Welcome to episode 372 of Hit the Mic with the Stacey Harris. I’m really excited for today’s episode because I know it’s one that only the truest of action takers is going to listen to. Thank you for listening to this because I know it means that you are somebody who is going to get it done.
We’re talking about LinkedIn today and LinkedIn is by far the least amusing social media network. However, it’s also hugely valuable for pretty much everybody so we’re going to talk about that a little bit today and I’m going to give you some tips on how to use it to score some business. Especially for those of you who are B2B but if you are not B2B, maybe you are business to consumer, there’s still relevance because I’m guessing some part of your business could work B2B.
A great example of this is health coaches who work with, let’s say, new moms. You’re fairly business to consumer. You don’t have to be a business owner to be a new mom or to need a health coach. Getting not necessarily physically back but your diet and feeling really good. Anyways, that’s business to consumer.
However, a B2B component could be you handle a wellness trainings in corporate businesses or you want media exposure. You want to get on things like the Today Show. Guess where you can build those relationships? That’s right, people. LinkedIn. So I’m pretty excited because, again, this is going to be something that’s universally helpful for the people who take action.
Now before we jump in I do want to remind you, Hit the Mic Backstage is the sponsor of this here Hit the Mic podcast because it is the place to be, the best place to be, to stay up to date with all things social media, email, content marketing. That’s why I need you to join me backstage this month because there is a brand new training inside of Hit the Mic Backstage that expands on exactly what we’re talking about today.
It digs in on some of the LinkedIn strategies. In fact, one of the things we do in that training is I actually jump in on my computer and we go through your profile so you can do a self-guided profile review. Even better, you want to take it a step further? Go through that, make the changes, then submit it in the private community for me to take a look at, give you feedback where we can make adjustments and where you’re just doing a super awesome job. All right? All right. Join us. HittheMicBackstage.com. Again, the place to be.
I love, love, love, love, love inviting you and people like you to join me backstage because it’s the next step for this show. All right? All right. Let’s jump in.
Number one, this is the place where they’re thinking about business when they’re there.
Communicate with them with that in mind. We run into clients all the time who are pretty strictly B to B and they’re talking about Facebook. I go, “Not necessarily.” You know, Facebook might not be the best option for you if you’re B to B.
Now if you’re a B2B and you’re working with online entrepreneurs then, yeah, Facebook still does have some pretty good pull. However, there’s still some quality to be had on LinkedIn and quite frankly with a lot smaller time investment. Pay attention to that but also pay attention to the language differences.
When I’m looking at writing content for LinkedIn I’m thinking about a slightly more professional tone. Now if you’ve spent any time listening to this podcast before you know my professional tone is unique. Right? I’m me. I have my voice and that’s my primary objective. Professionalism in the traditional sense has never been my primary objective. Connection has been.
With that said, there is going to be a direct connection to that B2B pain point when I’m writing LinkedIn content. Pay attention to that voice because that’s what they’re thinking about when they’re consuming that content. That’s the mindset they’re in. The additional benefits of them being in that mindset is you’re not going to have to write copy that’s competing with cat videos. You are not going to have to write copy that’s competing with baby photos. That’s valuable. That’s something very, very cool to consider and probably why it takes a smaller time investment.
Number two, the thing I want you to do is I want you to establish your expertise early and often.
That’s going to mean doing sort of this profile touch-up stuff that we covered in the video training inside of Backstage. It’s also going to mean providing content in this space that’s relevant to this audience. A great way to do that is to publish your platform. Now if you don’t know what that is yet, don’t walk, run, to join us Backstage.
Essentially what it is is a blogging platform right on LinkedIn so we can actually write content. The best news is it doesn’t have to be brand new, unique, never before seen content. It just needs to be valuable. A lot of what we do is we actually repurpose the podcast transcript into guest posts that drive traffic back to my site and the podcast episode in its entirety.
That’s a really great way to look at this content. If you do have written blog content you’re writing right now, though, take one tip, take one section of that blog post, expand on it a little bit on LinkedIn and, again, point traffic back for more information on your website.
We’re using this as a tool to establish expertise on the site because we are giving value on LinkedIn Publisher. We’re giving value right there. You could get something from that and never leave LinkedIn. That’s an important difference between LinkedIn Publisher posts and a status update. You’re going to get the value right there.
However, if you want more, you want to dive deeper, you can do that by going to the site. That’s going to give us really qualified traffic back to our site. That’s going to be people who are ready to take the next step. That’s, again, super valuable.
The third thing I want to touch on because this is a LinkedIn episode and I want to keep it brief for you because I know none of the people who listen to this show have ever told me LinkedIn is their favorite network. I’m assuming the same is true for you.
Number three, give it some of your time.
Don’t post and run. Give it the same investment of your energy as you would the other networks. You would never post and run on Facebook. You’d go back, you’d check the comments. You’d engage with other people’s content. You would spend some time networking in your groups.
Now I will be the first to admit a lot of LinkedIn groups, total crap. Total crap. Find the good ones. Sift through. Just like Facebook, you have to sift through some crap to find the good stuff. It’s just part of it, all right? But do that networking work. This, just like any other tool, is a social network.
Now the socialization is a little bit different. It’s a little more networking party versus dinner with friends. That doesn’t mean it can’t be a happy hour networking party, right? It doesn’t mean it can’t be fun. It doesn’t mean it can’t be relaxed. It doesn’t mean that you skip out on the engaging. This is not throwing your business card to people and running away. This is staying in the room, giving it a little bit of your time investment.
With that said, you also need to give it time in the sense that doesn’t say, “All right. Stacey totally sold me on LinkedIn. I’m going to do this. I’m going to stay in the room. I’m going to do the work. I’m going to show up” and then do this for a week and go, “Well, I didn’t get any new business so clearly LinkedIn doesn’t work for me.”
Seriously? Like, that’s not enough time. You need to really test this over the long haul and you need to be looking at your site numbers. You need to be looking at the quality of relationship building you’re doing. The connections you currently have, are they your target? Are they who you want to be talking to? If they’re not, well, then I would expect it to be working. You need to build a network that is relevant. All right?
Give it some time. On both sides. A time investment day to day or week to week. Also, some real quality testing time with real quality connections. Okay?
Again, to take this a step further, and this is one I really do encourage you to take a step further, join us Backstage. Hit the Mic Backstage dot com. The brand new training that went up this month was exactly this using LinkedIn to build your business B to B or to get B to B business. Take the time to join us and watch that training and implement it.
Remember, Hit the Mic Backstage is no long-term commitment. You can cancel absolutely any time. If this sounds relevant to you and you want to jump in and you want to take that training and then you’re out? That’s not a problem. I encourage you to take the time to join us, actually watch the training, and actually implement what you learn because that’s where you’re going to see results. Okay? With that said, I will see you next week.
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