Part of writing the CBI newsletter is figuring out what ‘material’ will work on it. To do this, I use LinkedIn and Twitter.

It’s pretty easy.

One of my jobs is to write isht on the internet. Sometimes, that isht might be funny, insightful, irreverent (and oftentimes it’s none). I can figure out what’s good (aka landing) vs not by trying it out first on LI and Twitter.

If the post gets a lot of engagement (likes, comments, RTs, etc), I know it taps into a nerve and thus is worth putting into the newsletter.

It’s a fantastic way to test copy and content before putting it in our NL for 850,000+.

It’s like an “open mic night” for copywriting.

The signals, however, can be confusing. The same content can perform very differently on both platforms.

I’d say LI is generally kinder but also less forgiving of humor.

An example was the below tweet.

Didn’t do very well on Twitter tbh but what was interesting was the reaction on LI was very different. Folks who know me and how I post knew it was a joke / caricature of the cringey thought leadership / hustle-inspiration posts that are so common on LI, but it def got some other folks’ panties twisted. Note: BTW, polarizing reactions are often the clearest sign you’ve hit a nerve which is a good thing as plain vanilla is death.

Anyways, back to my main point…

If you are testing marketing or newsletter copy, it can be useful to find a test ground for it. My test grounds aka my open mic nights are on LI and Twitter. If you’ve found other channels or effective ways to test your content/copy, I’d love to hear what’s worked for you.