The secret is in your comments
“The truth is, most people wouldn’t last a week on a retail floor.”
That was the opening line I wrote on a LinkedIn post that went viral. The post was about the abundance of talent in retail leadership that often goes unnoticed.
Lucky for me, I had a link to my newsletter in the post, so that edition of the newsletter went viral too. My newsletter is called The Voice of the Frontlineand it mirrors what I do on LinkedIn. It’s the unfiltered version.
The most interesting aspect of this is all the comments. Read your comments — all of them. There’s so much great stuff in there. I’ve already written two articles from that one post. This one makes number three.
That post is approaching 500K views. It’s still getting shared, and I have more comments every day. (You can view the post here.)
This comment showed up today.
“But what’s the future of retail managers?
Most companies are restructuring to remove positions, meaning managers are even further away from their teams, less influence and definitely negative effects for both managers and teams.”
Whew, I could talk about this for hours.
Here’s the thing, I probably will.
The following article you read from me could be all about this.
You can’t go viral if you don’t hit publish.
Virality is not crucial to writing online and finding your audience. It’s great when it happens, but you never can tell when lightning will strike.
The most important thing is showing up consistently and hitting publish. You can’t go viral if you don’t hit publish. The next most important aspect is to read the comments and interact.
This corner of the internet is social. Be social. Your readers will give you fantastic ideas for future content.
I responded to the comment above and will continue to write more about that topic.
Go niche — really niche — when you can.
It’s a great idea to write about whatever you fancy. It gets your brain working in new ways. However, when I go granular about retail leadership, the community loses their minds.
I spent twenty years running retail teams, so I write content like an insider — because I am one.
What do you know better than anyone else? What comes so naturally that you don’t think when you do it anymore? Write about that.
A guy on Tik Tok talks about all the stuff you can do around your house with WD40. That’s like 99% of his content. Guess what? It works! I watch it, and I’ll never use most of his tips.
Post, read comments, respond, and repeat.
You don’t need a viral post to get some good comments. Post regularly, and you’ll accumulate some outstanding ones.
One comment could inspire three Medium articles, two Twitter posts, or four LinkedIn posts. You know where I’m going with this. Monitor your comments and pay attention to where they lead you.
People comment on what catches their eye or what they want to know more about. That, my friend, is where you want your content to go.
When you follow those leads, your content is more likely to go viral because you’re tuning into the social zeitgeist. You dig?
Post, read comments, respond, and repeat. (Keep fingers crossed and go viral).
About Kit
Kit Campoy is a former retail professional turned freelance writer. She writes about Leadership, Retail, and Web3. Contact Kit for your content needs.