  
• Amy Gallo and Kandi Wiens will be speaking at SXSW 2024.

• Executive coach Muriel Wilkens hosted two seasons of her popular podcast, Coaching Real Leaders.

• Has Cynicism Infected Your Organization? and Stop Overworking After Vacation by Kandi Wiens were published by Harvard Business Review.

• I cared too much about my job and landed in the ER. Here’s how to spot the red flags of ‘overcaring’ by Executive Coach Teresa Vozza was published by Fast Company.

SUCCESSESS AND MILESTONES

Melina Cordero, DEI advisor and founder of P20, says:

“I had posts featured by the LinkedIn News team 3 times in 2023, each one generating a big spike in engagement and followers. I definitely attribute that to the strategies and consistency Medusa trained me on!

On another note, I had a random LinkedIn post go my-version of “viral” with 32k impressions. It was a post of a blog I wrote almost 2 years ago which I was recycling. I followed Medusa’s learnings and BOOM! How wild is that?”

Speaking of viral, Amy’s LinkedIn post “Women are held back at work due to 30 biases out of their control, says new study” earned over 100k impressions, 866 likes, 51 comments, and 123 shares.

On Sabbatical:

• Amy: “I had my biggest revenue year yet – while taking 4 months off!”

• Jay: “I took a sabbatical/family medical leave for the last four months of 2023. I’ve worked very hard over the years to build a business that can sustain me even if I need to take a break. I’ve built that business, and I need that break.”

• During her academic sabbatical, Dolly explored two new spaces— documentary filmmaking and improv theater—showcasing her “semi-bold” willingness to explore new avenues of non-fiction storytelling and science communication.

5 million and 10k:

• Dolly’s TED Talk How to Let Go of Being a ‘Good’ Person — and Become a Better Person crossed over 5 million views, further solidifying her impact globally.
• Through her popular email newsletter Dear Good People, Dolly connects with over 10,000 readers monthly, with zeitgeist-y, evidence- based and action oriented tips.

Elaine Lin Hering, speaker, facilitator, and author “Unlearning Silence” says,

“I continue to use the approaches you taught me about LinkedIn and am approaching 8k followers. I also found a rhythm with the newsletter that feels good and sustainable, and recently crossed a big subscriber milestone. It still boggles my mind that people beyond ’everyone I know’ want to hear what I have to say. Thank you for getting me started on both those ventures.”

Elaine’s book is available for pre-order!

Achievements and Awards:

• Dolly was promoted to Full Professor and remains Jacob B. Melnick Term Professor at NYU Stern.

• Amy was shortlisted for the Thinkers50 Talent Award.

• Selena was awarded Thinkers50 Radar, named a LinkedIn Top Voice, and earned the title of Premier Expert on Self-Advocacy at Work by Forbes.

IMPACTING OTHERS

• Dolly remains involved with the NYU Prison Education Program as well as the High Mountain Institute. And thanks to Exponential Influence with Eva and Medusa Media, Dolly’s thought leadership on LinkedIn continues to grow.

• Kandi delivered 6 keynotes and facilitated 27 workshops helping professionals lead with resilience and develop burnout immunity.

• Jay shared her talk “What Thought You Here Won’t Get You There: When Smart Isn’t Enough)” at the 15 Seconds Festival in Graz, Austria.

• Amy says, “One of my favorite audiences was a group of staff from the National Health Service in Belfast!”
  
• Bias disruptor and speaker Stacey Gordon’s company debuted Unconscious Inclusion: the Work Beyond the Workshop: “Unconscious Inclusion is an all-encompassing, neuroscience-backed program that delivers meaningful cultural trans-formation. It’s not just about awareness; it’s about action, evolution and sustainable change.” All participants receive a DEI Professional Certificate upon completion, and HR professionals receive 13 CEU’s.

HIGHLIGHTS

I share how I planned my sabbatical, including what I had to build, let go, and risks. My time off was for maternity leave, but how I planned it applies to anyone taking an extended leave from self-employment. Read about my sabbatical >>

Features

What is the curse of knowledge? [11:26] Why are “non-consensual coaching” (and unsolicited advice) my pet peeves? [18:37] These are some of my favorite topics which Jessica Fearnley and I cover in this episode! Listen to Seven Figure Consultant >>

If you read others’ content and think, “Yeah but…”, that’s the sign of a hot idea! In this episode, I explain how to develop your thought leader ecosystem. Diane Mayor and I also go over: What exactly thought leadership is, how it differs from content marketing, and more. Listen to Coffee and Converse >>

1% OF PROFITS

We donated 1% of our profits in Q2-4 to Black Feminist Fund—one of a kind funding focused on supporting Black feminist movements that are fighting against systems of oppression and building another world that is affirming of Black women and gender expansive people. Thanks to Ellen McGirt for sharing about this organization.

The post Client Impact Report: Q2-Q4 2023 appeared first on Medusa Media Group.

If you do, the soil gets depleted and the crops fail. Instead, you need to rotate your crops and occasionally let your fields lay fallow. This gives your land a chance to rest and replenish. 

Isn’t that lovely? Sensible? Doesn’t it feel… right?

Yet that’s not a rhythm that we’re encouraged to follow culturally. For myriad reasons (outside the scope of this writing), we’re instead encouraged to go go go go GO. Keep producing, building, advancing until you retire. 

Harder Better Faster Stronger by Daft Punk says nothing about resting or replenishing. After all, you can “sleep when you’re dead.” 

I object to that sentiment. I bet you do, too. I bet you know and can feel how important it is to rest and replenish, to take breaks, to follow a cyclical ebb and flow with your work and life, rather than pursue relentlessly-paced forward motion. With that in mind…

I’m taking a sabbatical for the rest of 2023. 

I’ll be off work until January 2024. While I’m away, I’ll be learning how to parent a brand-new baby, whom we’re expecting in mid-June. 

The timing of my sabbatical coincides with having my first baby, yes, but this break-from-work has been a long time coming. And whether you foresee a caregiving leave or would like to plan a sabbatical for any host of other excellent reasons, today I’m sharing how I planned this break, what I’ve had to let go, and what will (temporarily) change while I’m gone.

1. Create Redundancy

I’ve known for some time that I wanted to take an extended leave from work. I also knew that I didn’t want to halt my entire business (and income) to take leave. 

So it was clear I needed to build internal capacity in the business if I wanted to take sabbatical. I needed to train other people to do all or most of my responsibilities, so I could take time off and the business would run without me. 

That process has been equal parts gratifying, humbling, frustrating, and ego-checking. 

It’s been gratifying to have other people take the reins on projects and responsibilities. When you work for yourself, you typically start by doing everything. It’s a mental and scheduling relief to share those responsibilities with other people. 

It’s been frustrating to discover that training others on my methods requires painstakingly clear communication, time, repetition, and patience. Anyone who’s trained anyone knows this already, but it was new to me!

I’d built many “processes” within Medusa that were held together with chewing gum and Scotch tape, plus my wits, memory, and ability to make fast decisions. This is a recipe for chaos when it’s time to train other people, so I’ve had to slow down, document my processes, and entrust them to people who aren’t me. 

Lastly, it’s been humbling and ego-checking to recognize that… I’m not that special. Other people are equally capable — if not more capable! — of doing everything at Medusa that I do.

This sent me into a brief and necessary identity crisis: If I’m not uniquely capable of doing XYZ for our clients/the business, then what am I good for? Why do I matter? The invitation amid this discomfort and growth is to discover what my ultimate zone of joy/genius is, and it’s a work-in-progress.

2. Determine what matters 

As I began preparing for my sabbatical, I created a HUGE list of projects I wanted to complete, both before my leave started and for my team to work on while I was away.

Did I mention it was a HUGE list? As my sabbatical start date drew closer, I realized that not only was my list enormous, but it was largely unnecessary. 

This sparked an important eureka moment about priority and focus. It made me realize I/we needed a filter to determine if projects and tasks are fundamental or nice-to-have. Our filter involves four simple questions:

• Is it related to client retention?
• Is it related to sales?
• Is it related to the foundation of the business?
• Is it related to our impact? 

If not, it’s almost guaranteed to be a nice-to-have. For example, I wanted Medusa’s team to review all our old thought leadership blog posts to update imagery, social media posts, and internal links but:

• Was it related to client retention? Nope
• Was it related to sales? Not directly
• Was it related to the foundation of the business? Sort of…
• Was it related to our impact? Sort of…

It would be nice to have our blog posts optimized, but a pass through this filter made me realize it’s not something that will make a substantial difference in our business. For the sake of focus and priority, not to mention simplicity, it makes sense to let this project go. Speaking of…

3. Let go

Woof, letting go. It feels good to have done, but it’s dang hard to do. 

Preparing for my sabbatical has involved multiple layers of letting go:

• Identity/ego (which I talked about above)
• Control 
• Momentum
• Opportunities 
• Growth

Control:

The Medusa team has made great strides in setting up systems and processes for our work. My least favorite part of this learning curve and experience is when we discover cracks and holes in our systems. I do what I can to work with myself and the team to patch those holes and cracks, but once my leave starts I have to let them go. I have to trust Medusa’s team to handle them.

Momentum:

I like to describe my sales strategy as “following up my face off.” I’m accustomed to a lot of forward momentum: pitching myself to podcasts, inviting clients into Medusa’s programs, following up, sending Roundtable invites, following up some more.

So far, the only person at Medusa who keeps the momentum going is me. This is one area where I have not yet created redundancy. (By the next time I take leave, I intend to have created internal capacity so others can keep up some forward momentum.) 

On the other hand, I started all this by talking about the importance of rest and fallow fields. So while it feels risky to let go of this momentum, I’m eager to see how temporarily letting it go will “prime the pump” for when I return full time to work. 

Opportunities:

Argh, opportunity cost! Fear Of Missing Out (FOMO)! I grapple with those regularly. There is an opportunity cost to taking a sabbatical. There are clients, speaking invitations, networking events and more that, by nature of not working, you’re letting go. I have faith in the open window — I know from experience and observation that new opportunities are always coming — but still! It feels counterintuitive to refuse opportunities!

Growth:

Thanks to Medusa’s team and clients, we will keep delivering superb thought leadership content on behalf of our private thought leader advisory clients while I’m away. This makes me so proud and grateful, both for Medusa’s team (and all they’ve learned), Medusa’s clients (and their trust in us), and in my past self (for building that internal capacity and forging those relationships!).

And, because I won’t be doing my job of forward momentum and sales while I’m off, the company won’t grow this year — at least not in the revenues department. In fact, I’ve chosen to take a pay cut during my sabbatical, to ensure we have plenty in our coffers. 

I’m fortunate to be able to take a pay cut. I’m married to someone with a salaried job and health insurance; I have savings that will support me; and I was able to build my savings thanks to not having debt. 

I’d prefer not to take a pay cut. I’d prefer to have a business model and internal capacity that would allow our revenue to stay steady, even while I’m off work. But, that’s not where we are right now — and it’s my job to make peace with that.

What will (temporarily) change during sabbatical

In the spirit of our filter and letting go, some of Medusa’s “regularly scheduled programming” will pause during my sabbatical. I won’t be sending weekly emails while I’m away. And I won’t be writing new blog articles, posting on LinkedIn, publishing Client Impact Reports, or working with new clients until 2024. Eek! 

Of all I’m letting go during sabbatical, no new clients and no weekly emails makes me the most nervous. They bring up fears like, am I letting you down? Will you be offended or forget about me? Be disappointed? When I start emailing again, how many of you will realize you didn’t miss me, and unsubscribe? When I start working with clients again, how many of you will have hired someone else in the meantime?

Taking a break like this flies in the face of many business and marketing best-practices (including some I agree with): consistency, proactive communication, staying “top-of-mind”. These are valid and effective. And…

I’m excited to see what opportunities and perspectives a long break reveals. After all, a fallow field gets the chance to replenish itself, soak in nutrients, and prepare for an abundant future harvest. 

(Caveat: I will send emails to my delightful email list if and when the spirit moves me! Other parents have told me they missed work while on parental leave, and I’m glad to have the option to work here and there as I desire. I also intend to send a picture of my baby to my list and you can join the list here.)

What will not change during sabbatical

We will continue serving our private thought leader clients, as mentioned above. My colleague Nicki will helm the Medusa ship while I’m away, managing client content and hosting advisory meetings. She’ll also provide details about our group programs Exponential Influence and Micro Marketing Method (Mx3), which I will be leading again in 2024. 

If you’re interested in either of those programs, check out the program pages linked above and make sure to submit your application. We’re super-early-bird enrolling qualified women in our thought leader program Exponential Influence this year, and there are some bonuses for early enrollment. Once you submit your application for either program, Nicki will reach out with details about next steps.

When I come back from sabbatical

When I return from leave in January 2024, I’m extremely excited to share original research on women and professional authority. I’m preparing this research project now, before I start sabbatical, and Medusa’s team will support it with follow up while I’m away.

I also look forward to emailing my list again, to enrolling women thought leaders in our programs, and to just… being back! I love my work and I derive so much pride and pleasure from my connections with fellow women thought leaders. I’m eager to see what new ideas and inspiration I bring to the table, after spending seven months focused on something very different from work!

I’ll conclude with the acknowledgement that I’m fortunate to be able to take a break. I’m grateful to my past self for providing me the means. Credit also goes to the many social privileges I have but didn’t earn — those too impact my ability to take leave.

I’m extremely excited and grateful, and hecking nervous. I’ve never taken a sabbatical before! I’ve never separated from my business for more than a few weeks of vacation. What will happen!? How will I feel? What new perspectives will come from this separation? What will I see when I look at my work with new eyes? 

I can’t wait to find out.

If you liked this article, share it LinkedIn! Copy/paste below:

Have you ever taken a sabbatical?

In this article, thought leader trainer and advisor @Eva Jannotta shares how she planned her sabbatical, including what she had to build, let go, and risks she had to grapple with. Eva’s sabbatical is timed for a maternity leave, but her thinking and experience applies to anyone planning an extended leave from self-employment: https://medusamediagroup.com/business/how-this-thought-leader-is-taking-sabbatical/

The post How this Thought Leader is Taking a Sabbatical appeared first on Medusa Media Group.

I write this Q1 Client Impact Report just weeks before my maternity leave (for my first child) begins. Whoa!

Of course I’m excited, and of course I’m a little nervous. To stay in touch with me and the Medusa team while I’m away, make sure you join our private email list.

Now! On to our clients:

One client’s book is out (!), another is giving a huge talk in Austria (!), still more have seen great leaps in their audience growth and incoming opportunities (!!!).

We also published an important resource about thought leadership accessibility, and are proud to donate 1% of our profits to a wonderful organization — scroll down to see both.

Wishing you good thoughts and feelings,

– Eva & the Medusa team

PS For the PDF-version of this report, go here.

Exponential Influence

I’m extremely lucky (by USA standards) to be able to take a 7 month caregiving leave after I have my first baby.

That means I’ll work with new clients again in January, 2024!

However, I am super-early-bird enrolling a handful of qualified women leaders in our signature thought leader program, Exponential Influence.

These are women who know what they want and value planning their learning and development.

Sound like you? Apply here.

In the program we work with authors, speakers, coaches, and consultants to build inner depth and outer resonance — the key components of a thriving and profitable thought leader ecosystem.

If you’re considering working with Medusa, now is a special time to begin. I’m offering unique bonuses (and the best investment price ever) to honor early enrollers. I hope you’re among them!

Recent Exponential Influence members include:

Dolly Chugh

• NYU Stern professor, author of two acclaimed books and creator of the popular “Dear Good People” newsletter. (Dolly’s assistant Anna McMullen is also pictured below!)

Maryam Kouchaki

• Kellogg School of Management professor and organizational psychologist

Simone Ahuja

• Keynote Speaker, bestselling author of two books, and global authority on innovation and intrapreneurship.

Thought Leadership

Selena Rezvani launches a book and is named among LinkedIn’s Top Voices

Quick Confidence: Be Authentic, Boost Connections, and Make Bold Bets on Yourself by leadership and self-advocacy expert Selena Rezvani is out!

You can support Selena’s dream of making this book a bestseller by ordering your copy today!

Bestseller lists tend to be overwhelmingly male and white. Getting Quick Confidence on such a list would be an achievement for Selena, and a powerful symbol to anyone who’s felt like they don’t fit in due to their identities.

Selena Rezvani has also been named one of LinkedIn’s Top Voices! She shares her insights on agile growth here.

Top Voices is an invitation-only program featuring experts in a range of professional topics, to help users uncover valuable knowledge relevant to them. Congratulations on the recognition, Selena!

Jay and Amy’s highest-performing posts

Congrats to Amy Gallo for her highest-performing post since working with Medusa Media, earning over 1500 engagements: Stop Undervaluing Exceptional Women. Amy shared the article during Women’s History Month and it resonated strongly.

Somatic coach and educator Jay Fields had her highest-performing post since working with Medusa Media: Empathy is the Most Important Leadership Skill According to Research, earning 860 engagements.

Elaine Lin Hering made immediate impact

“A CEO is adding a feature to their product for reporting harassment and mis-conduct based on what I posted last night on LinkedIn.”

– Elaine Lin Hering, speaker, facilitator, and author of Unlearning Silence (2024)

Charlene Li featured on Idea of the Day

Charlene Li, a disruptive leadership expert and author, was featured by LinkedIn’s Idea of the Day for her valuable insights on how how to navigate change in uncertain times. Read her article: 2022 Reflections: Crisis, Change, and Continuous Opportunity

Congrats, Charlene!

Success & Milestones

We’re thrilled that not one but TWO of our clients made Thinkers50 Radar!

Congratulations Selena Rezvani and author and HBR editor Amy Gallo, for your dedication to delivering transformative knowledge to your communities.

Jay’s joining a big European Stage

Speaking of milestones, Jay Fields is proud to be filming her 4th course for LinkedIn Learning, and…

Prepping for her talk at Europe’s leading Future Conference, the Fifteen Seconds Festival (a prestigious event often compared to TEDx)!

Elaine and Melina’s successes on LinkedIn

I got my first client referral off LinkedIn. Here’s to thought leadership and social media monogamy in action! I’m starting to see the power of this network in action and am all for it.”

And:

“LinkedIn wins for the week so far: a leader DMed me to ask if I would be interested in being a guest on her podcast after seeing the comment I left in her thread.”

– Elaine Lin Hering

“Wow. I wanted to share that I’ve been seeing steady growth in my Linkedin follower numbers since starting your Micro Marketing Method program. Today I had a really big lead reach out ON LINKEDIN for an opportunity! Proof is in the pudding…”

And:

“Update: I’m up 50 followers… and they aren’t just ‘followers’, they’re the kind of people I want in my network and to partner with!”

– DEI advisor Melina Cordero

Stacey Gordon’s Impact Stories

Workplace culture consultant and global keynote speaker Stacey Gordon published the first edition of DEI Impact Stories.

It’s a valuable resource for starting genuine, transparent conversations about DEI, featuring five incredible organizational leaders whom Stacey has worked with through her firm, Rework Work.

JJ Jank accepted at a major speaking event

“I’m excited that my application to speak at a major California HR conference (CAHR 2023, put on by Professionals in Human Resources Association or PIHRA) was accepted!”

– Chief Brain Hacker Jennifer “JJ” Jank

Highlights from Medusa Media

Do you provide alt text on social media?

If you’re like a lot of people (including us, until recently) the answer is probably no.

That means you’re missing a critical step in making your work accessible. Not using alt text isn’t only ableist, it also limits your audience… by the millions!

In our resource learn what alt text is, why it matters, and how to include it in your thought leadership going forward:

1% of Profits

IllumiNative is a Native woman-led racial and social justice organization dedicated to increasing the visibility of—and challenging the narrative about—Native peoples. Thank you Amanda Hirsch for introducing us to this organization.

The post Client Impact Report: Q1 2023 appeared first on Medusa Media Group.

This article is long, informative, and a living document. As we learn and technology evolves, we’ll edit this resource so it’s as helpful and accurate as possible. 

It starts with a short story (content warning: the story discloses my own ableism. Please skip if reading about ableism will cause harm). Then we go over what alt text is and why it matters, best practices, and examples from LinkedIn. You can use this table of contents to go directly to the section that will be most valuable to you: 

• Recognizing My Own Ableism (story)
• Why Image Alt Text Matters
• What is Alt Text? And Best Practices (Dos and Don’ts)
• Check in: How do you feel?
• Medusa’s Alt Text Practices and Scope
• Use Alt Text for Every Image
  • Alt Text on LinkedIn
  • Alt Text using a Social Media Scheduler
• Frequently Asked Questions
  • Q: How do you determine if an image is “informative” or “aesthetic?
  • Q: How do you avoid making identity assumptions about people in images?
  • Q: Why do some resources recommend using alt text and image descriptions?
  • Q: What if people (colleagues, bosses) think alt text looks weird?

Thank you for being here. Accessibility and inclusion are important yet often neglected, which is hurtful and limiting. While this is not an exhaustive resource, I hope it piques your curiosity, educates you, and equips you to make your thought leadership more accessible. 

If you have feedback that would improve this resource, please email me: evaj @ medusamediagroup . com.

If you’d like to spread the word about accessibility, thank you! Here’s a social media post you can share, so your audience can use this resource too: 

Share “Make your Thought Leadership More Accessible”:

Copy this text, and paste it into a post on LinkedIn or other social:

Do you provide alt text for your content on social media?

If not, you’re missing a critical step in making your content accessible to and inclusive of people who use assistive technologies. 

Not including those individuals isn’t only ableist, it also limits your audience… by the millions! 

Learn what alt text is, why it matters, and how to include it in all your social media, emails, and articles going forward: https://medusamediagroup.com/thought-leadership/make-your-thought-leadership-accessible-with-alt-text/ by @Eva Jannotta

Recognizing My Own Ableism

If we’ve not met before, hello! I’m Eva Jannotta, I use she/her pronouns, and I live on O’odham Jeweḍ, Akimel O’odham, and Hohokam unceded indigenous land. I’m a thought leader advisor and trainer, the founder of Medusa Media Group, and I don’t love to admit this, but: I’m ableist. I’ve learned that I’m especially ableist when ableism seems more convenient than practicing inclusion. Ugh and yuck. 

Recognizing my ableism, especially in the context of thought leadership, started when I saw a tweet with this tip: “capitalize the first letter of words in your hashtags. It makes them easier for screen readers to read” (thank you Christy Batta for sharing!).

Ever since, my team at Medusa Media and I have always capitalized the hashtags we provide our thought leader clients and use ourselves. Why wouldn’t we!? It’s an easy way to make social media posts more accessible to blind and visually impaired people.

Yet not long after that, I learned that providing image alt text is another important way to improve online accessibility for the blind and visually impaired. Despite learning about the importance of image alt text years ago, I didn’t make it a priority for Medusa Media Group. 

Why? Honestly, it “seemed inconvenient.” I didn’t know how, it wasn’t something I could do quickly (whereas capitalizing hashtags was), and so I ignored it. I blithely went along in my vision-privilege, until a prospective client asked, “how do you make sure your social media is accessible? Do you capitalize hashtags and provide image alt text?”

*Gulp*

Clarity hit like a bell: by not adding alt text to all the social media we create, I’d been consciously ableist for years. Yuck, but it’s true: What else explains why I refused to take action on image alt text even though I knew it improved accessibility?

It’s ugly to admit, but the reality is that I decided my convenience was a greater priority than inclusion.

Those days are over. In this lengthy piece, I’m sharing Medusa Media Group’s practices and guidelines for including image alt text on all the social media we provide our clients and ourselves, as well as how we teach inclusive social media in our group programs.

(Note: we’re a small team, and implementing these practices is taking time. Depending on when you read this, you may find alt text still missing from some of our content. If you do, please reach out and let me know so we can fix it!)

Why Image Alt Text Matters for Accessibility

Providing image alt text for imagery used in thought leadership articles, emails, and social media posts matters because of accessibility. 

“If someone went on your website or profile with their eyes closed, would they still be able to find their way around? By adding alt text and image descriptions, barriers are lifted and more people can access your content.”

Veronica Lewis (source 1)

If you don’t provide an alternative textual description of your imagery, there’s a gaping hole in your content — a hole that would be difficult (impossible?) to bridge for someone using assistive technology like a screen reader.

There are other reasons why providing alt text is valuable:

1. Ensure your visual content is accessible to people using screen readers (I consider this the most important reason!)
2. If an image doesn’t load on someone’s device, alt text will display instead which will give the reader an understanding of the missing image’s purpose
3. Search engines index alt text, which can bolster SEO results 

Providing image alt text makes sure that anyone using a screen reader can experience the images that accompany your thought leadership and other content.

Also: Why would you Consciously Limit your Audience?

Up to one in four adults have a disability in the United States (source 2). Over 13 million adults in the United States have “vision disability with blindness or serious difficulty seeing even when wearing glasses” (source 2). 

To put it plainly: If you’re not providing image alt text for the pictures you share in your thought leadership and on social media, you are limiting your audience. You are making it very difficult (or impossible) for millions of people to access your work and feel welcomed by it. 

Why would you limit your audience like that?

Alt Text: What It Is? And Best Practices

“Alt text” is when you use words to describe what an image depicts, and either embed that text as part of the image (websites offer this capability, and LinkedIn does in some cases) or include it in post text on social media.

When someone uses a screen reader to navigate a page with multiple images, the screen reader can’t “see” the images. But it can tell an image is there and it can read the image’s attributes. When one of those attributes is alt text, the screen reader can read the text and allow the person navigating to understand the image’s function.

The purpose of alt text is not to describe in minute detail every single aspect of the image, but to give the person navigating clarity on:

1. What the image depicts, and
2. What purpose the image serves

That being the case, image alt text works best when it’s short. Its intended to convey the purpose of the image: 

“A picture may be worth a thousand words, but there’s no reason to write them all out and leave the user waiting for the descriptions to end.”

Veronica Lewis (source 1)

DO — The most effective alt text will have the following attributes:

1. Short. Be specific and succinct — 150-300 characters is ideal
2. Informational. Describe visual information, not aesthetics.
   1. Picture an image that depicts Nike’s logo. The alt text should say, “Nike company logo” rather than “graphic of a swooshy check-mark”
   2. If an image is aesthetic only, put “null” or empty quote marks (“”) in place of alt text so the person knows the alt text isn’t missing, but is unnecessary.
3. Punctuation. Use normal punctuation
4. Text. Include any relevant text on the image.
   1. If your image depicts a book cover or event flier, make sure to include those details in the alt text.
5. Purpose. Convey the context and function of the image (what does the picture do?)
   1. Holly Tuke points out that the function of an image depends on context. Picture an image of a well-decorated room. If you’re an interior designer, your alt text may include design features. But if you’re a leadership coach sharing an image of a nice-looking room with a laptop in it, see #3 below.
   2. “A maple leaf might represent Canada, or it might just illustrate the leaf of a tree.” (source 3)
6. Complexity how-to. For complex images, provide further explanations elsewhere, such as for complex infographics, text-heavy drawings, or a screenshot heavy with text. This is a great example, by Yi Shun Lai (found via Coty Craven, source 4).

Are you feeling overwhelmed? Confused? Not sure how to proceed? Think about it this way:

 “Think about how you would describe the image to someone over the phone.”

– Holly Tuke (source 5)

DON’T — Alt-text pitfalls to avoid:

1. Don’t start alt-text with the words “a photo of…” or “an image of” because it’s obvious to the screen reader that it’s an image. Don’t waste characters!
2. Don’t include copyright information or photo credits in alt-text (again, not the point!)
3. Leave out alt-text for images that are only decorative, like in the leadership-coach-laptop example above. Another example might be a picture of a sunset or smooth pebble in a mindfulness article. Ask yourself, “without this image, does what I’m saying still make sense?” If yes, then you’re likely working with a decorative image.
   1. See #2b above for what to do instead.
      

Check in: How Do You Feel?

Take a deep breath and check in with your body. What do you feel? 

When I learn about something new, especially if it seems to require a lot of steps and adjustment and refinement to implement, I often feel my body get tight. My shoulders creep up to my ears. My breathing is more shallow. I might be gripping my toes or fingers, frowning, or otherwise holding tension.

If I were to give these physical sensations some labels, I’d use words like “overwhelmed,” “intimidated,” and, since we’re talking about accessibility, “guilty” (I feel remorse for how long it’s taken me to commit to accessibility). 

If you can relate to the above, you’re not alone, there’s nothing wrong with you, and you/we can do this. In the next section, I’m going to share the process Medusa Media Group uses to provide alt text for our clients. Then in the final section, I’ll show examples of adding alt text to your thought leadership, particularly to LinkedIn and social media posts (as of this writing, it requires some extra “doing” to implement alt text on social). 

Medusa’s Image Alt Text Practices and Scope

There is a ton of valuable and in-depth information out there about making different types of media more accessible, and providing alt text in mediums like power points, word documents, PDFs, videos and more. 

In our work, we train and advise clients on distributing their thought leadership through:

1. Long-form written pieces 
2. Emails to their list, and 
3. Social media, particularly LinkedIn. 

All three of these modes of distribution can and often do include imagery, especially on social media. That being the case, our practices and guidelines for providing image alt text focus on these modes, and therefore are not exhaustive! I’ll provide additional resources at the end.

Use Alt Text for Every Image

The big, bad takeaway from this entire lengthy blog article is: use alt text for every image you share on social media. Full stop.

That means:

1. Articles: When you’re writing an article, for your own website or another publication, write alt text for the images included in the article
2. Emails: When you’re sending an email to your list, write alt text for your logo, header image, podcast images, or any pictures you include before you press send 
3. Social Media: when you’re publishing a post to social, whether in real time or using a scheduling tool (we use Meet Edgar), write alt text for the image, link preview, or GIF. If you’re sharing a video, make sure it has captions.

Fortunately, most email service providers (ESPs) and customer relationship management (CRM) software provide a field for alt text in every image. Here’s an example from Mailchimp: 

How to Provide Alt Text on LinkedIn

Unfortunately, social media doesn’t always make it that easy. As of 2023 on LinkedIn, only certain types of posts provide an alt text field, and that’s image posts. Here’s an example of a image post and the alt text field it provides:

But another frequent post-type on LinkedIn is link preview posts — that is, when you paste a link into the post box, and a link preview automatically loads. Here’s an example with an eventbrite link: 

There’s no option to add image alt text to that link preview. And while the link’s website may (or may not) provide alt text, someone navigating LinkedIn with a screen reader would have no way of knowing what the link preview image depicts.

How to Provide Alt Text using a Social Media Scheduling Tool

Also unfortunately, scheduling tools (as of 2023) do not provide an alt text field for posts you want to schedule in advance. I hope this changes, but for now the best work-around I know of is to manually add alt text to the scheduled post (see the eventbrite link example above for what that looks like).

If it’s an image post, you can edit the post after it publishes, and move the alt text from the post itself to the image’s alt text field (note: you can only edit a post to add alt text later if it has only one image. If there are multiple images, you must add alt text to each image individually before you publish it. There’s no way to add alt text after it’s published if there’s more than one image). 

If it’s a link preview post, the best option I’m aware of is to keep the image alt text in the post itself, so people with screen readers a) can understand what the link preview depicts and b) know you aren’t neglecting their needs and accessibility.

A case for always keeping alt text in the post:

Medusa’s practice at first was to put all alt text in the body of the post in Meet Edgar, our social media scheduler. Then, when the post went live on a clients’ LinkedIn, we would manually add the alt text to the image (if it was an image post), and leave it in the body if it was a link preview post.

But then I came across this post from Meryl Evans, which makes the case for keeping alt text in the body of the post always. This is more accessible for deafblind people and people using text-to-speech.

This discovery is a case-in-point reminder that accessibility is an evolving work in progress for everyone!

Do GIFs and Emojis need alt text on social media?

Employ alt text for GIFs the same way you would for images: by describing, briefly, what the GIF depicts depending on its purpose.

You do not need to provide alt text for emojis, but be mindful of not using too many emojis in a row, or repeating emojis (the screen reader will read out each emoji. How annoying would it be to listen to “champagne bottle, champagne bottle, champagne bottle” ten times?). Also: “Avoid conveying critical information with emoji” – Veronica Lewis (source 6).

Frequently Asked Questions about Alt Text and Accessibility

I’m not an expert on accessibility. If you are, you might find that I’ve made errors (and if you do, and you’re willing to give me feedback, please email me at evaj @ medusamedia group . com). The Medusa Media team is learning as we go, and these are some of the questions we have about providing alt text. 

I’m grateful to our client Dolly Chugh (she/her), who generously introduced me to Coty Craven (they/them). Coty is an inclusive community builder and expert, writer, producer, and video game producer. I’m extremely grateful to Coty, who provided answers to my questions and consented to let me quote them. Thank you, Coty! They offer terrific accessibility resources to writers in particular, which I’ve linked below (see source 4).

Q: how do you determine if an image is “informative” or “aesthetic?

It’s recommended to provide alt text for “informative” imagery, not purely “aesthetic” (like a picture of a pebble in an article about mindfulness) images. But say you’re scrolling LinkedIn, and you come across a post about mindfulness with a link preview of an image of a pebble. The pebble is aesthetic, but without providing alt text viewers with screen readers will still feel left out, or be left to wonder “did they just skip alt text? Or do I really not need to know what that image depicts to understand the content?”

“For aesthetic vs informative, I would say to always include a few words of alt text regardless of the purpose. So just “A pebble” would suffice. Because people using screen readers will have the file name read to them if the alt text field is left blank in some instances and sometimes think the person did just skip it entirely.

A good way to tell the difference is in how you’re thinking of using the image. If you’re writing a blog post with screenshots that lend themselves to the content in a meaningful way, those would get a better description of how/why they’re included. If it’s just to break up content, short is better. For example, when I wrote accessibility reviews of video games, I’d include a title image with alt “Legend of Zelda press art.” I’d also include screenshots of the game’s subtitles which were an important part of my article, so I’d describe what the subtitles looked like in the image because that was why I shared the image.”

– Coty Craven

Q: How do you avoid making identity assumptions about people depicted in an image?

If an image depicts a woman wearing a scarf over her hair, the alt text could read “Muslim woman,” “woman wearing hijab,” or “woman wearing a scarf.” Each has a different meaning and is making a different assumption. Another example: describing someone as a “Black woman” can mean a ton of different skin tones, hair styles, and more. No group is a monolith.

You touch on this in your presentation, and you point out how important it is not to describe people only from historically underestimated backgrounds. But I’m still curious about the assumptions we make when we interpret an image. Thoughts?

“Making assumptions can be tricky because it relies on prior knowledge and cultural literacy. I caution assumptions more for gender and ethnicity. For example people who know me or have looked me up on social channels would not assign she/her pronouns to me in alt text. But people that don’t know me or hadn’t done their research would be more likely to misgender me in alt text.

Same for ethnicity. People describe “an Indian man” when the man is Pakistani, “an Arab woman” when the woman is Persian, etc. For things like hijabs and headscarves, that’s where research and cultural literacy come in, knowing different styles of cultural head coverings. For skin tones, I’ve taken the lead of BIPOC in writing alt text and many will describe the shade. “A dark skinned Black woman,” “A brown skinned Muslim man,” “A pale white androgynous person.””

– Coty Craven

The conclusion I’ve come to is that it depends on context: when you’re writing alt text for an image of someone you know, make sure to identify them using their words. But if your image is of, say a woman-presenting person on a laptop, and you work with women entrepreneurs, I’d venture that it’s appropriate to describe the picture using she/her pronouns.

Q: Why do some resources recommend using alt text and image descriptions?

(This question addresses the option to provide image alt text AND to provide image descriptions. I didn’t go into detail about image descriptions in this resource, but there are lots of places you can learn about it.)

I understand the recommendation to be concise and specific in alt text. But some images require much more description to be meaningful, especially screenshots heavy with text, or infographics. But with a social media post, I can imagine a thorough image description could end up being longer than the post text itself. When are image descriptions necessary vs when alt text is sufficient?

“With image descriptions vs alt text, you generally only run the risk of them being too long if the image contains a lot of text. Most screen reader users set the speech speed to 2-3x “normal” speech speed, so it doesn’t take nearly as long as we’d think to get through a paragraph. But a good rule is to try and stay under 300 characters (Twitter’s 1000 characters allowance is WAY too long).”

– Coty Craven

Q: What if people (colleagues, bosses, peers) think my alt text looks weird or strange?

They might! As Medusa has begun implementing alt text, I received feedback from one person who said it looked “unprofessional.”

While unpacking “professionalism” is its own conversation, I bet we can agree that, at first, alt text in a social media post looks at least unfamiliar. While I’ve seen a handful of people (For example, Emily Weltman: this post shows alt text for multiple images in the comments!) using alt text in their LinkedIn posts, it’s far from common.

Adding alt text to your social posts may indeed cause confusion and uncertainty at first — and each instance of that is an opportunity for leadership. You can explain why you provide alt text, what it is and how it works. Every time you do, more people will understand why it matters.

It’s my hope that, as the years go on, seeing alt text on social media will be about as remarkable as an emoji or hashtag — that is, not at all.

Connect with Medusa Media

Thank you for reading this long resource! For about accessibility and inclusion at Medusa, see Why We Offer “Equity Pricing” In Our Programs For Thought Leaders and our Anti-Racism Commitments.

Want to connect further? We’d love to have you join our email community. We share our freshest thought leadership, best stories, and opportunities to connect every week for free. Our readers say…

• “This analysis is super helpful. Thank you!!” E.H.
• “So fascinating and mindset shifting. And it bears repeating, for sure!” – D.C.
• “I loved the email that you sent yesterday about putting back out the same content – I applied it immediately :-)” – A.D.

Resources and Further Reading

1. Source 1: How to Write Alt Text and Image Descriptions for the visually impaired, by Veronica Lewis
2. Source 2: Disability Impacts All of Us, by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
3. Source 3: Alternative Text by WebAIM
4. Source 4: Accessibility for Writers, by Coty Craven
5. Source 5: Common alt-text mistakes that hinder image accessibility by Holly Tuke
6. Source 6: Texting Etiquette for Low Vision by Veronica Lewis

Veronica Lewis’ site, Veronica With Four Eyes, also has great resources.

The post Make your Content Accessible with Alt Text: Best Practices for Thought Leadership and LinkedIn appeared first on Medusa Media Group.

Or, as a client wrote:

“It’s fabulous that I doubled my LinkedIn followers last year, but in the same amount of time I only grew my email list by 9%. What strategies could I employ to change that?”

– Medusa Thought Leader Client

I could sense that she felt sheepish: was she missing something obvious? Should she already know the answer? 

And, as she said when we sat down to talk about it: “you work with so many high-profile, successful women thought leaders. Are they doing something that I’m not?” 

I hear this question often, and the answer is nearly always “no.” No, our #1 selling authors, highly-paid keynote speakers, and sought-after consultant clients aren’t employing some magical tactic to grow their email list that everybody else is missing. 

How to Grow your Email List

The truth is more simple and complex: to see improvement in the “outer resonance” of your thought leadership — that is, the rate at which and how your audience grows by resonating with your work — requires a series of small and valuable tweaks (rather than one dramatic change) to how you distribute your work and invite people into your world.

In other words: if you are unsatisfied with the growth rate of your email list, start by mending the leaks in your bucket.

And by “bucket” I mean the journey or funnel that transitions someone from a stranger to a subscriber, or citizen of your world. 

Here’s how: 

1. Know Your Numbers

Before you glare accusingly at the growth rate of your email list, make sure you’re looking at the right numbers. 

In our client’s case, 9% was the *net* growth of her list in a year. It was the total number of new subscribers, minus the total number of people who unsubscribed. 

Her total number of new subscribers (her gross growth rate) was higher than 9%. Gross = total new subscribers. Net = new subscribers minus subscribers lost. 

It’s valid to desire a higher net growth rate than 9%, but can you see how your gross growth is different from your net growth? Once we differentiated the two and our client could see how many total new subscribers she’d earned, she felt better about the number of new people she was attracting.

2. Embrace Healthy Churn

“Churn” is the word for the rate of people unsubscribing from your list. Churn is healthy and normal. It’s your thought leadership doing its job: repelling people who aren’t a fit for you, and engaging people who are. 

Your churn rate will depend on: 

1. Size: the size of your list (the larger your list, the more unsubscribes you can expect per email you send)
2. Frequency: how often you send emails 
3. Relevancy: If you have a legacy list that you built over 10 years, and you’re now pivoting your work and sending thought leadership about different topics, you can expect a high number of unsubscribes in the beginning of that transition.
4. Re-engagement: how often (and how) you re-engage subscribers who don’t often open your emails. Re-engagement is a “whole nother topic” that I’ll write about separately.

Even though churn is healthy and normal, allow me to confess that every time someone unsubscribes from my list, I feel a pang of rejection. That’s healthy and normal, too! Even when you understand intellectually that churn is healthy, it can still hurt and that’s okay.

For further normalizing: I just chose two clients and calculated the churn rates of their lists (size ranging between a few hundred to a few thousand subscribers). The average was 0.7%. It’s not an apples-to-apples comparison (one client sends emails monthly, and the other bimonthly) but it’s a helpful ballpark. 

3. Review your History of Growth

Do you know where your subscribers came from? Using tags in your ESP (email service provider, not extrasensory perception) can provide this data. In my case, over the last 30 days 35% of new subscribers came from “admin add,” 30% from our LinkedIn Profile lead magnet, 25% from Mailchimp’s API and 10% from our 5 Pillars lead magnet.

A word about “Admin Add”

As you can probably guess, this category is for users the Medusa team adds manually to our ESP. “Wow,” you might think. “That sounds like an enormous hassle. Can’t I automate it?”

In many instances, yes you can. But my philosophy is this: I want to make it as effortless as possible for someone to join my email list. I’m willing to have me and my colleagues do the extra work of manually adding a subscriber once we have their consent — rather than expecting them to click on a link and fill out their information and blah blah blah.

The more steps or complexity it requires to join your list, the more people will “fall off” and not do it. 

4. Make it Effortless to Opt-in

This is where the “mend the leaks in your bucket, a.k.a. journey or funnel that transitions someone from a stranger to a subscriber, with small and valuable tweaks” rubber meets the road. 

Let’s hearken back to the curse of knowledge for a sec. I bet you believe, on some level, that it’s fairly clear/obvious/easy/simple for someone to join your email list. 

That’s the “curse of knowledge” at play: you created your email list so of course it’s obvious to you how to join…

• “You just scroll to the footer of my website.” 
• “You just copy/paste the link in my profile’s About section.” 
• “You just hang out on my website for 15 seconds until the pop-up appears.”

But for someone who is new to you — maybe they heard you on a podcast, or found your post on LinkedIn — there is nothing obvious about waiting around for your pop-up or trolling your profile for a pasteable link. 

Thus, it’s part of your role as a thought leader to make it easy for people to connect with you and your work. How? Make it effortless for someone to subscribe to your list by putting opt-ins at every connection point: 

• Reading a thought leadership blog post? Put an email opt-in at the bottom.
• Reading your LinkedIn profile? Add a URL to your email list landing page under your headline, in your Featured section, and in your About section. 
• Listening to you on a podcast? Give listeners a short, memorize-able URL where they can join your list.
• Scheduling a consult call or Roundtable? Include an opt-in to subscribe to your list.
• Delivering a keynote? Put a short URL in your slides, or invite the audience to text “join” to a special number to automatically subscribe. 

5. Invite Consistently

This might be the most overlooked area of opportunity for growing your email list: simply inviting people to join. 

Why? Well, a number of reasons:

1. The curse of knowledge, again

We think it’s obvious how to join, and that people will if they want. This neglects the power and intimacy of making an invitation. It also ignores that it feels good for the recipient to be invited! It’s the difference between seeing an event on a flier and the organizer personally inviting you to join because they want you there.

2. Fear of rejection:

There’s no doubt that the more invitations you make, the more rejections you’ll receive. Even if you know, logically, that someone opting-out of your email list is good, it still hurts (see the section on churn, above). 

3. Fear of being repetitive or “nagging”

Our parents taught us not to nag because nagging is annoying. Many of Medusa’s clients shy away from making consistent email invitations because they feel like they’re hounding people, or sounding like a broken record. But when it comes to growing your email list, repetition is POWERFUL, because:

1. Your audience is growing all the time. Repeated invitations ensure that new people get the opportunity to join. This is particularly true when you are a frequent keynote speaker or podcast guest. We have a client who earned a trickle of new subscribers every time she made an invitation on LinkedIn…until one day, after a big podcast interview, she got over 100 new subscribers from the same LinkedIn invitation.
2. The “marketing rule of 7” states that it takes seven interactions before someone is ready to convert. By that rule, a potential subscriber might need to see your invitation seven times (not to mention all your other content in between) before she’s ready to opt-in to your email list. 

So how do you invite consistently? By making it effortless and everywhere. With our clients, we focus on:

1. LinkedIn posts that regularly invite followers. See below for an examples from clients Kimberly Harden, an award-winning DEI and leadership consultant, and Amy Gallo, best-selling author of “Getting Along“.
2. A LinkedIn headline link or featured post. See our free course Generate Leads with an Effective and Enticing LinkedIn Profile for how those work.
3. Adding an opt-in to every Roundtable and event they host personally (currently our Roundtables and events software isn’t connected to our ESP — so we manually add folks who consent to opt-in. #WorthIt).
4. Clear, easy-to-remember invites on podcasts. (For example, I invite listeners to a lead magnet with a short, easy-to-remember URL, but you don’t have to. You could simply invite listeners to yourwebsite.com/join!) 

We also encourage clients to make it easy for keynote audiences, and for our many clients who are LinkedIn Learning instructors, we encourage them to have someone on their team follow up with every course-taker and invite that individual to join the email list.

Inviting LinkedIn Learners to join your email list

You could invite them by sharing a lead magnet or link with them and requesting they join… or you could ask if they would like to join, and manually add them yourself. (I have my suspicions about which would yield better results, but only experimentation will tell for sure!)

Go Forth and Grow Your Email List

I know this is a lot. “Grow your email list” is not something to check off your to do list once — it’s a lifestyle. It’s an ongoing practice of nurturing relationships and making your world accessible to the people who want to be part of it.

If you diligently put these “mend the leaky bucket” practices into place, you will grow your email list. While each tweak on its own might seem small, their cumulative effect is enormous.

Let your LinkedIn Profile Work for You

A few simple tweaks take your LinkedIn profile from “fine” to FINE — and an effective LinkedIn profile is a huge boost when it comes to growing your email list and making that consistent, effortless invitation.

Our short, free e-course guides you to make simple and effective updates to your profile so it generates leads and opportunities and grows your network strategically. Let your profile work FOR you.

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If you’re unhappy with the growth rate of your email list, there’s good news:

Small tweaks are greater than a shiny new tactic.

In this article, @Eva Jannotta shares 5 simple tactics to “mend your leaky bucket” and improve your email list’s growth rate and consistently to earn new, interested, warm subscribers: https://medusamediagroup.com/your-email-list/grow-your-email-list-consistently-with-5-simple-tweaks/

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