298: Let's talk about LinkedIn

Let’s talk about LinkedIn… 

A recent client was awarded the top voice badge on the channel (if you don’t know, it is like the blue tick of Instagram before it could be bought). 

But this got me thinking, what makes for a “good” LinkedIn presence? I share 3 things (the 3 C’s) I think makes a personal brand work on LinkedIn. 

Hate the idea of being on LinkedIn? So did the client who is now a top voice, but in saying that. You never have to do anything you don’t want to. 

If you LOVED this episode, make sure you share this on your Instagram stories and tag us @contentqueenmariah.

⁠⁠⁠⁠LEARN THE DETAILS OF A CONTENT STRATEGY WITH MY FREE AUDIO GUIDE⁠⁠⁠⁠

KEY EPISODE TAKEAWAYS 👇

✨ The 3C’s to a “good” LinkedIn presence 

✨ Why a personal brand is vital to entrepreneurship 

✨ How to actually use the social media platform and be social in only a few minutes a day (while you eat breakfast)  

SHOW RESOURCES 👇

If you like this episode, don't forget to share it to your Instagram stories and tag me⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ @contentqueenmariah⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠!

Other than that, enjoy - chat next week 💕

PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION

This is episode 298, and let's talk about LinkedIn. Welcome to the Content Queen podcast. I'm your host Mariah, entrepreneur storyteller, digital nomad, creative content bootcamp, and founder of Content Queen. I'm here to teach you how to share your unique story, create content, and market your business with strategy through the channels that work for you.

Each week I'll deliver a story to help you connect to a powerful strategy around marketing, business, and content creation. I'll also be joined by amazing souls and entrepreneurs. We're here to share their own journey, along with actual steps to help you take your business to a whole new level through amazing storytelling, powerful line marketing and content strategy.

Let's do it. Hello, gang. If you watch the video on LinkedIn, we're in a, on LinkedIn, Instagram. We're talking about LinkedIn today. But if you do that, you'll see I'm recording for my bed and we have a little guest, little our. Uh, we are traveling. We're in the midst of traveling, and, um, we don't have all the set up.

So there's no podcast [00:01:00] from a desk. It is from the bed, but that's fine 'cause that's actually where I used to do most of my podcasts anyway, to be fair. All right, so let's talk about LinkedIn. A couple years ago I had a client where we'd repurposed to LinkedIn, right. And she really didn't like it. She didn't spend much time there and she said, I prefer Instagram.

I just don't like LinkedIn, and that's fine. I never wanted to force her to be on a channel that she didn't enjoy. So we did repurpose content on there. She did show up there, so like she wasn't, she would connect with people, but it just reminded her of her corporate days and she just kind of wanted to stay away from it as much as she could.

She started a new business recently and obviously with Startup Life comes a lot of LinkedIn, so she did find ways to enjoy it and now she absolutely loves it. But what had happened at the start of the year is we had some meta issues and I do have a whole meta story that I've shared with my members in the DY content marketing club.

Um, I shared a little bit in my [00:02:00] newsletter. It's been a lot. Perhaps we'll do a podcast episode on it, but we're still in the midst, so we're not, we're not ready, we're not out of it. But you might have remembered an episode that I did, which I'll pop in the show notes. And basically this client had lost her Instagram as a result.

I lost my Instagram. So she's like, oh, well, looks like it's a sign from the universe for us to focus more on LinkedIn. 'cause she was starting to enjoy it a lot more. So we did actually step up. Away from Instagram. We still haven't posted. We've done like a pinned post to the top. She does Instagram stories for behind the scenes content, but we don't post on Instagram anymore.

Her business has shifted a lot. We do for her other business, not for her sort of personal brand slash consulting, so, so yeah, as she started to use it more, enjoy it more, obviously the content became very. Linked in first approach because I find when we do marketing strategies, of course we can repurpose across, but often we find that, yeah, you [00:03:00] have one channel you prefer more or where you find your audience is at.

So you, you go with that approach first. For example, I have clients that TikTok is more their jam or we go with a a video heavy approach, which is more optimized for. TikTok and a lot of that content resonates on Instagram. We also do stuff on Instagram, which would be like carousels, static visuals that we might not necessarily use on TikTok.

So each channel has its own kind of thing. If you're just starting out, it's like you can totally repurpose across and that's fine with scheduling apps and things like that. Now you can tailor it a little bit more with like a click of a button. So like you can have a, a toggle turned on. So, and I've just started on a new schedule and I'm sure I'm gonna do an episode on it once I've like really got my head around it.

'cause that's kind of what came out of all this meta jamma. But anyway, that's okay. Um, you can toggle a button and you can go, you know. We post a link here versus Instagram where we might do like a dm, a keyword, or go to link in our bio. So [00:04:00] anyway, going back to the story, we went with a little bit more of a LinkedIn approach.

What do people on LinkedIn like to consume the most? We did a lot of tagging, obviously, because that's how LinkedIn works with tagging. Obviously people that were relevant. I know back in the day, we would just like tag randoms in our posts. Like, love to know your thoughts, and it kind of got a little bit annoying for people.

Um, and it was just really about like the story, the rawness, the realness, the, the, the, the candid video photos. Not super video heavy, little bit of video. Um, even though they say LinkedIn likes video, we'll see And conversation starters. And a couple a month ago, she let me know that probably a month and a half ago she was declared a top voice on LinkedIn, probably about a year and a half ago.

LinkedIn had this kind of concept where you could become a, an expert in your field and a top voice in, in certain industry here by commenting on these articles and you could kind of cheat your way through AI and kind of just like mass [00:05:00] content production. They took that away because it got a little bit like.

Inauthentic and they just come up with, we will allocate you top voice if we think you are deserving of it. And after three months we'll reassess whether we think you are still a top voice. So she got an email to say she was a top voice. And this was a combination of multiple things, which I wanna talk about and what she did versus what we did.

And I thought it would be a really good wave. You are thinking about. Okay, maybe, maybe there's an opportunity for me on LinkedIn. To be honest, I've got a lot of clients on LinkedIn now. I've learned a lot more about the platform. I still need to do it a little bit more for myself. Do find myself gravitating to link to Instagram and TikTok.

Um, even though, yeah, meta and I've had a bit of a run in, um. But I find also existing clients thinking about how they can be more involved on LinkedIn. Do I think LinkedIn is becoming a little bit more like a Facebook vibe? Yes, there is a lot [00:06:00] of, here's what X, Y, Z taught me about X, Y, Z. And sometimes they're a little bit farfetched.

Like I don't mind them, but for example, you know, here's how getting married this is, yeah, here's what getting married taught me about B2B sales. Like that can be a little bit much, but storytelling. Fantastic on LinkedIn if used correctly. And of course we like that personable approach of LinkedIn. So there's sort of three things that come up with LinkedIn.

Now these might not be new. There were, there was an episode that I did with Ruby Lee who found herself on LinkedIn, like found her whole kind of personal brand business on LinkedIn. And she touched on these. I'm pretty sure they're probably the same. Um, but I can't remember. But these are the things that I've learned and they could be the same of her as her.

That's totally fine too. So I'm gonna go through the three and yeah, just share the experiences that I've had and if you do have any questions about LinkedIn, just reach out. Obviously with any channel, it is about learning by doing, jumping [00:07:00] in, but also with LinkedIn before I go into these, having your profile optimized.

Obviously like using all the features, just like any platform, but there is more to content creation on LinkedIn. And this is what helped my client get that top voice. So the first one is content. So obviously posting content. Now 2020, they said like 1% of LinkedIn users are posting content. I would argue it's a lot more now, like a lot more.

There's a lot of people creating content and I actually did an article on LinkedIn, which I think is interesting around the concept of, ah. Executives or CEOs or anyone now going to be responsible for creating content on their LinkedIn. I helped, when I worked in corporate, the sales team get active on LinkedIn and I had this one guy like, take it so like seriously.

And he was so good at it and he did like all these awesome, like this was bad. Before people were doing those, like here's what getting married taught me about B2B sales. But [00:08:00] he was doing great storytelling. He was. Comparing an auction. 'cause we do the, the organization I used to work for did auctions. He compared it to those car games where when you race through the checkpoint you get extra time.

'cause in the bidding process that's what happens. If had like only like two minutes left and you bid right on like a minute, there would be an extra time extension. And he sort of explained that process through that video game, which I thought was super smart. So anyway. Content on LinkedIn is about conversation starters.

LinkedIn love when you do a conversation startup, what do you think? I'd love to know your thoughts, opinion based content. Stories with, you know, you want people's opinions. Now the problem with LinkedIn is depending on your audience, some people don't always like to engage, but they like to watch. You might find that, and I had a client years ago, she would, she had a great following, but very low engagement.

Everyone was watching and people would always say like, oh, I love your stuff. It's like, why don't you like it? Some people are very mindful [00:09:00] because on LinkedIn if you do like something, it comes up in the newsfeed and it would say, Mariah McInnis liked this post. And that would kind of get posted to my audience.

So people were mindful of what they liked. 'cause obviously it would come up in the newsfeed of their connections 'cause that's how LinkedIn works. With engagement. I like or repost something, it goes into the newsfeed of my connections. And obviously like we have to be sort of, LinkedIn needs to see that we kind of interact with some with others.

Obviously my whole newsfeed isn't filled with every post everyone's ever liked, but it does deliver you content in that way. So with conversation starters, don't be disheartened if people don't necessarily always respond, but you get people saying like, oh, I love what you do here because. Some people are just very mindful, and if they've got corporate jobs and they're connected with their, the, the problem with LinkedIn is you're connected with employees, clients, customers, et cetera.

So you, you're a lot more mindful of what people see than, as opposed to TikTok, et cetera. But I [00:10:00] had one client last year go to South by Southwest and create a really interesting piece on everyone being on their phones whilst waiting for. The next seminar talk, et cetera. She sort of shared how we're in a loneliness epidemic and she goes to a conference and sees this.

That was an awesome conversation starter. I actually got picked up by LinkedIn News and they reshared it. So have a think about this thought leadership style stuff, and we've got a great episode next week with the guest who's gonna share a lot more about that. But try to create content that starts conversations.

Don't use it as a dumping ground for all your promotional content. Because you think your leads are on LinkedIn because they are probably looking a lot more, maybe are a lot more serious about engaging on LinkedIn in terms of like sales than maybe on Instagram. Could be wrong. You could be a product based business and maybe that doesn't make sense, but.

You wanna be creating content that's going to get engagement, which is conversation starters, because obviously the interactions means it gets put into other people's feeds. [00:11:00] So have a think about your content. Doesn't mean you have to, you can repurpose to LinkedIn, but just be mindful of what you repurpose and if you could edit it slightly to make a little bit more sense.

With LinkedIn and content, obviously there's lots of different types of content. They say they favor video. I beg to differ. You've got polls for great engagement. I always find a really good text post with a, with an image to go with it that's raw. Raw and authentic is great. Um, and also, you know.

Also, the good thing about LinkedIn like Facebook is you don't always need a visual. Some posts don't, to be honest, there are some clients, I don't do visuals for certain posts, very mindful of what they are. It's engaging enough, it doesn't always need a visual to go with it. You can also think about your signature style of content on LinkedIn.

Obviously you could do this on any channel, but one of my clients when they said, you know, on LinkedIn I wanna have like a signature piece of content. So we put together a [00:12:00] simple infographic that kind of looked like a chalkboard with a white sort of visual every time, and everything was white and then it had a logo and that was to sort of signify like, I'm showing you something, I'm drawing something.

Even though. It doesn't look like chalk drawing, but she got this inspiration from people that do very specific content. There was a lawyer that held up a whiteboard with her like key point, and then in the caption had different things. So sometimes finding your signature content, because remember, LinkedIn is from coming from your personal brand, so it is personal brand content you can post or business page on LinkedIn.

It just doesn't get that type of reach. It is really good to use this as like thought leadership, founder based content. The second thing is community. So obviously you need to engage. So the client that did really well on LinkedIn, they're on there. They're, they're engaging, they're commenting, they're making sure they're visible on other people's content, adding value in other people's content.

Like if you have a thought and opinion, why wouldn't you have multiple clients that do this really [00:13:00] well? And that's why their posts also get love, get engagement, or get the reach. Maybe they don't always get the likes, but they get the reach. And you do want the reach, right? You want it to be in front of people.

So make sure you are using the platform. When I worked in corporate, I used to teach, um, LinkedIn to the sales team, and I did a really great course on this and she talked about LinkedIn for breakfast. So whilst you're having your cup of tea or your coffee and your music, 'cause a lot of times in corporate you end up eating your breakfast at your desk.

'cause if you're like me, I had a long commute so I had to leave pretty early. I didn't have time for breakfast. I'd eat breakfast at work and I would do a bit of scrolling on LinkedIn, having a look at LinkedIn, commenting on things engaging. So having your little LinkedIn for breakfast, LinkedIn for lunch, whatever that looks like, and try and engage in content.

You could do this by, yeah, obviously liking content, you could repost content and add, you know, a little snippet if you liked it and you wanna give your own thoughts. But you can also just comment directly on people's content. You can do this on [00:14:00] people in your industry. You could do this on like go outside the box, like, oh, that person is connected to my target audience, but doesn't necessarily.

Isn't a competitor or not a competitor? 'cause I don't really like that word, collaborator. Like they're not doing exactly the same thing as you. So you do want to engage, just like any channel, it's a social media platform. It's designed to be social. And then the third one is, and this can go into your LinkedIn for breakfast as well, is connecting, connecting with the right people.

I just did another training. I love our LinkedIn trainings at the moment, uh, for a financial advisor group I do content for. And we sat all the advisors down and we talked about they, I didn't expect them to create content, but things that I do expect them to do is connect with their right audience. So first thing they did is connect with all their clients.

And then the second thing they did is connecting with the right people. 'cause a lot of the times we naturally connect with people in our industry. So we might connect with marketers, for example, and that's what happens. A lot of financial advisors [00:15:00] we're connecting with financial advisors. But what you wanna have a think about is how can I connect with my target audience?

You know, if my target audience is small business owners or working professionals. Do I And, and the example in this financial advice group was one guy I wanted to connect with those that worked in tech companies. So, you know, I said go into Google, uh, like not Google the search platform. Google the LinkedIn page and you can look at the people that work there and start connecting with them.

Connect with five people a day. 10 people a day. So when I did this LinkedIn training, her recommendation was trying to get to at least 500 connections and connect with five to 10 people per day in your LinkedIn for breakfast. While you're liking and you're commenting. Then you can actually export that list later of your connections and go through them when you're looking for potential partnerships, collaborations, customers, et cetera.

If you ever wanted to do some tailored [00:16:00] personalized outreach, not copy paste, but if you ever wanted to join podcasts or if you ever wanted to do different partnerships, collaborations, or people that might be interested in buying your products or services, you can actually export your list and it has.

Their information and actually potential emails if they have provided that on LinkedIn. So it can be a really great place to work as a sales strategy as well. So connecting, connecting with the right people, making sure they're aligned, right? Not just anyone and everyone, but that's sort of it. It sounds simple.

We've got content, community, and connection. So creating content that starts conversations Building community by engaging with your community like. Using it as a social media platform and connecting with the right people, building those connections. That's the point of it. Not just dumping your content on there and leaving it actually using it.

And that's generally what happened and helped this client become a top voice. Now you might not wanna be a top voice, that's fine. But if you want [00:17:00] to, you thinking LinkedIn might be the place for you. These are the things that you wanna do to be seen and be visible and get quote, unquote results from the platform.

But before you do that, go back and think about what is my goal from this platform? What do I wanna get out of it? Who is it here to serve? Because different platforms have different meanings and different value. For me, LinkedIn is a really good place for me to generate connections for my content. Queen Rojo, at this point in time and.

Really, I wanna do some more personal branding work with potential organizations, executives, et cetera. So they're kind of the offerings, I guess, around that. Not that I expect to sell offerings from that, but I'm talking about that there to build connections and potentially turn that into something in the future.

So your LinkedIn could serve as a specific purpose or it could be multiple things depending on what time of year it is as well. So let me know how that landed for you and yeah, if you're gonna give LinkedIn a go connect with me on LinkedIn. [00:18:00] It's Mariah McInnis. I'll put the link in the show notes. I'd love to see what you get up to there.

And if you're already on LinkedIn, maybe this was just a good reminder to get in there and do some other things other than just, yeah, sort of the posting or maybe you're doing different types of content and you wanna try and have a sit down and think about what are the con, what's the content that's really gonna resonate?

Go look at your stats, look at all those things, and work out what's resonated with people. Of course, naturally. The personal posts are going to get the most likes. And engagement doesn't mean you have to do all of those types of posts. It's just a, you know, obviously you could have one of those within a week and then maybe more directed around business and sales, et cetera.

So. You don't have to do all these personal things. And remember, personal and private live is two separate things. So your personal life can be things that you share that are personal, but doesn't have to be private. You don't have to air out your dirty laundry on LinkedIn, right? But be a content queen or king, and remember that developing your strategy and story develops your business.[00:19:00] 

Thank you so much for joining me today, and please don't forget to share this with all your business and entrepreneurial friends. You can do this by adding it to your Insta Stories and tagging me at Content Queen Mariah, or just tell them about it. If you do rate review on whatever platform you're listening to is on, it does help me get my message out there.

And bring more amazing guests on. We have some great guests coming up and they see me through the charts and all the things, so keep going. Follow us on Instagram, TikTok, and LinkedIn and let me know if there's any topics you'd like me to talk about in the future. I would love to cover them for you. Bye.

PodcastMariah MacInnesmarketing, marketing advice, how to be authentic online, business ownerComment