Kate: Welcome to Marketing Hive, a podcast for helping you navigate the world of digital marketing. We are your host, Amy Cook and Kate Smoothy, and today we are talking all about LinkedIn. Uh, now I’m gonna hand over to Amy because she’s going to quiz me on my recent journey and fortunately, success on LinkedIn so that we can cover it off you guys and share what I’ve learned.
So.
Amy: Perfect. Yes. It’s gonna be like 101 question roundup because obviously you’ve become a bit more of a LinkedIn Pro . I definitely know it’s a topic that a lot of people are asking cuz obviously Instagram’s changing so much and things I think people are definitely trying to use. So yeah, I think it’d be good to share your experience of how that’s worked.
Um, I think one question I’d like to ask or. Often pops up is how does LinkedIn work?
Kate: Because obviously we
Amy: know ourselves, for example, Pinterest you think is a social media channel, but actually it’s a search engine. Um, whereas Instagram is a social channel. So I guess how does that work in terms of understanding the best way to use
Kate: LinkedIn?
So I think with LinkedIn predominantly is a social media platform, but it is a b2b. So, uh, one thing that I have found in being on TikTok and I have quite a lot of followers who are from an e-commerce background, I haven’t seen the same types of success for e-commerce businesses as what I’ve had with say, service based businesses or, um, Past businesses as in like, um, selling services a product, um, because the audience is different.
So when it’s business to business, it does tend to be more service providers to other service providers, but ultimately it’s, it’s like a business social media platform. That being said, people do use it as a search engine for trending topics to look for someone within a specific industry, I would say.
It’s not quite as much of a search engine as what they’re saying that TikTok is, if that makes sense. Yeah. You know how like tick’s becoming, like you’ll type in SEO tips to get SEO tips? Yeah. It’s not like that, but if you are looking for an SEO specialist, it’s the sort of platform where you might type in SEO specialist or when there’s, so the latest Google helpful content update, you might search that on LinkedIn to find out what people are saying about it.
So there’s definitely an element of search there, but I would say it leans more into a social
Amy: platform. Cool. So I guess talking on the topic of it potentially being such, obviously like I know with Instagram, um, the bold kind of part of your Instagram bio becomes the search part on Instagram, so. How is it best to set up your LinkedIn profile?
Cause normally people kind of connect in terms of, I guess I’m coming from a corporate world in terms of, normally you would search because you know the company they work for, and then obviously they would come up because they’ve got that in their profile. So how important is it for key words and things to being a profile?
What’s the best way, I guess,
Kate: to set that profile up, to make sure it’s found in the right way as such? So the best place to put that kind of thing is within your headline on LinkedIn. So there’s a couple of reason why it works really well. One is because that is picked up within their search algorithm, but other things can be picked up within their search as well.
So if you’ve written a post about something or if obviously you’ve got your company name and within your job history and what have you. So those kind of things work as well, as well as your own name. But the headline of your profile is particularly good to optimize for not just search, but just generally for clicks.
Because when you are commenting on things on LinkedIn, the first line of your headline shows up underneath your username. Yes. So for example, the first line of mine is I build shit hot websites that get found on Google. So when people see me commenting on something, it says Kate Smoothie, and then underneath they see that as well.
And, Well hopefully, and does seem to encourage them to click over to my profile and check me out and see the rest of my headline and everything else. So there’s multiple reasons why you should optimize it. I would say with LinkedIn you don’t need to think too much about search. I definitely don’t think it’s a point like TikTok is where.
You really need to be leaning into that because they’re leaning into it. Um, I would say you should optimize your headline for clicks in the same way that with SEO we say that you should optimize the meta description and title for clicks, for example. Cool.
Amy: Um, yeah. And then I guess like in terms of, cause obviously I know with profiles as well, um,
Kate: you can add
Amy: like skills and things like that so then people can like endorse you and stuff like that.
Is that a good thing? Is that a priority as
Kate: such? You find people do. So when I first, So I’ve been on there for about, well, I’ve had my LinkedIn profile forever. So I’ve had like this very, very small audience on there of people that I worked with and my job history and that kind of thing. But when I went on there, this is probably, well, four weeks ago now, but by the time this episode goes up, gotta be more like five or six.
Um, when I went on there, one of the first things that I did is made it so that my profile was more optimized for the services that I offered rather than for just like who I was and what my job history was. So, You can change your profile so that you are a service provider rather than someone looking for work.
And when you do that, you then have a section come up on your profile in gray that says providing services and you can select the services that you provide. So then that comes up at the top of your profile as well. So people will get a glimpse there of what you offer. Um, then when, you know the bit down the bottom you were talking about where people can like endorse you and say the skills you’ve done and stuff.
Um, so I already had a few of those from my previous. Sort of like when I was doing it for, um, to find a job. Yeah. But I don’t really think it’s something people pay a huge amount of attention to. I think if you were looking for work, it probably would be, um, in terms of like if you were looking for a job.
But the main things that people care about when it comes to networking and finding people’s work with on LinkedIn are the content you’re putting out there, your headline. The services that you, uh, mentioned that you offer and your featured section, which can include anything like links, images, articles, what have you, I have links there.
So I have, um, my free SEO checklist, which is a lead magnet, which we’re talking about. In the next episode, we’re gonna talk all about lead magnets and how you make that work. Um, And that takes people through to my email list. I have a link to the SEO hive, which, um, we didn’t mention in the last one because I hadn’t done it.
We hadn’t even talked about it then. But I have just relaunched the SEO hive. So that is now linked there. Um, we have my done for you services and then I have a podcast. Yeah. So they are the four things that I have linked there because they are the four sort of areas that I wanna promote off the back of my LinkedIn.
And they’re, they’re the areas that people interact. Cool.
Amy: Um, and then obviously we’re talking about profile
Kate: I guess, quite a bit, but what,
Amy: when we were talking about profile, we’re obviously talking about your personal profile that you are optimizing. Do you recommend having a company page as well, or would you say that you’d be best to kind of solely
Kate: focus on your personal.
I would say, so I have a company page because I set it up before I was tackling LinkedIn. Um, I don’t do anything with it. I literally do nothing with it. I’ve had, since I’ve been posting on there consistently, I’ve had like the odd few followers come over onto there, but I don’t post there. So I would say if you don’t have one, I wouldn’t even bother because it’s not, um, To, in my opinion, it’s not the area where you should be focusing the time.
It’s personal profiles are the ones that are getting the most sort of organic reach on there. It encourages people to follow you and connect with you on that. And so this is one thing that I think not a lot of people realize about LinkedIn is you can have connections, which is basically like Fred Facebook friends.
Yeah. Or you can have followers. And that is the same as like a Twitter follower, an Instagram follower, or um, a TikTok follower where they are just consuming your content. So, Really you need to be focusing on that and obviously you, and doing a bit of both. So I connect with people who, if I like their content, then I’ll connect with them.
But if it’s someone who I think, Mm, I think you’re just trying to connect with me to like sell me something or you know, you are just connecting me for the sake of it, then I don’t basically is how I kind of do that. I know you didn’t ask me about that, but it just suddenly come into my head when we were talking about it because I think it’s.
Oh, sorry, what were you gonna say? No, I was gonna say no. It’s definitely helpful
Amy: in the respect of, I was gonna say about people because. It is that thing of how do you, I guess, how do you know who is the right person to connect with or how do you find those people to connect with? Um, because obviously it’s all good and well just going, connecting with loads of people.
But again, it’s a relationship thing. Like I’m sure if I just randomly tried to connect with someone from McDonald’s, they’ll be like, Well, I don’t
Kate: know this person, and why would I want to talk to them? So yeah,
Amy: I guess it’s how do you build that relationship, I guess, with people to then want to connect or follow as such?
Kate: So here I’ll talk you through what I did when I, So the first thing I did was optimize my profile and I started out doing what I thought I should do. And then once I started actually like reading people’s LinkedIn posts, there are quite a lot of people on LinkedIn that share LinkedIn tips, just the way you have people on TikTok doing it, Instagram blah, blah blah.
So you can pick up quite a lot like. So what you wanna look for is if you’re searching on LinkedIn search for anyone that works with like personal brands or says they’re a LinkedIn specialist or anything like that. And they will have a guarantee you within their last sort of like 10 to 15 posts, they will have tips on spicing your profile because it’s like a really hot topic within that industry of people on there.
Um, and that’s where I picked up quite a few things about how exactly to go about. Optimizing my profile and also like initial posting strategy. Yeah. So one thing that I haven’t mentioned that I do wanna mention is that the best type of profile to have on there is a creative profile. Because if you do that, you also then have the option to add a little section that says what you talk about, and that is done with hashtags.
So for example, I think I selected like seo, web design, digital marketing, that kind of thing. I think you can have four or five there. Yeah. Um, and then that comes up underneath your headline as well. So then again, it gives people more of a, um, an idea of what you’re gonna talk about, what you are posting about, and it also enables people to share your posts.
So I did not know this, and for probably like a good week, I didn’t have that set up on my profile. And people kept saying to me like, You need to like turn this on so we can share your content. And I’m like, Oh my God. Like what am we doing? God? But you do kind of just have to throw yourself in the deep end.
But yeah, so if you find these specialists, they will talk you through these sorts of steps on profile optimization. So don’t feel like you’re furiously scribbling away listening to this podcast trying to remember everything we talked about, because. It. It’s literally a five minute job. It doesn’t take long.
Yep. Especially if you’ve already got a profile. One tip that I did think was really useful that I didn’t consider was someone on there said, Take off all of the random work experience stuff that you had on there from when you were using it as like a cv. And because I had like old sales jobs, I’d done like, Oh, loads of random stuff.
And I thought actually like this is so irrelevant. Like I’m here to promote my brand and what I do now. Yeah. And. There doesn’t need to be a list of relevant stuff on there. So basically consider that you are, you’re trying to optimize your profile for. You are sort of like ideal clients and they don’t care what job you did when you were 16.
Um, yeah, I’m aware I didn’t answer your question about , about connecting with, but I just wanted to give like an overview because actually that is how I started finding people to follow or connect with and then post to engage with. So I started out looking at those kinds of people, um, and then the people that were commenting on their posts were people that were kind of like me or a bit further along who were looking for that kind.
Advice. And so then I went onto their profiles to see what they were doing and see what they were posting. And if their content resonated with me and I thought they seemed really cool, I would send them a connection request. Um, I personally don’t put notes when you can put a message with your connection request.
I was just gonna say, do you
Amy: pick something when you ask a connect or do you just
Kate: kind of request? I just ask to connect, but um, that’s because I feel quite confident. They’re gonna see my little headline, which is like optimized to encourage people to wanna click on my profile, and then they’re gonna go through my profile.
And if my content is, So I tend to only connect with someone if I’m like, Yeah, you seem like someone who would like, like my content as I like yours. Yeah. Um, or if, but if it’s someone say, who’s very inspirational to me, I might just follow them. So that’s kind of how I weigh it up, is it’s a little bit like, It’s, I guess it’s a little bit like Facebook friends.
I know there’s an alternative option, but you know, like you don’t just add, I know some people add any old random person to their Facebook friends, but I do not like, you know, whether you, you are like, Oh yeah, we went to a party and we talked and we got on a right. So now gonna add Facebook that just connect.
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Um, I have seen quite a lot of different like, tactics used with it. Like, you get people, um, I had a few of these where people were like, So you only get a certain amount of connection requests a week. I can’t think how many is. You only get a certain amount and then they stop you.
Because obviously the idea is you’re not meant to just like connect with the entire world on LinkedIn. Yeah. So you get these people and they’ll message you like, I’ve used up all my connection requests, but I’d really, really like to connect with you. Um, please, can you connect with me? I never connect with those people because I’m like, How is it cause the, the post, the message they’re sending you reads like it’s copied and pasted.
So it’s like you’re just probably every week maxing out your connection request, everyone you see. And if you do that, you’re gonna end up with a, with a feed full of people that you’re not really interested in their content. It’s a little bit like Instagram, you know how like everyone used to follow.
It’s like when people stop doing that. Yeah. And it is probably
Amy: a bit like leading, like Instagram have changed their feeds. Like I don’t use my personal account very often, but my feeds changed that like, it was like content Instagram for what I might like, but it’s all people that you, I didn’t have a bloody clue who any of them were.
And I was like, yeah, it made me get off of Instagram, my personal account again. Cause I was. I don’t want to watch this person do this or whatever. Um, yeah, I guess it’s that same thing. So talking on the connecting to people, how are you like, because obviously it’s, LinkedIn is slightly, I guess it is a bit like Facebook in the way you’ve got, you know, your feed where you kind of see all the people you follow and connect with and stuff like that.
Or any kinda like related articles and things like that. And then obviously you’ve got your profile, so. Obviously on your kind of like feed, you’re gonna see the stuff that like other people are posting or any kind of like related articles
Kate: and things, but how are
Amy: you going out there to find
Kate: new content, new people to connect with?
Like
Amy: say for example, you thought I really need something for sales
Kate: funnels. How
Amy: would you go about finding that information to then find people to connect or. Or I guess again, like potential clients in terms of, you know, if you are using LinkedIn to find clients.
Kate: What are you
Amy: searching for? I guess, to try and connect with those relatable
Kate: people?
So this is the part that I couldn’t find too much guidance on. So what I did was I started out in the comments section of like those people that were teaching, like LinkedIn tips, and there were other people kind of like me, but from different industries. Quite a lot of copywriters are on. Um, quite a lot of, well actually to be honest, a lot of digital marketers is what I ended up finding.
And I was like, Okay, cool. Like they’re my people. I’m a digital marketer as well. Let’s connect with them. Yeah. And then I probably spent about a week or two where I would post on there every day, but mainly when I was going on there, I was going through the comments sections of these new people I’d connected with and finding more people to connect with.
Um, basically keeping it. It needed to be someone who I genuinely thought was interesting. Someone who I wasn’t really, I was considering, is it someone who would be a client, but not always. Sometimes I’d be like, Okay, they might not be a client, but like if they’re a copywriter. A lot, a lot of copywriters, um, who I’ve sort of connected with on there have messaged me and said, Are people ask me for a web designer all the time?
Like, are you interested in like a referral type thing? And I’m like, Yeah, of course. Um, just in the same way that people always ask me about copyrights. It’s no different. Yeah. So I kind of saw it as like if we’re all in the same digital marketing space, they’re all gonna be interested in my content. I’m gonna get an idea of what they’re doing.
And worst case scenario I could get like some referral clients. Um, But then what I actually found was once I had started to build up that kind of network around me, who my content resonated with them because they’re in a similar field,
just can’t, we can’t go without something. Actually, I think the last one, I edited them out, but , we’ll just go with it. That’s fine. I’m just getting like an applause. . Um, yeah, so. Basically what happened was a couple of those posts picked up traction and went like sort of, it’s so I guess you would say it went viral, but I think of like viral posts as like TikTok, like you know, hundred thousand views, whatever.
Yeah, It wasn’t quite as extreme as that. I think one of my posts got like 20,000 views and obviously considering I was like really new to it and I’d connected with maybe like 400 people on there or whatever. I was like, Wow, okay. I’d say that probably. The LinkedIn equivalent of that. Yeah. Um, and then I started getting people coming into my space who were interested in my content or me, because of what I do.
And that’s when I started to get an idea. And so actually I don’t even now, I really only connect with people who I think their content is cool. And then I guess I get people connects with me who think my content is cool, and some of those people are people like me. And some of those people are potential clients.
Um, but the nice thing about LinkedIn, Is that the feed isn’t only people you’re connected with, it’s also anything they’ve interacted with. So what has ended up happening is, let’s say I am connected with a copywriter and she comments on my post. Someone who follows her has that come up in their feed and then they see my post and they’re like, Actually, I’m interested in a web designer, or I need seo.
And this person obviously does that. And so that’s kind of how. I guess you could say it’s like part of their algorithm, but it’s not as complicated as like a TikTok algorithm where it’s like, do this and this might happen and whatever it, But it is just that basic thing of like once you’ve got that network and those people that are comment to on your content, new people will come aboard and find you that way.
Yeah,
Amy: Yeah. No, I think
Kate: it’s really good as well. Cause like you say,
Amy: A bit like if we go back to like Instagram and things they say to comment on people’s posts. Cause then obviously their followers see or comment and might on your profile and so forth. And I think that is a good thing with LinkedIn is you see obviously the people you follow.
But then again, it shows you. What those people have liked and what those people have commented on. And it’s the same as if you go on your own profile, it will show you, like obviously everything you’ve kind of engaged with in terms of, you know, yeah. Posts you’ve created, as well as other things you might have just re-shared and stuff like that.
Um, So I guess, what’s the rule or if there is a rule of when it comes to content, do you find that you do a lot of kind of like repurposing, resharing other people’s information and content? Or do you do a lot of
Kate: your own posting as such? So I do, it’s pretty much all my own content. So I started out repurposing my TikTok videos, um, and that was all I was doing.
And then as I like consumed more content on there, I realized that text-based posts still do really well on LinkedIn. And also the same like a text-based post with a selfie or with a random picture. Whatever. Like, so for example, I think I had a post do quite well on there about the podcast, and that was just like the podcast cover image.
Um, and that was, so that was mostly like the text on the post obviously. And then the image kind of like, it’s eye grabbing, so that’s what gets people to stop and read it. Um, so all types of content that we are currently creating on other platforms work quite well there. So a lot of it is probably repurposed, if I’m honest, or sometimes I might have a TikTok video that does particularly well.
It might not do that well on LinkedIn, so I’ll turn it into a text post. Or if I’ve written an email, I might turn that into a LinkedIn post. What I’ve found now, because it’s become. TikTok is still like my number one promotional marketing platform, but LinkedIn is now my number two marketing platform.
Yeah. Um, because I have found that I now create videos for TikTok and then I also write a text version of it for LinkedIn, and then I take that text version for LinkedIn and I expand it out to be an email at a later today. And I’ll expand out, like maybe to be a blog post or I say that like I ever update my blog at seo that never updates our blog, but I have good intention to turn it into.
Post at some point. Um, and that, and that kind of thing. But before I was doing it the other way around, but now I’m like, actually, because they’re my two main platforms and I wanna make sure I’m on them posting my best content for them. I use them as like my start points for the other stuff. Yeah. Um, Yeah.
But what I have found on LinkedIn is educational content works really well, same as it does on TikTok, Tok and everywhere else, but people also love a personal story on LinkedIn. Yeah, Like so one of my posts that did really well and it was completely random, so my oldest, who Amy saw on the podcast a couple of weeks ago, Naked, Always Fun.
It was h hilarious . It was so funny. We, we cut it out the episode, but he came running into the room totally naked and I was like, Oh, gonna have to stop. Um, so he got me up one morning at like quarter to five because. He hates sleep. Um, and he, uh, so anyway, I was sat there with him. He was on his iPad having some breakfast and I was sat having a cup of tea and I took a picture of the table and I posted some totally random thing on LinkedIn about being up really early and how it was really nice spending the time with him, but I really wanted to go back to sleep.
Um, and that I was spending that time while he was on his iPad, catching up with LinkedIn. And it didn’t do like, it wasn’t my 20,000 like super viral post, but it had like something ridiculous, like 8,000 views or whatever, and like loads of likes and comments and I was like, The fuck? Like, why do people even care about this?
But people love that over there.
Amy: Yeah, I was gonna say like, I guess it is because again, you are doing it on a personal page, so it is finally connecting to you personally. And I think people do probably, you know, if someone else is a business owner, juggling that life as well, It probably relates to them in terms of they know, you know, what your situation is, relate to them.
So then again,
Kate: it helps in terms of
Amy: making new connections, you know, whether that. A client or just a, you know, business buddy as such, it’s a topic that can
Kate: relate as such. Yeah. And I think, and it was a lot of people that were like, Oh, I’m a parent too and I feel this, or whatever. And it was just, yeah, it, So that kind of thing does well there.
Whereas I think on TikTok, If you are on there as like a business owner posting like educational content, and I have, so I’ve tried to repurpose the other way. It doesn’t land because it’s not what people are expecting from me there. Yeah. But on LinkedIn, people really like it. So I would say they’re, the two types of content to lean into is sort of like personal stuff.
But you have to be careful over there because you do see some absolute bullshit. Like people who are like, I’m trying to think of an example I saw the other day cuz Amy and I had said that we were gonna talk about LinkedIn and I was like, I need to talk about this on the podcast. But it was basically someone, um, Talking about how they’d like lost sales that month in their business, but that they were happy about it because it meant blah, blah, blah.
I’m trying to put this like bullshit positive spin on the phone and, and it, and loads of people were like, Yeah, like championing them. And I just thought, what a load of sights. . There is no way that you are happy that you’ve lost sales, you’ve lost clients, or whatever it was they had done. And I thought, You.
Maybe it wasn’t true and they just wanted to write like a viral post, or maybe it was true and they’re trying to put a positive spin on it, but people really like lap that shit up over there, and that is not me. So yeah, I don’t lean into that kind of thing. But if you’re someone that likes to put a positive spin on something that isn’t really that positive, Feel free.
Yeah. I
Amy: dunno how I’d deal with that. I was gonna say, I, I mean I’ve had my busiest number,
Kate: I still lost clients, but they You sad so . Yeah. Yeah, right. Exactly. Like I, a week, like last week, I had so many call and a lot of them were off the back of LinkedIn. We, I mean, I was talking about this before, but they’re like, a couple of them were people that then like, were never gonna go anywhere.
And I thought, Oh my God, I had such a busy week. I really burnt myself out on these calls. And then, I did get clients, but not as many as I thought I was gonna get based off the back of the calls. Um, I’m not gonna go on LinkedIn and write about how that was a great experience. Be awesome. I’ve been sitting here with Amy brainstorming, How the hell I can take less calls like that.
That’s just the reality of it. Um, but it works really well for some people to post like that. So that, that kind of thing definitely lands as well if you’re into it. Yeah.
Amy: Cool. Um, and then I guess the other thing that we’ve talked about, cause I think we’ve kinda covered quite a bit on terms of like profile, which one you should like, recommend connecting with people and stuff, and then posting.
Um, I think a good thing as well to come away from this podcast in terms of posting is. From your story already, and something that we both always shout about is repurposing. Obviously people are so scared about adding more channels and more things to their work at the moment, but you, well, you’ve just easily summed up that, you know, you’ve created a tick that’s turned into a LinkedIn that can then turn into an email and then.
When you got time, turn into
Kate: a blog. never gonna become a blog, but we’ve all gotta have ambitions. ,
Amy: but, and I think that’s it, isn’t it? It’s just reminding yourself of kinda like what you’ve currently got to then think how you can reuse that to test it out on a new channel and things, um, to see if it works for you.
Like you say, if you find educational content’s not doing as well, maybe try and lean more into the personal side of things and stuff, um, and find the balance that works for you. Um, mm-hmm. . Absolutely. One thing wanna talk about though is obviously cause you’ve got normal free LinkedIn, but then link LinkedIn premium, do you use LinkedIn Premium?
Um, have
Kate: you used. So I have currently got it, I just paid for it after like a free trial. I can’t remember whether the free trial is 14 days or like a month. It might be a month. I highly recommend signing up for it. Um, the main reason I like it is because it gives you an open profile. So it means when people find you on there, they can see your entire profile.
So obviously they can still see your posts and stuff already. But it means they can see everything like your services, work history. They can find out like more about your business if you, So you should definitely have like your business in, um, what is, I’m trying to think what the name of that section is called.
Work in your work history in the experience bit. Yeah. So they can see all of that stuff, like any recommendations you’ve been left, if you’ve been endorsed for any skills, all of that kind of stuff. So, um, I highly recommend it for that. And also you can then take advantage of in mail credits, which is where, So the idea with connections is then you can.
Private message each other. And if you wanna private message someone who isn’t a connection, I think if you’ve got mutual connections, you can. But if you haven’t got any, then you can’t. So it’s really, really handy if you do want to do some outreach on there and reach out to people. Um, I haven’t used that.
So much, if I’m being completely honest, I have had people use it with me and some people have used it very successfully with me. Um, so there’s definitely something to be said there, but I wouldn’t like to give advice on it because I have not really liked. Gone into it too much. But the people that I’ve found that, So I actually had someone today message me on it who’s a web designer who is giving up his freelance business to go back and work for a company and he’s looking for another web designer he can hand over some of his clients to who he does regular support for.
So he used it for that to be like, Kate, are you interested in this? You seem like skill sets match, blah, blah, blah. So if. If you think that you’re gonna wanna make like connections like that, or if there’s someone who you don’t have mutuals with, especially when you’re first starting out, it’s a really useful tool to have to be able to make those one-on-one connections with people.
Um, but you obviously do have the option if you are not, if you’re not on premium, you do have the option where you can send someone a connection request and you can send them a message in there, but the difference is you might end. Like they could just reject the request without seeing your message. So you can’t guarantee they’re gonna see your message.
Whereas within mail, it pops up as if they’re a connection already. Yeah. Um, so there’s definitely something to be said for that. But the open profile thing is the bit for me that I think makes it worth it. But there are different levels of LinkedIn premium I think. There’s a higher level that’s got like sales navigator and stuff.
I haven’t used that. And I think that is mainly for people that are like hard on recruitment or selling via the platform, whereas I haven’t gone down that route. So I don’t do anything salesy on there. I’m literally just like, Same as TikTok, same as Instagram. This is me, this is my content. If you’re interested, I’m a web designer, check me out.
Okay. Yeah. Yeah. And I have seen. A lot of success like business has. For all of my moaning about last week and the calls business had been super, super busy. Yeah. And in terms of effort and time and amount of posts on there, I’ve had more leads from LinkedIn than I have from any other platform where I’ve had the same like level of involvement, you know?
So I think that is worth considering. I think like my second week on there, I’d already made like a thousand pound off the back of Pretty good. Yeah. Off the, I was off of one post. Yeah, so it is so, so worthwhile doing you. But yeah, like obviously you can repurpose and make it easier for yourself. I don’t, I don’t think you need to be going out there and creating like, unique content for it immediately.
Amy: Yeah. No, that’s cool. Um, and just quickly off the back of what you were saying about like premium, um, and I guess, I suppose for. General anyway, um, to kind of like round off the podcast episode, but like etiquette around dms and like messaging people. Cause obviously like, I guess if you are premium, it gives you the opportunity to then go and directly message people, but there’s got to be, you know, an etiquette around messaging people that you don’t know.
So again, what is, what would your recommendations
Kate: be on
Amy: that in terms of building that relationship to make people connect with you and.
Kate: So I. I think I’m like so paranoid about people thinking that I’m trying to sell to them, that I barely ever start a DM conversation, which is awful because lots and lots of people do on there and we end up having awesome conversations and I know I should get better at that, but I’m just, I dunno.
I have a bit of a thing about it because from like the Instagram days where people would be like, I like. Like three of their posts and then come and then reply to their story and all of that. You know, like it just made me feel so like ick, the whole thing. Um, so I’ll only really DM someone if I’m like, You wrote an awesome post about this, or I think you are really cool.
Like where I’m being really genuine, like I’m going to someone. Yeah. Um, But I get a lot of messages from people who will be like, Kate, like you, you suggested this thing and it was really cool. Or they’ll be like, Kate, like I’ve wanted to connect with someone like you for a while, like, let’s chat or whatever.
Um, everyone’s kind of got a different approach, but it’s very laid back. So I think this is the thing I was most shocked about because it seems very, very corporate. But then actually once you are in there and you start creating a network of people like you, It’s really chill. Like I’ve, I’ve got, so I’ve got LinkedIn up to the left now, this podcast and I’ve been, so this is something I don’t really advertise too much, but Amy knows, so I don’t smoke, but I vape and I’ve got onto this conversation with this guy about, he was talking about his vape pen and I was like, Oh my god, that’s funny.
I vape as well. And we talked about flavors that we liked and he’s literally just messaged me like, I tried the apple and black, her menthol vape flavor you recommended today. I’m never going back to another flavor. And that’s the kind of conversations that I’m having on there. Like it’s very, It’s casual.
Yeah. It’s no different to what you would have on Instagram or anywhere else. Um, and so that’s kind of what I, I, I like and I think a lot of people, like I have had some really awful sales messages on there and initially I would reply and be like, I’m not interested. And now I just completely ignore them and don’t bother.
And I think the general. Agreement over etiquette is you shouldn’t be jumping in someone’s private messages and trying to sell to them very much the same as Instagram. Yeah. Um, and also there is one thing that I do wanna talk about which isn’t really, doesn’t really seem to be a problem anywhere, but like LinkedIn and maybe Twitter, um, is like the gross guys who will message you and be like, Hey, you’re really pretty.
Yeah. To get that kind of gross interaction on LinkedIn, um, I’ve been really lucky that my network of people so far are pretty cool most of the time and not like that. And anybody that I think is gonna be like that, I just reject their connection request. Yeah. But you do get, you get really good at knowing who’s gonna be like that.
After a little while and you just don’t accept their connection requests and you just, there, hopefully you don’t get the messages, but I would recommend if you get anything like that, to just archive it and not even open it so they can’t even see that you’ve seen it. Um, but it’s pretty right on LinkedIn.
So I’m part of a group of people at the moment, and it’s called hashtag. Chats up fines. And they’re actually, so, we’ll, we’ll put this in the show notes. They’re actually moving over to Twitter soon as well. And they basically put together a movement of, um, women like creating videos, um, reenacting these awkward messages that they get from these men.
And there’s some hilarious videos on there. Um, so I definitely recommend like following that and checking it out. Um, but a lot of it’s from LinkedIn, like people being like, Hey, want to get to know you, Like, you know, the kind of stuff I’m talking about. Yeah. So cringy, it’s horrible. It’s so cringe. It’s so horrible.
I do occasionally get it on Instagram are like
Amy: when they do that. Like I’ve had it before where I’ve actually had it on Instagram once, Um, very rare, but I have had it on Instagram and I had someone messaging me and. It’s really hard again, cause sometimes when it’s on a business account you don’t want people to like block you or something.
Or really f your, your business. Yeah. You try to like be a little bit polite to start with and then, Yeah. I had this person and they looked, you know, legit, They didn’t look too strange cuz normally, you know, the strange ones. Yeah. Um, but yeah, and I had, and then in the end it got from like chatting about business to then him being.
Please. Can I call you? When can I see you? I’m
Kate: so in love with you and I’ll Oh good. Oh, you can’t even tell me if you win . Oh no. Like that is the problem though. You, and I’ve had it on Instagram as well before, but you don’t get it anywhere near as much. But I don’t wanna dress links in up as being awful for it because it’s not.
If you get the right network of people around you, you don’t really end. Like in front of too many of those people. But you do get the odd connection request where you are like, I know what you’re about man, and I’m just not going to accept you. Um, but yeah, so that is something to watch out for is all I would say on that front.
If you’re a woman, if you’re a man, you’ll be absolutely fine. Yeah. Well actually I shouldn’t say that because you might not be, but it’s definitely, I think, more of a woman’s problem on there right now than anyone else’s.
Amy: No, that makes sense. No, I think it’s really good to cover LinkedIn. Even from my experience, and I think my fear with like using LinkedIn is that I’ve always had my corporate brain on with it in terms of, yeah, it’s always been like you work for a company, you connect with the clients of the company, so then that’s kind of how you would use it.
So it’s kind
Kate: of, I
Amy: guess good to know. It is lax and I guess like it’s positive to hear that there’s those conversations on things like vaping and stuff like that, so you can actually be yourself and not. Different version of you because I think sometimes people do fear that in terms of, I dunno, there might be one person on Instagram, but fear that they’re gonna have to be this really professional, different toned brand for LinkedIn because it’s a more corporate site.
Kate: Um, I’d actually argue that I am my most authentic self on LinkedIn, I think. Yeah, because I don’t. Like with TikTok, I’m pretty authentic on TikTok, but for example, like so on LinkedIn, I swear on almost every single post that I’d share on there, literally I must drop the F bomb at least once a day on there.
Like I don’t, and I know I’ve sworn on this podcast, but I’m like, I’m not gonna like make this absolute feel for like Apple Podcast puts like a parental advisory sticker on the episode or anything. I’m gonna try and keep it a little bit pg, but yeah, and people love that as well because I think. So a lot of people and they will censor their posts and I’m just like, fuck it, don’t censor your post.
Just say what you wanna say. Like kind of thing. So that again, works really well and I think that’s how you can create like a, not by swearing, but by being true to yourself. Yeah. It, it definitely helps. But with TikTok, I think I’m a little bit more wary cuz I’m like, oh, what if the algorithm doesn’t push my post out?
Cause I’ve said like, shit in the first like 30 seconds or, but yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah. Um. But yeah, so I definitely don’t think you need to be corporate on there. And I think if you are not, you ought to attract more people.
Amy: Yeah, no, that makes sense. Um, cool. Well I think we have probably covered everything for this podcast episode on LinkedIn.
Um, so yeah, hopefully Aly, everyone
Kate: who is listening has enjoyed the episode.
Amy: I know there’s been a lot of. People asking on my Instagram and things about it. Um, obviously if you have any further questions in regards to LinkedIn then you can reach out to myself or Kate, um, on other social medias and things like that.
Um, and again, if there’s anything else you want us to cover in terms of the podcast and do reach out as well of Wise hope
Kate: you listen.
Amy: Enjoy listening.
Kate: I know, I know that we would normally refill that. I think we should. Being true to being authentic as we have just been talking about. I think we should leave in, we’re.