The Taylor Swift Content Strategy For LinkedIn
5 Lessons from Taylor Swift which will instantly improve your content
I have to confess something.
Two of my favourite songs right now are Taylor Swift’s.
Opalite and Fate of Ophelia. If you show up to one of my events, they’ll probably be playing as background music.
Whilst I’m not a Swiftie, you can’t help admire how Taylor has built her music career and her audience of die-hard fans.
Her music is her content.
And people love it.
So, I want to share the Taylor Swift content strategy that you can deploy on LinkedIn.
#1 Every piece of content is based on her experience
If you look all of Taylors song’s map to a relationship, feeling or struggle she personally had.
I’d never want to date Taylor Swift.
Because if we broke up, she’d probably write a song about me.
But this is the power of her music, it’s coming from her own story.
Rather than presenting some factual information, she’s loading every song, with what happened to her, how it impacted her.
What experiences have you had which can translate into content?
How can you share your message wrapped up in your context?
Instead of sharing stats, tell stories around the facts
Get into the nitty gritty of the reality not just high level concepts.
#2 Her experiences overlap with audience experiences
If you look at Taylors music, it always is a shared feeling, something both the listener and the performer have seen or experienced. That create connection.
When audiences feel you see their world. When they can identify with what you are sharing, they resonate.
Resonating is simply just where they feel or see what you see.
You are in alignment.
What feelings and experiences do my audience have, that’s I’ve seen too?
What common struggles do we both have?
#3 Her message rotates around a small number of themes.
You can break down Taylors message into a small number of themes, which she circles in all her songs.
Falling in love
Losing love
Being misunderstood or judged
Growing up and changing
Power, control, and reclaiming yourself
Memory and meaning
Often we can try to talk about too many things when the reality is we need to circle just a small set of themes.
Notice as well, many of these themes circle feelings and emotions, not just events or situations.
What are the evergreen themes you can circle?
How can you share them in different ways, different media, contexts?
Lock in 3-4 themes, start sharing your stories around them
Rotate between them to give you diversity and prevent creative block.
#4 Her songs are about one thing
Coming to my favourite song. Fate of Ophelia. It’s about one thing. How she was rescued from heart break.
Her loss of love and how it was hurting her so badly.
The song was so popular it drove increased search for Ophelia.
Ophelia’s fate in Shakespeare’s Hamlet is tragic: after her father Polonius is murdered by Hamlet and she is cruelly rejected by him, she descends into madness, eventually drowning in a brook while gathering flowers.
There is one concept in the song…. Taylor was rescued from that fate.
There is a story, there is drama, there is emotion… but one clear point.
3 minutes and 46 seconds is devoted to that one point.
Make one point in a post.
Layer in a story or analogy.
Show the stakes of why it all matters.
#5 She doesn’t over explain
Taylor didn’t spend 2minutes of the song giving context.
She didn’t tell us who Ophelia was.
She didn’t explain.
That removes the intrigue, the curiosity and frankly it would bore people.
She dived straight in.
She didn’t try to prove her point, justify her point or try to make it all make sense.
She just shared it.
Those who were curious then googled Ophelia.
This is something fundamental to lead generation and marketing.
Over-explaining tends to make people switch off.
They need just enough info to prompt them to want to take the next step.
Content isn’t about convincing, it’s about making people curious and wanting more.
That gap of curiosity keeps people coming back.
Too much info, overloads people, make people curious.
Are you leaving a curiosity gap in your content or explaining everything?
Don’t obsess about sharing “how to” instead post about “why”
Music. Tv shows. Movies. Posts.
They all do the same thing.
Hook the audience.
Help them resonate with the message.
Leave them wanting more.
That’s how you build die hard fans.
That’s what your need in your content.