George Kao says you need two dates: when your program starts and when you announce signups are open. Between them, send reminders and do final prep. If you've been quiet, don't worry about announcing after a long silence—algorithms often boost comeback posts.
Setting a date for a start of an event or program or group. I often hear clients say, I'm gonna do something, you know, a month from now, set a date. And then, and then they start working on, okay, then I have to, I have to do this for the launch, I have to do that for the announcement, blah, blah, blah. And I don't think it, I mean, and oftentimes actually it works out that, oh, and then they have to, there's some family to take care of or some other job thing or work thing or something else to take care of. And then by the time the date they had set, it's already too close to announce something and to do other logistics. And so really before you set a date, like the most. Okay, yes, you might say, well, I wanted the event has to happen for I would like the event to happen four weeks from now. Well, the very next date you should set in your plan is when do I announce the event for the first time? Yeah, that's the next date. When do I announce the event for the first time that the, the world is hearing about the event or the group or the offer. And then it's so, so those are the two dates you need to set the date at the start of the group or event or offer or workshop or program. And the second date you have to set is when does the world hear about it for the first time? Like I'm announcing it, I'm really letting everyone know. You can sign up now. Yes, you can sign up now. The sign up announcement date, those two dates are essential. And then in the middle between those two, you might have reminders, reminder announcements and some last minute preparations and preparing the content of the workshop or the group or whatever those in between these two dates. But once you set these two dates now, you know this date's more important. This date is the start of the group or the workshop or the program. This date is more important because this is the date of the announcement of the signup page or the signup process for the world, for your group, for your community, for your audience, email list, whatever. So not knowing this date now, you now have to understand, well, what do I need to do before this date for me to get ready? And therefore am I prepared for that? So, so again, this is the start of the workshop or the group. This is the sign up page announcement, meaning I can sign, people can sign up now for the first time they're hearing about it. And this is where you are now. This is, sorry, I wish I had three hands, but this is the moment currently in time right now. And so between this. Sorry, okay. This is the sign up announcement between the current moment in time and the sign up page announcement. Are you clear what is needed to be done? And no, you don't need to send an E. You haven't sent an email to your newsletter in 6 months, 12 months, 3 months. You don't need to warm them up. This is so key. Okay? The only thing people are always so guilty. Oh, I haven't blogged, I haven't posted content, I haven't sent email newsletter. And so I can't announce the thing because I have to warm them up. And like, oh, I'm here. And this is what? No. The very first time they hear from you after 10 years of silence. After a hundred years of silence. The first time they hear from you. 100 years. 10 years of silence. The first time they hear from you, or one year or three months, or six months, I don't care. The first time they hear from you after a long period of silence can be. I'm excited to announce this workshop. Did you know that people are so guilty. Oh, I gotta post five times before George says 80, 20 rule. Post eight, you know, four content things before. I know that's if you were consistent. Okay? But anyway, if you're not, don't feel guilty, don't feel bad. The first time they hear from you, the whole world again, they thought you were dead and now you're alive. The first time is rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated. Here is my next workshop. I hope you like it. Please ask me any questions. First time they ever heard from you. Elvis is still alive. He has a workshop now. Okay. All right. So that's the. So anyway, that's the real, that's the real planning that needs to happen is from now to the first sign up page announcement. What is the. What do I need to do? Just to get the logistics right, I gotta create the sign up page. The sign up, the email they get after signing up. Is that clear? When the, the zoom link and when the call is in different time zone, whatever you need to. That's really only you need to do. You only need a sign up page or somehow they need to let you know they want to join the group or the workshop. And then once they sign up, you have their email address. How do you follow up? Hopefully you have some automated process. They sign up and they get the confirmation email. And then you have to set up the reminder emails. Right? And then you have to think about. You ought to remind the audience to sign up, you know, between the first announcement and the start of the program. So that's it. That's all you got to do. So I hope this is helpful for all of you who are thinking, I would like to, but I haven't done this. I know. You just have to tell people how to sign up and how to, how to join. And a great question, follow up here is, well, but will anyone see it, the algorithm, social media algorithms. I've been, you know, gone for a year, two years, two months. Will anyone see it, my announcement? Well, the funny thing about social media algorithms is, I mean, there's lots to say, but. But the thing I want to say is they encourage coming back from the dead. They encourage it. Have you noticed when you post something, after two months or a month or weeks of silence and you post something or month, months of silence, they suddenly show it to a lot more people than if you were posting regularly? Did you know that? Yeah, it's true. So now your audience might not be big. So maybe if you post Regularly, you get two likes because maybe 10 people are seeing it regularly. You have a tiny, tiny audience. You know, 20 people are seeing it regularly and you get two likes when you go away for a while, weeks or months. I don't know what the algorithm says because no one, they won't tell us. Right? It's secret. Otherwise people would do this exact rhythm. But after you've gone a while away for a while and you post again, instead of 20 people seeing it, let's say you have a tiny audience now, it's going to be at least those 20 people see it, but maybe 30 or 40 people will see it again. They don't tell us the exact numbers, but that's, I've noticed how it works. That's certainly how it works on Facebook and probably LinkedIn as well, and probably Instagram as well. Facebook and Instagram, similar algorithms. So anyway, I hope that helps.
