Social Media Ghostwriting Q&A

What is social media ghost writing? Well, I've made over three million dollars as a ghostwriter So I can tell you social media ghost writing is where you have conversations with business owners You record those conversations. That's what I like to do and then you turn their words into scalable social content Social ghost writing is also one of the big three ghost writing services that I encourage every writer to offer to start making 10 grand per month newsletter ghost writing educational email course ghost writing and or social ghost writing Those are the big three and you can easily make six figures per year offering one or two or even all three of these services But if you're specifically interested in social ghost writing then this is for you Here are some of the most common questions I get asked about how to get started as a social ghostwriter Okay, Darshan asks how do I conduct content calls and make sure that I'm asking diverse or unique questions every single week So here's a really easy framework that you can use when interviewing clients I've been using this for years. I call it my social ghost writing content generator It goes like this There are three content buckets that work for basically every ghost writing client doesn't matter what industry they're in The first is what I like to call futurism So which is their thoughts on where the industry is headed in the future Predictions the second is their founder story Which is their unique experiences building their business and then the lessons that they learned from those experiences or mistakes They made things they wish they would have done differently things like that the third bucket is actionable advice Which is them explaining how to do something? So usually to their target reader and their target reader could be a customer or it could be an investor or an industry peer now There's a fourth bucket that can also work which is news But news takes a lot of bandwidth right and by the time you get a draft back to the client and they review it and you Edit it and then you post it that news story is probably irrelevant So I tend to discourage ghost writers from focusing on news now with these three content buckets in mind How do you come up with content ideas you use what I like to call the 10 magical ways to expand anything and the 10 ways are tips stats steps lessons Benefits reasons mistakes examples Questions and personal stories and then you just start pairing one of these 10 magical ways with each of the three content buckets now Some pair better than others. So for example Here's how I like to group them for futurism. I like to use stats Benefits reasons and questions for the founder's story. I like to use mistakes and lessons and personal stories right that makes sense and For actionable advice. I like to use tips and steps and examples. So to answer the question How do you ask diverse or unique questions each week on your content calls? You pick one of these three content buckets and then you pick one of these 10 magical ways and you make that the focus of the call So for example this week Maybe you ask the client about reasons why they think their industry is headed in a certain direction or you pull some new Research and show them a few stats and you ask their interpretation of what those stats mean for the future of their industry But then the next week you ask them about mistakes they made building their first company or lessons they've learned about launching viral apps on the app store Then the next week you ask them for tips on whatever topic they want to be associated with so maybe hiring tips or time-blocking tips or Biohacking tips the point is you just pick a different content bucket and a different Magical way to center the conversation and then let them riff on that and one last thing because this is something I notice a lot of Ghostriders don't really realize is you don't just have to use their answers from that week's content call to create that week's content Okay, every week week after week the library that you have to pull from gets bigger right the library is growing So you could combine an answer that they gave you to a question this week with a story They told you last week with an example. They told you the week before which is why again The longer you work with a client and you should explain this to them The easier it is for you to write for and with them and the less likely they are to leave because you've collected a Tremendous amount of information on them who they are their stories their insights their unique experiences their opinions all of which Makes creating the next piece of content for them easier and easier and easier All right, David Southern asks when should you only go straight one specific topic for one specific person in one specific way And when can you expand that to cover more ways but retain Speciality right so for example starting with the ECs then expanding into newsletter's articles short form writing etc So this is a great question, but there's a nuance here that a lot of people don't understand my entire philosophy for context is that you should position yourself to go Straight for one specific person in one specific industry in one specific way so for example instead of saying I'm a ghostwriter for anyone willing to give me money Which is what most people do your far better off saying I go straight specifically for sales managers in Enterprise B2B technology companies and I only go straight weekly newsletters one specific person in one specific industry providing one specific Type of asset or ghost writing in one specific type of way now the big question is why why cool then not everyone can be my client Correct and that is a good thing when you say that you go straight anything for anyone you have no pricing power You are easily replaceable you are now a commodity But when you say that you only go straight weekly newsletters for founders of SaaS startups You repel everyone who doesn't fit that archetype and you attract everyone who is that archetype? It's very counterintuitive, but I promise you do not need Thousand clients if even nine clients all said yes, I would like to work with you tomorrow You would have an anxiety attack so you don't need to say that you go straight anything for anyone You need to get specific and become the go-to person for that specific industry and niche now to answer the question When can you expand into other services the honest answer is you usually don't need to you could build a seven-figure ghostwriting agency Just go-shwriting newsletters. You could also build a seven-figure ghostwriting agency just building educational email courses and creating insanely valuable Optans you could also build a seven-figure ghostwriting agency just writing social content or just writing short-form video scripts And I know because I did it I built my entire ghostwriting agency to millions of dollars in revenue 80 plus clients 23 full-time employees All we did was write 800-word thought leadership articles for executives. It's the only thing we did We literally did not offer a single other service even though every single one of our clients asked for our help with Web copy and emails and newsletters and managing their social content and the reason we didn't offer other services is because we didn't have to Little fun fact. There was a point where my ghostwriting agency was producing as many articles each month as Forbes or Ink magazine Literally hundreds and hundreds of articles each month. So oftentimes, I find that people think they need to expand into other services because either a One client asked them to and now they're having this identity crisis and feel like they have to say yes Or be they haven't yet built the skill of cold outreach or warm inbound from their own content or asking for referrals and so instead of building the skill they run away from it and try and solve it in a different way And the way they try and solve it is by adding more services and the vast majority of the time I'm telling you this is a mistake and it usually brings them right back to where they started Which is I'll go straight anything for anyone with a pulse in a credit card now Can you offer other services? The answer is yes, but here's some rules that I would set for yourself. First of all Only offer other services that are related to your core offer So for example, if you're pitching clients. I'm building an educational email course for them It would make sense to upsell them at the end of that project on ghostwriting their weekly newsletter or setting up some automated email sequences Right why because those two services are extremely related They have an EEC opt-in and now they need a weekly newsletter and those two services involve using all the same skills If you can build an EEC you can go straight a weekly newsletter. That's great The mistake would be pitching an educational email course But then also offering to script their YouTube shorts. That is a completely different skill It's a completely different platform. It's a completely different form of writing Which means there is massive switching cost for you So only upsell services that are related to your core offer that's how you build efficiency and that's how you build pricing power The second rule is you want to decide whether you want to be on the brand side or the direct response marketing side So this is probably a topic for another video, but I'm going to give you the quick crash course here broadly speaking There are two types of content which means there are two types of ghostwriting clients on one side There's brand content which is really just educational thought leadership This is not about obsessively tracking clicks and conversions It's just about building your presence online fundamentally anyone on the brand side believes If I consistently create content online more good things will happen for me and my business It's very easy to understand and it's even easier to measure the measure for success is you were not creating content consistently Now you are so that's the brand side on the other side of the spectrum is direct response marketing content Which means creating content specifically with the purpose of driving a tangible measurable result clicks Optins conversions book calls whatever the metric is fundamentally anyone on the direct response side believes I only want to create content if I can measure it and attribute revenue generated back to our efforts Nothing wrong with that You're just dealing with a different kind of person and a different kind of client and after ghostwriting for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of different types of people and different types of industries I can tell you some ghostwriting clients only care about brand if you're a startup founder that just raised half a billion dollars You're probably not looking for a ghostwriter to track book calls through your content You're probably using a ghostwriter to continue building your brand so that the next round that you raise You can go out and attract investors and raise another 750 million right they only care about brand I know because I go short for a lot of them on the other side of the spectrum some ghostwriting clients only care about direct response metrics They're more obsessive about we created 10 pieces of content How many clicks did we get how many impressions did we get how many people opted in how many people booked a call It's totally fine. That's just a different type of ghostwriting client And some people like me I fit the criteria of both I understand on the brand side if I keep creating content online more good things are going to happen But I also because of the way we run our businesses want to have visibility into the metrics So I'm like a hybrid now the reason this is so important is because whatever service you provide You actually want to get even more specific within yourself and decide whether you want to be on the brand side or the direct response side Because let's say you really focus on social media ghostwriting for biotech founders That's your niche and all biotech founders really want then again I know because I go short for a lot of them is to build brand so they can raise more money in the future Great, it's an awesome niche, but then let's say another client walks in and they're also a biotech founder But they're obsessed with direct response metrics and now they're asking you all sorts of reporting Questions that you don't normally do or you don't normally speak to so they want milestones They want competitive metrics. They want benchmarks. They want biweekly analytics reviews None of these things are bad They're just a different offer And so what a beginner ghostwriter does is they try to adapt their offer to make this one client happy Which you will eventually learn is the mistake the seasoned ghostwriter on the other hand Recognizes that this person isn't actually their ideal client This client wants something completely different And you would be better off letting that client go or not even taking them on in the first place And then spending all that time going out and finding another one or two clients on the brand side who are your ideal client The point is you do not need to say yes to every client who walks in the door And I promise you would be much better off just specializing in one single service And then spending all your time building the skill of finding and attracting those specific types of clients Okay, Marty asks starting out is the hardest part and you mentioned doing free work initially How do you recommend we go about finding the right caliber of customers that we can serve for free So this is an interesting question and the answer is when you're starting out You shouldn't really care about finding the right caliber of customers You're a beginner and beginners can't be choosers, right? I promise and again, I went through this too. I promise you will learn a tremendous amount working with anyone literally anyone it could be your uncle it could be some random person you knew in high school And haven't talked to in 10 years, but now they have a startup it could be the restaurant owner down the street It doesn't matter literally anyone the bottleneck to learning and improving in the beginning Isn't finding the perfect situation or the perfect client the bottleneck is literally just you choosing to jump into the deep end and get going All right, Jalen asks how can you turn a small or medium result from clients into a bigger clientele network So another great question and this is something I notice a lot of ghost writers don't do You have to ask every single client for referrals whenever I say this I hear all sorts of objections and faulty beliefs as to why they can't I don't want to ask anything of the client. I'm afraid the client's going to say no I don't want to annoy the client and I'm telling you all of these are wrong I promise happy clients want to help you. This is something people don't really understand about entrepreneurs Okay, because that's who you're selling to you're selling to an entrepreneur you're selling to a business owner I've been an entrepreneur for a decade now. I have ghostwritten for more than 300 other entrepreneurs So let me tell you a little secret Entrepreneurs know how hard it is to build a business Which means when they meet another entrepreneur that's you they genuinely want to help them in some way Sometimes they want to help them for selfish reasons. So if they help you then they can ask you for a favor later on Nothing wrong with that right favorite trading rules the world But more often people just want to be helpful for the sake of being helpful Or they want to be helpful to make themselves look good I probably get asked 10 times a week by people in my network if I know any good writers They want introductions. They're looking for someone to hire. They're looking for a ghostwriter to work with And when I introduce a ghostwriter to a friend or someone in my network I look good right I look smart. So yes, I enjoy being helpful to the writer But I also like being helpful to my friend. So going back to the question You should ask every single client for referrals and if they are a long-standing client And they've stayed with you for year after year after year you should be asking them for referrals literally every single year And this is how I would phrase it. Okay, just repeat this. I would say hey I'm really focused on growing my ghostwriting business this year And I was wondering if you knew anyone who's looking for a ghostwriter No worries if not, but if anyone comes to mind, I'd really appreciate it in an introduction Just say that and I promise other entrepreneurs will empathize with you And they'll empathize with the fact that you want to grow your own business Because they've been there. They're working on growing their business and they will want to help you And the ones who don't want to help you Whatever just move on and try again try again try again All right, NavJet asks what's the biggest mistake beginner ghostwriters make When starting out on social media platforms and should be avoided So I think the biggest mistake actually happens with the offer Even before you start working with the client There's this trend by a bunch of Twitter bros Where they think the best way to get social ghostwriting clients or just any type of agency client Is to make some outlandish offer like I guarantee you'll get 10 million impressions in the first 30 days or you don't pay And this is such a giant mistake for a lot of reasons But the biggest mistake is because you don't have control over that outcome Social algorithms are like a lottery So you have absolutely no idea whether you're going to generate 10 million views or 10,000 views More importantly you actually don't need to make these kinds of promises And this is the thing that a lot of people don't understand about social ghostwriting specifically The measure for success is not some specific tangible metric Especially for start-up founders, CEOs, executives, investors, these people do not care about how many clicks they're post-god The measure for success is that they're not creating any content right now Or they're not creating content consistently And the reason they're not doing it is because they don't have time, they don't have the skill And/or they can't rationalize making the time or building the skill Because they're too busy building a company The value that you provide as a social ghostwriter isn't some specific number of views or anything like that You don't have to promise follower growth, you don't have to promise a certain number of impressions The measure for success for the client is literally you aren't creating content consistently We work together, now you are And when you create content consistently more good things happen in your life and in your business It's such a simple concept but it's so hard for people to understand and wrap their heads around I'm telling you, I built my entire ghostwriting agency Millions of dollars in revenue Ghostwriting for some of the most well-known founders and CEOs and investors in the business world And we did not promise one metric Zero, we didn't promise anything Our entire pitch was you aren't building thought leadership at scale right now on the internet And now working with us, you are That's it If you have other questions that come to mind, leave a comment and I'll make a follow-up video answering the good ones And if you're at all interested in getting started as a social ghostwriter or an email ghostwriter Send me a DM, I would love to hear from you