How To Leverage LinkedIn To Boost Your Brand

Beth Granger, Social Media Trainer and Coach, and Annette Richmond, Personal Brand Strategist, career intelligence Resume Writing, discussed leveraging LinkedIn to build your brand.      

Recognized for her social media expertise, Beth works with sales teams, business owners, C-suite leaders, and individuals to strategically harness the power of LinkedIn. Beth generously shares information and advice on LinkedIn, most recently in LinkedIn’s new Audio rooms. 
Topics included:

✅ Common misconceptions about LinkedIn 

✅ What LinkedIn engagement means and how to get started 

✅ LinkedIn minefields to avoid like indiscriminate tagging and invitations without a note

✅ Why a "connect and pitch" strategy doesn't work, it actually hurts you

✅ The downside of using automation to pitch your business

✅ A few Supper Sneaking Strategies for using LinkedIn

✅ LinkedIn's new Audio feature, where it might go from here

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Visit our website https://careerintelligenceresumewriting.com/

📌 NEW Podcast: Content Marketing School.

Thank you for listening, I hope you found this episode insightful and relevant. If you're a coach, consultant, or entrepreneur, or just want to dive more deeply into content marketing. I hope you'll join me on my new podcast, Content Marketing School.

Available on your favorite podcast platform.

(Previously recorded, Live Show)

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Transcript

[00:00:09.950] - Annette

So good morning. Good morning. Here we are. Morning for me. And I think morning also for Beth. I'm so excited to have you here as my guest today. And I know several people are excited to see you on my show today, so just welcome. This is the Smarter Career Moves LinkedIn Live show. And we are here weekly on Thursdays at 11:00 A.m.. So, Beth, for anybody who does not know you, why don't you tell us a little bit about kind of who you are and what you do?

[00:00:41.640] - Beth

Sure. I'm a trainer, consultant on speaker on the topic of unleashing the power of LinkedIn. So it's appropriate that we're talking on LinkedIn. And just since you talk a lot about careers, it might interest people to know I actually started my career as a graphic designer before the Internet don't tell anyone and evolved to what I'm doing now.

[00:01:08.670] - Annette

Yeah, me too. I was a magazine writer before the Internet, too, and then kind of segue into this, into this area when I landed in the career field back in. And then like, Bam, here we are all these years later. But that's probably why your graphics look so much better than mine. I'm so happy to be here with you. And so many people who are executives, people that I work with, businesses, entrepreneurs, they think of LinkedIn as kind of being kind of this platform. You said it, you forget it. They may pay someone like me or maybe like you to do their profile if you're okay. I'm good. I'm good with that. And there are other people. I used to be one of them. They think of LinkedIn as you're pushing out your content and people are looking at it. And then there's kind of a debate I know you're familiar with. Is LinkedIn formal or is it a place to have fun? If I put on a video doing something a little cookie, is that appropriate or not? My whole experience on LinkedIn just changed dramatically when I started thinking of it as a human to human to human interaction, where I'm not just on there looking for connections, people to connect with.

[00:02:44.210] - Annette

But I was looking at your profile and I know you talk a lot about things that you should do on LinkedIn. I'm going to ask you some of those things, particularly about the reputation thing. But what do you think are kind of some of the biggest misconceptions people have about LinkedIn and what it's for and what we're supposed to be doing?

[00:03:05.650] - Beth

Well, that's a good question. I like that one. It's interesting. So a couple of years ago, when LinkedIn was very sort of buttoned up, LinkedIn was wearing a suit and things started to get a little more conversational, a little more casual, a little more human to human, as you were saying. And I think that it's what the users want it to be. In a way, LinkedIn doesn't get to decide how we use it. We decide how we use it.

[00:03:47.270] - Annette

No, I like that. I like that philosophy. And people are, I think often they are just so nervous of crossing the line and worried about what people think and whether things are, as I said, it's kind of like too unforgivable. Now, when I was working as a recruiter, obviously, I was on LinkedIn all the time, searching, searching. And I would, of course, look at people's, LinkedIn profile headshots. Now, I did see someone who was a woman and she was came up in my search look like a good candidate. But when I looked at her profile, her headshot was actually in a bridal gown, I mean, with the veil. And it looked like one of those studio bridal shops. And well, to me, I think even today, something like that would be just a little bit too much. It was for me at the time, I thought my client, if that's what she thinks is good, my client is probably not going to like her.

[00:04:58.730] - Beth

I think a good measure or way to decide if you should do something on LinkedIn is imagine you are at an in person event. Would you say that thing? Would you do that thing? Would you wear a bridal gown to a networking meeting? No.

[00:05:16.970] - Annette

Yeah, I like that. So hello to Barry, who is joining us today. Thank you so much. And I see my friend Lisa is also in the audience. So we're happy to have you here. And I just want to mention, please do put your comments, questions in the chat and we will be able to see them back here. And I'm sure Beth will be gracious enough to answer them for you. I see that, too. I see still a lot of men in Tuxedos and things like that. And I'm glad that you brought up the idea of an inperson networking event because LinkedIn is kind of like to me now, a 24/7 sort of networking event. And I have friends of mine, colleagues who I wrestleman that they get on LinkedIn and they are more active. It's a great place to meet people. And it's not just your clients, people you collaborate with, people that you just become friends with. And they're like, it's such a chore. But the thing is once you do it, it changes. Can you talk a little bit about that?

[00:06:29.990] - Beth

So I think part of it is that it can feel overwhelming at first because people don't know what to do when they're there.

[00:06:37.950] - Annette

Yes.

[00:06:38.790] - Beth

And the other part of it is sometimes people have a concern. I get asked a lot if I comment on a post who's going to see it, if my boss is going to see it or my colleagues going to see it. So there's that apprehension because it's your career at stake, essentially. Right? So I think that's part of it. People don't know what to do. There are all these features. It's changing constantly. So they're not sure what to do.

[00:07:05.390] - Annette

I hear people looking for advice and there's so many I mean, with me, a lot of my businesses resume writing, LinkedIn profile writing. And it's not something that's licensed. It's kind of people just they decide, okay, I know people, one day they're selling insurance, the next day they're writing resumes. I see that with LinkedIn as well. I have colleagues who are working with their clients on LinkedIn, but I go to their LinkedIn profile and they don't have a background photo. And I'm like, okay, so it's hard to see them as being a trainer. But my question is, a lot of people, they say, oh, you must post seven days a week or it must be five days a week. And I think that can be also overwhelming with people. So if someone is they're watching us now and they say, you know what? It sounds like maybe I should do something with LinkedIn. What are some steps that they can take to just start?

[00:08:21.070] - Beth

Yeah. So actually a great way to start. You don't have to post. You can support the people that are your referral partners, your prospects, your friends by engaging with their content. So that's a great way. Or if you're in an industry, there are some industries that are regulated and they have to get approval for every post. So it's very hard for them, but they can engage with the content of others. So liking or commenting on posts from people or conversations that interest you is actually a great way to start.

[00:08:53.990] - Annette

Yeah. And I think people don't realize that for me, most of the magic on LinkedIn happens in the comments. It happens in the direct messages. And they don't realize that if I comment on your post and some kind of a thoughtful comment, obviously not great post. I think it's so funny. Brenda Miller says this, like if you're at a networking event, you're not going to walk up to somebody if they say something to you and say it's great and then just walk away. But it also gets me seen by your audience.

[00:09:32.530] - Beth

Correct? I'll tell you a story. Yes, I did a post once that so you can get seen both from post that you do and comments that you make. And I've had both happen. So one time I did a post and I said something like, I'm excited to be moderating a panel on social media and healthcare for the Social Media Association. Here's what we're going to be talking about. Excited to have these people joining us. I mentioned them. And if you want to join, here's the link. So, of course, the people who I had tagged wrote back and said, hey, I'm looking forward to this, et cetera, et cetera. So because somebody had commented, someone she knew but who didn't know me, saw the post, read it, called me on the phone and said, I see you speak about social media and health care. What's your speaking fee now? Could that please happen every day? And then with comments? It's a way to start a conversation, right? You could comment on someone's post that you don't know but would like to know. So you've started a conversation with somebody that wouldn't even take your phone call.

[00:10:39.470] - Annette

Yes, it's so true. So I just want to say hello. And I'm so bad with name pronunciations. I'm going to go with Aquila I think from India. Thank you for joining us. And then we do have someone from Vancouver and someone from Birmingham in the UK, and another name that I cannot pronounce. Can you give that a shot? Anyway, thank you for joining us from India. I don't want to butcher your name on air. I apologize for that. So I do want to start get into this whole conversation about things that really can ruin your reputation. And there is a webinar that I watch that people can access for free in the featured section of your LinkedIn profile. So I'm going to ask you a few questions about that. But before that, Barry has a question. What is the most critical part of a LinkedIn profile in terms of branding photo headline about section?

[00:11:57.030] - Beth

I love that question. In the old days, since you and I both started in publishing or had experience in publishing, they used to talk about above the fold. And that was when you had a paper newspaper. And the top part was what you see. So that top section of your profile altogether is the most important part because it's what makes somebody decide if they're going to scroll down. So I would say your photo headline and the graphic behind your photo are most important because if people don't like what they see there, they're never going to scroll down to see your about section. And we already talked a little bit about photos being not with your arm around somebody cut off at an event and that background section. I think a lot of people don't realize you can change it maybe or don't know how. And I think of it as your personal Billboard. You can change it as often as you like. You can promote things. You can show a little bit about what you do. There are just so many ways to use it. And of course, your headline. Because when you start to engage on LinkedIn and other places, people are going to see your photo and either part of your headline or your whole headline.

[00:13:07.960] - Beth

So that's a really powerful spot.

[00:13:11.890] - Annette

Yeah, I love that you said that. And that is true. I think of that too, also as the Billboard. And when people don't have a background and I'm sure you're right, I talk to people and they're like, I say, oh, you need the background photo. And they're like, oh, they think their headshot is the photo on there. But when they don't replace it, it kind of makes them look kind of generic as well. But I love that you mentioned the headline because they call it a headline for a reason. At the top of if you're picking up a copy of The New York Times and the first little article, the headline isn't going to be here's some information from The New York Times. It's going to be something that grabs you. And I certainly do remember above the fold. And it's still the type of thing I think that may come from partly from seeing newspapers on the newsstand. So in order to have people pick it up and buy it, you have to grab their attention right away. And it's the same thing, really, with a LinkedIn profile, the above the fold talking point. If you are a job seeker, recruiters looking at you or an entrepreneur or business, you do want to make sure that you're grabbing people's attention right away.

[00:14:33.490] - Annette

Okay, Addy, thank you for giving us that little abbreviation of your name. Thank you for joining us. And thank you, Dr. Garmin, for joining us as well. And again, if you have questions, please do put them in the chat. So I mentioned the webinar that you have, which I think is just brilliant. I mean, I saw that in your featured section. There's so many things that people do that just drive people crazy and they think that it's the right thing to do just because they don't know any better. My dogs agree. They agree with everything I say. You mentioned nine sort of minefields in that webinar. And I would like to ask you about a couple of them. We could go through all of them, but we just don't have enough time. And one of the things because the about section, Barry just asked about the about section, and you mentioned having the about section in the third person. People do that kind of like a bio and might say Annette Richmond, blah, blah, blah, blah. And nobody wants that solution.

[00:15:58.140] - Beth

So it should be in first person because the whole idea right on LinkedIn is to start and have conversations that stay on LinkedIn or move to other places. So by doing it in first person, first of all, they know you wrote it, which just sounds weird in my opinion. It sounds like someone else did it and you're not there. But it can start a conversation because it's like you're having a conversation with somebody. If your headline is your elevator pitch to me, you're about is what happens when someone says, oh, that's interesting. Tell me more. There's so much you can do with it. So first person is always better.

[00:16:36.350] - Annette

I love stories about which some people have about kind of why they do what they do. And some people I know, job seekers think, well, my LinkedIn profile should just kind of be like my resume. But the truth is and I think that maybe businesses may think that too. If someone is an entrepreneur where they're looking at my brochure or my website and they know about me, but they want to learn more about you. And LinkedIn is one of those places. If I'm hiring for a job, I'm director of marketing at Diazia, will say they're local to me. So I always think of them first and I'm trying to hire someone. And you say, oh, Annette, you have to talk to Joe Smith because he'd be great. I'm going to his LinkedIn profile. Right. And if you meet someone anywhere, that's where they go.

[00:17:40.960] - Beth

Yes.

[00:17:42.150] - Annette

So here's a question that we have from the audience. How often would you change your headline or would you change it often?

[00:17:52.770] - Beth

That's a great question because I experiment with things. I do change mine now and then, just because if you find that people understand who you are and what you do because of your headline, then it's working for you. But there may be a time you want to change all of it or part of it based on what your goals are for the future or what's going on in your industry. It could be any reason. So obviously, if you change roles, that's a great time to do it as well. And you can ask people when you meet them, depending on what your role is. So if you're business owner and you do a lot of networking, you can ask people, ask your referral partners when they see your headline, what do they think you do and who do they think you do it for?

[00:18:46.990] - Annette

Great idea. That's a wonderful idea. And I have a question for you with the idea of some personal information in the headline. Now, I was strictly pretty much business business, but I recently as I was doing some work and shifting my brand a little bit, and I worked on it myself. And I added that I'm sort of this proud dog mom. So what do you think about that kind of stuff?

[00:19:15.910] - Beth

So there's this line between the professional and the personal. Right. And everybody has to figure out where their line is and what they're comfortable sharing. It's also a personality thing, right. I think if you have your own business, most people are more comfortable sharing something personal or fun than if you work for a corporation. You might feel a little nervous about doing that. And I can understand that. But it's a personality thing. If you're the kind of person that when you meet again, go back to we're in person. We're at a networking event. When you first meet somebody, are you wearing a pin? That's a picture of your dog. So I think it's up to the individual, but it certainly makes it's, again, a conversation starter. So if somebody comes to your profile, they see that they can start a conversation with you by saying, oh, what kind of dog do you have?

[00:20:16.210] - Annette

Yes, I think that is so true. And I do talk about my dogs all the time. It's part of my thing. And I think it's a great point you brought up about how personal you want to be. I know for me, someone I know Valerie had mentioned months ago when I first met her, the idea of being personal versus private. And I am comfortable sharing a lot about me. I'm happy to share my mistakes and hope that people can learn from them, etc. But although I'm everywhere, I am private in a lot of ways. And some people really lay it all on the line. So I don't know. I guess it's an individual decision. What do you think?

[00:21:09.460] - Beth

Is it absolutely individual? You can share things, for instance, about interests that you have, and that's not private. That's not sharing something going on in your life that you don't want people to know. So I think that's a good place to start, either an interest or that you're a proud dog mom or things like that. And I find that over time I've added more personal things over time. So I've gotten more comfortable with it as well.

[00:21:44.850] - Annette

Yeah, I have as well. I tried to work it in and it is difficult. I don't know. I think you've been working online for a long time. And I know I have. I've been online in other businesses and things since like 2000. And so I feel like I'm out there so much. I'm one of those people who has like 50 friends on Facebook because I have to have one little place that's kind of my personal. Yeah. So we have another question. So we may not get through the things that I wanted to ask you about, but the audience, that's why we're here. Right. So the question is and Kayla, I think it's how to pronounce your name. Thank you so much for the question. I want to know what we can include in the featured section. If we're just beginning to be active on LinkedIn, what kind of things need to be highlighted in the featured section?

[00:22:50.910] - Beth

So in case there are people that don't know what the featured section is first, that is a place on your profile where you can essentially pin or stick things towards the top of your profile. And it can be things like a PDF, a photo, a link to a video, a link to a post that you've done. So it's a great way. And it captures attention because it brings in a photo and it takes up space. And on your phone, it's what someone I know calls a scroll stopper.

[00:23:20.580] - Annette

Right.

[00:23:20.830] - Beth

You're scrolling through. And because there's that image, it stops and captures your attention. So if you're just starting out, you might want to include if you've done a post. So when you do a post, right, it may get attention, but then it goes away because there are so many other posts coming after it. If there's a post that shows something about what you do, how you think you can pin it to the featured section so that people will always see it. If you've written an article on LinkedIn, you can put that in your featured section because articles don't get a lot of attention. People tend not to see them. But sometimes you want to say more than you can in a post. So I think those are two great ways to start.

[00:24:04.410] - Annette

No, I think those are wonderful also. And I know they started rolling out where you can also put your newsletter in your featured section. I actually just got that ability. And again, I noticed you have so many informational things in your featured section, and it's a great way to share information. And it supports links to like YouTube, links to articles, PDF, JPEGs. So if you have certifications that you want to highlight, you're a job seeker, maybe even switching careers, I would think that those are perfect to add as well. Go ahead.

[00:24:48.300] - Beth

I'm sorry, I'll add something to that. That is, you can change it as often as you want. So for instance, maybe you're going to be at an event or speaking somewhere or doing something where you want to invite people. Maybe you're part of a nonprofit and they're having their gala. You can feature that temporarily in that first spot so that people see it. And I do see someone asked if there's how many things you can put it's unlimited, but you only see the first three.

[00:25:16.620] - Annette

Yes. I love that. I do that, too. And you can reorder them. So as you said, maybe you're working with a nonprofit and they do things once a month. So you might want to move it up in the front right before. And then you just push it back to the side and switch things around all the time. And thank you for that question. I love that we're just talking about features because I really think that's one of the most underused parts of the LinkedIn profile, and there's so much people can do with it. And you can add media to your professional experience section as well. And while I think it's great and she said you can share things, but it also kind of jazzes up your profile, too, right? People clicking, they see a lot. So I want to ask you about the invitations with no note. And I think that's something that people do often and they just don't know any better.

[00:26:22.140] - Beth

Correct.

[00:26:22.780] - Annette

Don't know any better. So what's your advice?

[00:26:27.250] - Beth

My advice is, unless it's your brother or sister, always include a note. And there are a couple of reasons. So maybe you meet somebody at an event in person, virtual, whatever it is, you connect with them. But if you don't talk to them for a while, you may not remember who they are or why you met them or how you connected. So that note will be the first in the chain of messages. If you click on the messages button, you'll see that note. So you'll say, oh, we met at the XYZ event. There's. Also, if you're going to be trying to connect with somebody that you have not met or don't know, you have to tell them I'm bad. I have tons with no note that I haven't had the time to review to decide who are they and am I interested in connecting with them. So tell somebody why you want to connect with them, how you found them something and not the automated type of thing and make it about them. So how many times have you received a note that says something like, I'm looking to grow my network of insert what you do.

[00:27:37.570] - Beth

Well, I don't care what you're looking to do. I don't know you.

[00:27:45.050] - Annette

It's so true. Some of my favorites are you came up as someone that I might know or I should know. We share so many connections and you click on their profile and you don't share any connections at all. Or there's so many things like that and it can make such a difference. And I would think too, that don't be intimidated to approach somebody. I have someone now who's a good friend of mine who I met, oh, gosh, a decade ago, and I contacted her. She was high up in the career industry. I wanted to know her and I just was commenting. I read your post and this and blah, blah, blah, I'd love to know you. Well, she accepted my invitation. We had lunch. I ran a little career conference. She helped me get speakers. Now, she and her wife are good friends of mine. We celebrate together. I mentioned that partly because people think, oh, you can't social media, social media or LinkedIn, and they don't think that anything more than a superficial relationship.

[00:29:02.220] - Beth

Yeah, no, it's true. And I'll tell you a career story. So twelve years ago, before I started my business, I thought I was looking for a new job. I saw a listing. I did a little digging around on LinkedIn and thought I found the hiring manager. I reached out to her and I didn't say anything about the job. I just said something about it. Having an information interview. She was open to it. We had an amazing conversation. She wasn't the hiring manager. She hated working there and she was leaving and we've kept in touch all these years. We've had lunch, we've referred people to each other. So can you reach out and someone doesn't want to connect with you? Absolutely. But you have nothing to lose by trying.

[00:29:40.370] - Annette

No, I agree with you. If I can ask you to talk a little bit about the whole automation and I get things like that. I get a lot of in mails and messages, people wanting to connect with me because they want to help me with my LinkedIn profile or sometimes they have the wrong name or contacting me about something. I don't know what to say about that.

[00:30:18.450] - Beth

First of all, there are two kinds of automation. I like to clarify that automated tools that allow you to post those are allowed.

[00:30:26.050] - Annette

Yes.

[00:30:26.690] - Beth

The tools that we're talking about are these products that will promise to do it for you and like, grow your network and get your clients and all this stuff. If it sounds too good to be true, it is. Plus, it's against the terms of service and can get you kicked off of LinkedIn. You can often tell based on the wording or mistakes that they make, things like that. It's unfortunate. I'm not sure why people are taken in by these tools. They're looking for maybe a shortcut or they're told that it works, but it's not the way to go. And people hate it when they realize that they're being scammed. Essentially.

[00:31:08.290] - Annette

I think that too. And occasionally if I'm in a bad mood, I will write back to somebody and say, I would never work with anybody who's retiring me. While it's not automation, I also see this. I'm sure it happens to you. I know what happens to me. I have friends who have used this type of thing where maybe they're looking for a job and so they connect with someone and the person accepts their connection. And right away it's like, do you have anything available in your company? Or I've had people connect to me and then say, oh, can you introduce me to so and so? And it's like, well, I don't even know you.

[00:31:53.690] - Beth

Yes. You haven't earned the right yet. Again, it goes back to in person. If you met somebody in person and would you ask for that? Would you ask for an introduction? No, it wouldn't be appropriate.

[00:32:05.650] - Annette

So what are some of the things that people can if they're watching us now or they're listening to watching the replay or listening to this on my podcast, some ways that people can approach someone, like if they wanted to connect with you and they don't know you, what are some things that people might reference in a note that they send?

[00:32:30.110] - Beth

Well, first of all, how about before that, I'm going to share a very I don't know whether to call it sneaky or strategic technique. If the person you're trying to connect with is active on LinkedIn. And by active, I mean they share content. What you do is you go to their content and you read it or watch it, depending on the kind of content. And then you make a comment and here's the magic. You ask a question, a real question. It has to be authentic. It can't be just to do it. What are they going to do? If you ask them a question about it, they're going to write back. You've just started a conversation with somebody that you don't know. And so then if you want to connect with them, they're much more likely to want to connect because you've already had a conversation and you can't do it in a creepy way. I once had somebody look at my profile, follow me, follow me on Twitter, tweet to me like three posts. It was just too much at once. It was clear that they weren't trying to build a real relationship.

[00:33:32.530] - Annette

Yeah, they're like stalking you. I know. Or the random. And I know you mentioned this in your webinar, and we all get this like, hello or hello. I like your smile, where people for some reason think that LinkedIn is like, I don't know, Match.com or something. And the whole formal versus fun line is a bit, I should say, very blurred at this point. That is just not. You just don't want to cross. Yeah, I'm glad you brought that up, because I saw on your profile that one of the things that you share with your clients is these sneaky strategies. So since you shared that, can you share another one with us?

[00:34:25.950] - Beth

Okay, here's one of my favorite things. If we were in a Zoom meeting, I'd be having you raise your hands right now. But people like to look at who views their profile, right? But they don't do anything with the information. And I don't even think LinkedIn necessarily thought about this. But this one trick tip has led to so much work, stronger relationships for both me and my clients. Example, being a first connection to somebody I knew but hadn't talked to in a while, looked at my profile, I reached out and I said, hey, how you doing? Notice you stopped by my profile. And I think that wording is important, too. It wasn't like I saw you by my profile. What do you want? But he reached back out and he said, oh, yes. Susan said, you're the person to talk to about LinkedIn training. Susan a common friend of ours now because I noticed that what if Susan had given him three names and he called someone else first? What if he got too busy and never called me? So by seeing that, and even if it was not for a reason like that, maybe he wanted to see how to spell my name.

[00:35:32.650] - Beth

If I had complicated name, it allows me to reconnect with somebody that I know and have a conversation. So first connection, if you haven't talked to them in a while, reach out to them.

[00:35:45.690] - Annette

That is such a great piece of advice for me. It's a wonderful piece of advice for me, and I will tell you why. I get a lot of referrals from colleagues, other resume writers, and in most cases, in some cases, they will just say, Talk to Annette. But in most cases, like you, I give people referrals. I give people three names. And so that is something that I definitely should be doing myself. So I thank you for that. I thank you for that. And the last thing that I want to ask you about here, and then I want to talk to you about this whole LinkedIn audio, because I know you're a beta tester and this indiscriminate tagging, and I think people do that. What I think is because I have people sometimes who tag me constantly and I don't know them that well. Why do you think people do that? And what is the lesson? That it's not really a good idea?

[00:37:00.170] - Beth

No, it really isn't. So I had a similar situation. I actually met somebody in person, and they started tagging me on every single post that they did. And when you tag somebody, yes, you're trying to get their attention. And in many cases, what you hope they will do is respond by liking it, by sharing it, by commenting. So by doing it all the time, you're trying to get somebody to show your content to their network, essentially. And it's annoying. So the appropriate way to tag is when it makes sense. When we were promoting this event, we tagged each other so the person would know if you're thanking somebody, publicly tag them. If like I did in that example, I told you before I was moderating a panel, I tagged the panelists because it makes sense. If you had just had a conversation with somebody and you know they would be okay with you publicly tagging them. But there are other ways. If you want people to be sure to see a post, you can send them the link to the post, say, hey, you might not have seen this because of the algorithm, and I wanted to make sure you saw it.

[00:38:08.710] - Annette

No, I think that's a wonderful idea. And I partnered with Jillian Whitney for the celebrating other creators on LinkedIn. We did a thing and we celebrated people that we knew, and she actually shared I hadn't thought about that shared that idea with me, and we did individually. We sent the post to all the people that we were celebrating, and they did come, obviously, and support us. But I think that's true because it can be a little bit. And I'm not a huge fish on LinkedIn, but I have some friends who have massive followings, tens of thousands of following and get tagged all the time by people that they don't even know. So I'd like to turn now, though, to the whole LinkedIn audio. And as I mentioned to you earlier, I'm glad to say this here. I've been to a few of your events. They're great. I've been to others that are very warm and inclusive, and it's a conversation and sort of a joy to be there, while there are some that are more panels that aren't inviting that conversation. So tell me a little bit. I'm curious to see how you see these fitting into LinkedIn sort of platform as a whole.

[00:39:36.150] - Annette

And where do you think this is kind of going?

[00:39:38.610] - Beth

Yeah, I think it's hard to tell. It's only been around for about two months, and I know that they may be adding to it. First of all, for people who may not know about it, it's social audio on LinkedIn. Pardon me? So an audio conversation that you can have, they may be adding a video component to it in the future. I don't know for sure all the details. So if you've been on Clubhouse, it's like LinkedIn's answer to Clubhouse. And to me there's such power in conversation. So I really love it. And since it is early, I've been experimenting with different things to do with it, to see what makes sense. And I love that other people are experimenting as well. So is it a conversation like this, an interview or conversation? Is it a panel discussion? Is it just somebody talking and then people can join them? And I've seen all of it and I think it can work just as well for all the different types of formats. So I'm not really sure where it's going to go. For me personally, I'm experimenting and then at some point I will decide, okay, this is how I want to use it for myself.

[00:40:52.270] - Annette

Yeah. You know, one of the things that I like about it is the fact that you can join from your desktop so I don't have to worry about my phone or sometimes my phone that isn't charged or whatever. And there's LinkedIn has the audio and of course there's Clubhouse and there's Twitter spaces. And I know there's others Green Room and all these other things going on that I'm not involved in. One of the things that I like about Clubhouse is the fact that you can make it private so you can have a group. And I think that might be one of the drawbacks for the LinkedIn audio. If people are maybe if they're job seeking and we're having a discussion on how job search strategies or getting your profile ready for your job search, they might not want to be seen in that. So that's the only kind of drawback that I see at this point.

[00:41:55.280] - Beth

I don't think they're going to change that because they actually you used to be able to do public or private LinkedIn lives public, so I don't think they will do that. One way they could do it would be to allow it to be within a group, but I don't think they're going to do that either. But I would like that. That would be great to have it just in a group.

[00:42:18.610] - Annette

Yeah. But again, it's so different. I've been on a couple of Twitter spaces which have been fun. I'm actually going to try that this afternoon, moving our Clubhouse room to Twitter spaces just for a little change of pace. But I'm eager to see where it goes. And one of the things that I love about LinkedIn audio, and if you're listening to this, watching this and you're not aware of LinkedIn audio, you can actually go to the search in LinkedIn and look for audio events.

[00:42:54.610] - Beth

I have no idea.

[00:42:56.060] - Annette

Yeah, go ahead.

[00:42:57.410] - Beth

If you're with us live today at 01:00 Eastern, I am doing a LinkedIn audio event. The tricky thing is finding it because the discovery of these things are a little tricky. Even if you go to my profile, you'd have to look in my content to where I promoted it.

[00:43:18.850] - Annette

Okay. Yeah.

[00:43:19.910] - Beth

So it probably would be best to do that. But it's at 01:00 and it's with my guest Jeffrey Shaw, the author of a book called The Selfemployed Life. So we're talking about the state of self employment.

[00:43:31.430] - Annette

That sounds awesome. I just have another drawback to LinkedIn Live, not LinkedIn Live. The LinkedIn audio is at this point you can't watch the replay.

[00:43:43.210] - Beth

Well, true, you can't through LinkedIn, but they have no problem if you recorded it in another way. So I have experimented with recording it using QuickTime or some other tool. But I have to admit, I've been too busy. I haven't listened to them or decided if I'm going to do anything with it. And of course, I did let the people know that I was recording.

[00:44:04.030] - Annette

Yeah. There's so many things. As you said, this LinkedIn audio is so new and people like me are just like, oh, please, let me be next. Let me be waiting for it to roll out more broadly because right now it is a very small sort of group of people that were selected to be beta testers for this. So as we are kind of winding down and I thank you so much for all of the information that you've shared. Is there anything that you'd like to cover, anything that we should have discussed that we might be helpful?

[00:44:45.690] - Beth

That's a great question. I mean, there's so many things I know for hours about LinkedIn. Right. But to me, I just think the key thing is always thinking about it as if you were in person and the behavior and to not be afraid of taking little steps. Share a Post Comment on Someone's Post I know both of us have met people on LinkedIn that are now good friends or collaborators or it's a great place to support your network before precovid. How many coffee meetings could you have in a day? So there are things you can do to support people that you care about on the platform.

[00:45:26.850] - Annette

Yes, that is so true. Thank you so much, Beth, for being here. I am so excited that you did say yes. I'm always grateful when people say yes. So I really appreciate you sharing, giving me your time, giving us all your time and sharing your knowledge. So thank you so much for everyone who has been here with us live. If you're watching on the replay, thank you for that as well. And have a great rest of your day.