Camille Ricketts, Head of Content at First Round Capital, explains how the firm tracks influencer engagement with First Round Review publications.
Insight
Ricketts: Use a three-tier interview framework to extract concrete tactical examples
“The first being somebody is going to throw out just a response to your question. Like maybe it'll be like kind of high level. Like, let's say that I'm like, oh, you know, how do you manage your time? They'll be like, well, this is how I sort of structure my ca…”
Insight
Ricketts: High-utility content creates brand halo effects by helping audiences directly
“If they can somehow provide content that helps people get to that end goal for themselves, then they're going to reap the halo effect. Of being able to be that helpful. So producing high utility stuff is what I, it's sort of my go-to recommendation.”
Insight
Ricketts: Content must be useful or emotional, and utility is easier
“In order for it to really resonate, it needs to be either really used Useful or really emotional. And by emotional, it has to be like, I'm crying. I have to send this to my best friend right now, which is like really hard to do. And like, you're not going to b…”
Insight
Ricketts: Numbered lists and bullets increase reader engagement in long-form content
“If you give people a sense of, like, how much they can anticipate from a certain section, they're more likely to read it, because they're like, oh, I feel like that's going to be digestible, and so knowing that people make those types of calculations and feedi…”
Disclosure
Ricketts: First Round uses content to recruit talent for mentorship and events
“Whenever we see someone who might not be in our community already or who we might not know tweet about us, we will reach out and just be like, Hey, how's it going? And there's a few other things at first round that they can also engage with, you know, our even…”
Disclosure
Ricketts: First Round Review aims to be New Yorker meets HBR
“So we came up with this guiding North Star that we haven't accomplished, but it does help me in my everyday work that we want to be the New Yorker meets the Harvard Business Review. Like, can you tell beautiful literary stories about people that also provide t…”