The Guide to Being Interesting Online

No music. No intro. This is The Morgan Snyder Show.

Last weekend, I was in Orlando.

I was there for a summit with leaders around the country.

Many were uber succesful executives who will forget more than I’ll ever know about business.

It was intimidating at times. But I forged ahead. I put on my winning smile and kept shaking hands.

“Oh, you’re a writer?” they said. “That must be fun. What is it that you do exactly?”

Like it was a pastime or hobby that you mess around with after the real work was done.

Using storytelling techniques that I’ve learned recently, I returned fire with a question of my own.

“Do you know how people go viral on LinkedIn or X and get thousands of views on their content? Or you see a website that really captures your attention? That’s what I do for my clients.”

That pulled them in much quicker than, “I work in social media and help leaders…blah, blah, boring intro.”

Suddenly, I had CEOs and people flying on private jets interested in me.

Blame it on the good desserts or my abilities as a conversationalist, it occurred to me that EVERYONE, the mega success stories and the up-and-comers, want to bring people in to their story.

They want to captivate a listener, draw someone in with something they wrote, and make new relationships to fuel their opportunities in life and business.

In short, we all want to learn how to be interesting and appealing.

This got me thinking.

How do you increase your likeability? And how can we do this to greater effectiveness with our content?

This may call for a longer episode, (or several) but here is one note I’ve been thinking about.

The Guide to Being Interesting Online

If you’re a frequent listener to The Morgan Snyder Show, you’ll remember that I’ve been experimenting with my LinkedIn content.

Due to the founders I’m working with having viral posts that are mainly memes, satire, and parody, I gave it a spin for myself.

In the last 3 weeks, I’ve posted 5 times. Each one is my attempt at at being funny. Can you guess what my results have been?

Over 150 thousand people have seen my picture, headline and posts.

Never in the last 5 years that I’ve been creating content on various platforms have I witnessed such a response to what many would consider “stupid” content.

I’m shocked. Why is there such an outpouring of comments and views over this?

Why is it when I’m “bringing so much value” by talking about storytelling and online writing is it complete silence, but when I make up my connection acceptance criteria it’s fireworks?

I think it’s in the injection of personality.

So much of the content we see everywhere is empty. It was written by AI, quickly looked over by a marketing team, and published haphazardly to the masses.

Along with emptiness, we have repetitive platitudes and in a lot of scenarios, we exist in echo chambers where leaders have parroted the same things over and over again.

If I have to read another post about how AI is “changing the game”, I’m going to lose my mind.

I realize that not everyone feels comfortable with this.

Being funny or telling jokes may not be the kind of brand you want to be associated with.

That’s why I leave it at personality.

Readers and listeners have to feel like it’s something different, a unique voice that’s talking to them through the void.

When I think about accomplishing that, my head goes to creating a voice, which is obviously something I’m thinking about a lot as I’m writing for executives.

Is the voice of the whitepaper, the ad, the social media post, sound something like Mr. Rogers? Brad Pitt? Plato? My grandma?

The voice comes with the perspective.

I imagine where the message is coming from and where it’s going.

Yes, know your target. But your voice is just as important.

Otherwise, everything you say starts to sound like it’s coming from this unknowable, bland brand to the anonymous crowd.

You can ask yourself: Is there a person / character out there who is my kindred spirit?

Then, as a follow up, you ask: What are the hand or facial gestures? How does this ‘voice’ walk around? It feels weird at first, but you let your imagination take you places and you’ll be surprised how easy and quickly you can land on a personality that feels really close to who you are.

I’m not as clever or funny as any of the people I feel like I’m match with, but in my head as I’m writing most things for myself, it’s a mash-up of The Colbert Report, Eeyore, and Conan O’Brien arguing with Jordan Schlansky.

You might also throw in the feeling of carving on a longboard or drinking a refreshing vitamin water…but we’ll stop there…

Because I’m comitted to the voice, and I know what my personality is and how it shines, that comes through in ALL of my writing—even down to the LinkedIn DMs.

For example, Morgan Snyder does not say something like, “Great to connect. How are you?” when making a new friend on LinkedIn.

He says something like, “Come here often?”

Or when someone asks me how I’m doing I say, “Typing my life away. Please send help.”

That personality makes all the difference in the world.

Here’s an example from Thomas Kemeny:

No voice: The new no-glare tablet. Take work out of the office and into the sun.

Ugh. Yaaaaawn.

Here’s one with voice: The new tablet. Embrace the light my office brethren.

I have a few more notes but I’m going to save them.

Looks like this is turning into a two-fer. Maybe even a three.

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Want to talk shop on all things writing online? You can find time with me at thoughtleadertoday.com or send me a DM on LinkedIn.

My friends: keep writing, keep publishing, and I’ll see you next time.