Linkedin Business Pages - What YOU Need to Know - with Michelle J Raymond

𝐁𝐈𝐆 𝐒𝐇𝐈𝐅𝐓𝐒 𝐈𝐍 𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐊𝐄𝐃𝐈𝐍 𝐁𝐔𝐒𝐈𝐍𝐄𝐒𝐒 𝐏𝐀𝐆𝐄𝐒 - that YOU need to know!

𝗠𝘆 𝗚𝘂𝗲𝘀𝘁  ~  𝐌𝐢𝐜𝐡𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐞 𝐉 𝐑𝐚𝐲𝐦𝐨𝐧𝐝 - 𝐂𝐡𝐢𝐞𝐟 𝐒𝐨𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐥 𝐒𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐠𝐢𝐬𝐭 𝐚𝐭 𝐆𝐨𝐨𝐝 𝐓𝐫𝐚𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐂𝐨 
✅ 𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐬𝐡𝐞 𝐝𝐨𝐞𝐬: ▪️ Global LinkedIn Company Pages Specialist that works with passionate small businesses owners to boost their reputation and revenue on LinkedIn.
✅ 𝐖𝐡𝐲 𝐢𝐭 𝐦𝐚𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐬: Linkedin Business pages are an increasingly import part of company's online presence and to many aren't leveraging this important piece of their digital ID
✅ 𝐐𝐔𝐎𝐓𝐄: "We know the b2b buyer is on LinkedIn. You know, we know that they're there, they're active, we've got 756 million users on LinkedIn. 𝑺𝒐 𝒄𝒐𝒎𝒆 𝒇𝒊𝒔𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒘𝒉𝒆𝒓𝒆 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒇𝒊𝒔𝒉 𝒂𝒓𝒆!"

🔷 Michelle Raymond is a LinkedIn Pages specialist who is passionate about helping small businesses build brand awareness to attract business opportunities using LinkedIn.
With 20+ years Sales and Key Account Management experience, Michelle has generated over $3M in revenue for the companies she represented.
With this extensive experience using LinkedIn for social selling, Michelle established her own company Good Trading Co to help others learn her methodology to successfully boost their reputation and revenue.

Good Trading Co offers - Company Page Audit & Strategy Consultancy, Employee Training, Outsourcing Service for LinkedIn Company Page Management.

Find Michelle and Good trading at:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/michelle-raymond-goodtradingco/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/good-trading-co-linkedin4business
https://goodtradingco.com.au/

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Transcript

0:00

Hey, I'm September Smith. And this is the She's All That podcast, Season 2. As always,"conversations with women doing awesome shit" is the foundation of my podcast. And in this transition season to a post pandemic world, my guests are business owners combining their agile business jobs, their expertise and their insight to offer their clients innovative solutions for the post pandemic business reality. Each and every one brings a fresh edge to business that you'll want to hear about. Welcome to the She's All That video podcast this week, I am talking with Michelle J. Raymond. And we're going to be getting into something that might surprise people who are thinking about using LinkedIn for the business. Michelle J. Raymond is a global LinkedIn company pages specialist, and she works with passionate small businesses and their owners to boost their reputation and their revenue on LinkedIn. Now, Michelle has a 20 plus year sales career in industry, if I'm not mistaken, Michelle, working with companies. And then you've done seven years doing social selling on LinkedIn. So you help business people grapple with LinkedIn. So just to get started with our conversation about LinkedIn, and what you do with people and one of your more interestingly controversial claims around LinkedIn, let's start in the shallow end. So LinkedIn pages, LinkedIn, business pages, LinkedIn profile. What is the difference? And what do people need to know about these things? Thanks for having me September, because the really ... you're right? It's really confusing for people because there are so many different options on LinkedIn. And so what I find is that business owners who have limited time, right, they're already running full time, businesses, probably doing extra hours running around with so many different hats. And then there's this thing called LinkedIn that they recognize that they probably should be doing, but they don't actually have the resources internally. So where do you focus your time? You know, and so you've got options. So you've got your personal profile, which is, you know, for me, it would be Michelle J. Raymond, you have options to have company pages, which is my business Good Trading Co. And then you know, within that, there's also other things on LinkedIn, you've got groups, and you've got all kinds of different things floating around. So where do you start? And so you'll hear a lot of people talk about personal branding, and building up your personal profile, making sure that you've got a really great personal profile that other people can come and see. And you'll hear that all the time. And where I come into it, as I say, don't forget about your company page, which is the part that other people would say, Why company pages? Michelle, why should I bother spreading my time that I don't really have across two different places? You know, how am I going to keep up, and I'm going to say to you that you're different to your company, your company has a, you know, a presence, a profile, what they stand for what you do more than just your products and services. And that's different to you as an owner and your employees. So I love to have two opportunities to share the story. So I'm a bit greedy, I'm looking at it saying, hey, you've got this other amazing opportunity over here. So let's explore that a little bit more. So couple things there. Now, first of all, for the last number of years on LinkedIn, the consensus that I seem to keep running into is that business pages are kind of like LinkedIn groups, a non event, like, yeah, you can be in this group, but there's nothing going on there. And a lot of people seem to use the business page as almost like a calling card or a postcard. They're on LinkedIn. But they they're not really active with it. You this is this is your claim is that no, no, that business pages are really important and becoming more and more important. That's right. And that's because we've seen an evolution in LinkedIn and the way that people use it. So if we go back when LinkedIn first came in, and you know, we've all been and got the story that is, Hey, I got a job through LinkedIn. So I updated my profile, and I got a job using LinkedIn. And that's been a common conversation for a really long time. And so then what happens is, over time, people like myself started to realize that LinkedIn was an opportunity to connect with so many other professional people on the platform. So around seven years ago, is when I first started to realize that you've actually got an opportunity, one, you can reach an audience that I wouldn't, you know, have access to on an everyday basis, like here in Sydney, you know, and so I could reach people outside of my state outside of my country, and really learn about the industry that I was in. So for me, that was it, you know, is a really great opportunity to start. And what happened is, especially in the last 18 months, COVID has impacted the world so traditional selling methods, bang out the window, so no one likes to cold, call in No one likes to spam email, our customer visits, you know, most the way back in lockdown here in Sydney. So they're off the table. Yeah, exactly. So our industry events got canceled out or postponed. And our trade has got, you know, postponed. And another part of you know, some of the industries is having overseas guests come, you know, you bring the overseas supplier and you match them around and you say, hey, these, they've got great products. Now, what do you do when all of that disappears? Now you've got options, and they typically fall into paid or not paid. And a lot of small businesses don't have the budgets to take on big advertising campaigns. And SEO is really expensive. You know, here in Australia, you're looking at probably, you know, two to $3,000 a month just to try and get on that first page of Google's results. And not every business has that to spare, especially during COVID when things are impacted. And this is where I say, hey, come and check out company pages. We know the b2b buyer is on LinkedIn. You know, we know that they're there, they're active, we've got 756 million users on LinkedIn. So come fishing where the fish are, that's what I always say, you know, this is where your target market is, if you're selling b2b or to professionals. And so, you know, that's why I love it. And it's you, right? groups have really and company pages have got a bad reputation. I can't argue that point. But what's actually happened is as LinkedIn devolves the world evolves, we're starting to see that real change now. And I'm saying get in at the ground level people because this thing's about to take off. Okay. Okay. I've heard you say that before. So go on. There's the deal here. What what what do you know what's going to change with business pages? Look, we're seeing this year, especially, there's been changes month after month, as we see, you know, some of the functionality within company pages, which can be a bit clunky, I'm not gonna lie. But we're seeing LinkedIn is really putting a lot of effort into company pages, because I have a theory that last year, they had their biggest year ever for LinkedIn advertising, the spend was about 3 billion extra US dollars for the financial year. Now, if I'm Microsoft, who owns LinkedIn, what am I going to do, I'm going to invest in my money makeup, because the HR solution side of the platform, it's been around for a long time most people know about it, it's probably not their cash cow coming up. So what they do to have advertising on LinkedIn, you need a company page, to what am I going to do, I need to have a company page to do obviously, I've never done advertising, I've heard there's a lot of emails, so much ROI in LinkedIn advertising. But to do it, even if you want it to, you need to have a company page. Absolutely. And so whilst I don't do advertising, either I do all of my marketing through my content. But there are much bigger companies that are obviously spending a lot of money, we know that they pulled their advertising off Facebook and Instagram, and I moved it across into LinkedIn last year, because just because of such a big jump in how many people were on the platform. And so you know, to really make it effective for businesses, of course, LinkedIn is going to make company pages, even, you know, have better functionality. So we've seen things like you can create articles on the page. Up until recently, you couldn't do that on a company page. They're doing you know, some really cool work around the invites process. So you get some credits each month on a company page to invite people who follow up. So they've made that easier when they've made it. So that's about you know, when you're creating a company page, and I say, it's a really great opportunity. This isn't a numbers game, this is about creating a really niche interested following in your product or services. So when you use the invite products, you get 100 at the start of the month, so they refresh every single month. And you can actually, you know, basically once you send them out as someone accepts, you get another credit to invite. Now there's some filters that they put on. So previously, it would just be, you could invite 100 people from your personal connections, and it almost just ran in order, no particular order, just whoever LinkedIn thought you should invite. Now, what it's actually done recently is you can filter it by location. So if your business's geography specific, I suggest that you use the filters to target those people for your page. Same as if you're targeting another company. So say you've got an ideal customer out there that you really wish that they would buy from you, you can actually use the filters and, you know, basically filter out that company from any of your personal connections, and invite them to follow your page. And that's where you can really start to create content that talks to that ideal client. And so there's lots of cool ways in behind the scenes that we're just starting to really dig and find out, you know, all of the great ways that you can attract new business because that's what I'm here to do. If they were Here to build your revenue like. So the smaller businesses were actually benefiting from the changes that LinkedIn has made to the platform. Yeah, half of the larger businesses, but smaller businesses can now take advantage. So two things you mentioned, that was the invitation thing, and then there was the article. So what's the benefit? I mean, we've been able to write articles on our personal profile, as long as I can remember, yeah. So what's the benefit of being able to do it on our business page? Now? Look, now it's all about building your business up as a subject matter expert in your field. So rather than, right, exactly, so it's both right. So unless you have a flamingo I say, stand on two legs, you know, have your company brands, and have your personal brands rocking, because let's think about it, we should assume that everybody wants to create content on LinkedIn. And the stats are actually only that 1% of people in an online community actually create content. So that leaves 90% sit back and watch, they don't actually do anything except log in every day. And then you've got 9%, who will do something like like or comment every now and then. So there's this grand assumption that we're all on LinkedIn creating content, and that's good for business, and we build up employees about as advocates. Now, that's not actually the case. And if you're a business that doesn't have someone from that 1%, what do you do stay invisible, and that that's what I'm here to change. You know, a company page is a great tool for you to start out with, while you build up the skills and, you know, often the confidence that your employees to start posting content themselves. But not everyone wants to do it or enjoys it, there's a lot of anxiety around it. So many reasons. I think the fear of being trolled, like happens on other platforms, that's a real anxiety for a lot of people judgment, fear, all of those kinds of things. So a company page is a great way for people to get involved. And then you know, progress further down the track. Now, that's interesting. So So you're saying that like, as an employee, of a given firm, I could actually be kind of a get my mojo happening with my posting on LinkedIn, and kind of trying things out and finding my voice. On behalf of the company on the company page. I'm so building credit for myself. I then also have a mic. Oh, wow. That's right. And so there's no fear of that personal judgment. So it's a really neat place to start. And so what I find is, when you start to get the company page rocking, so let's assume you've got no one in your company that's creating content or familiar with LinkedIn, and your business decides that we're going to go on, what we'll find is employees. And the stats show that it's about 14 times more likely that they'll engage with a company posts, rather than posts themselves. And so what you'll find is, they'll do likes and comments on a company page, and maybe even share it that information to their personal networks, before they actually want to actually create anything themselves. So you know, it starts mobilizing the employees in a safe and you know, they feel not as anxious around doing those kind of things, they'll support it. And you know, with some training and encouragement, you know, we start to see those things take off pretty quickly. Oh, that's interesting. So I hadn't even thought about training. So I guess it behooves a small company, if they really want to get their employees on board with this, give them some background information, and training and foundation to be doing this. Look, and you'll find a lot of people that talk about personal branding, talk about personal branding there, and the employees become advocates for the company. Now I actually say if you've got a great company page, it works the other way around. It's your job to create content that builds up your employees out in the world. So if you've got a sales team, you know, help promote them as they go to experts in their field. Now, it's a two way street. And often companies will say, Oh, yes, it's the employees job to go out and be advocates for our company. You know, it's their job. If they cared about this company, they would go and do that. And is it? Yeah, let's come back here a step. It's your company, it's your job to build them up and give them skills and knowledge and support. And quite often, there's no incentive for employees to actually get out there and create content. So you know, if you are an owner of a business, expecting other people to do it, give them a reason to, there's got to be a KPI or an incentive in place to encourage these people when they you know, do the right thing by your company. Because that brand awareness they're building for you off their personal connections. You can't pay money for that, you know, every single one of them brings in however many hundreds or 1000s of connections in their network onto your business page potentially. Absolutely. Because if you think about it, most of us have significant Currently higher numbers of connections on our personal brands. So let's say on average people have, you know, between two and 5000 connections personally, and a lot of company pages would be well and truly under 1000. Now, if you can leverage off what these employees have built up, then you know, it makes sure that goes the other way as well. So again, the two streams help you help build the employees and employees help you build the company. So it's not one at the expense of the other needs, basically getting them both to work at the same time. So is the business page really only advantageous for a company that has a team or a fleet of employees that can be helping them build this way? No, I say goes down to the solopreneurs, as well. So this is why I love it, naming one other platform or place where a solopreneur has the same power as a multinational global company. So in LinkedIn, number one, it's free. Number two, we get the same banner space, we get the same logo size, we get the same number of characters for the headline and content for free. You know, this isn't a pay to play platform, like if you choose to do ads, that's fine. But you don't need to do ads to have a successful company page, but you have the same space. So you can make your business appear way bigger than what it may be potentially behind the scenes. And you have the opportunity with good content to really stand out as the leader in your field without having to pay for that luxury, which, you know, often if you want to show up on the first page of Google results, it's pay to play you know, and so the whether it's your advertising spend or investing in SEO, it's all about pay to play. Now cool thing about a LinkedIn company page is by investing in good content, LinkedIn has really good showings on the first page of Google results, your company pages will often show on the first page in the first few positions. Typically, it's in one or two without having to pay anything. So you know, why invest all this money in SEO? when you're starting out by just a stretched? Just come over here and try this, you'll be on the front page, you know, in no time. So one of the things in previous conversations you had mentioned was that you wish? Well, you wish that there wasn't this mindset of like, well, we have a website, why do we need to be over there building a business page on LinkedIn. And so that's an issue. But look, websites serve of purpose, right. And what typically happens is people go out, they put a lot of effort and time into their website, they set it up. And it's a set and forget, you know, unless you've got a huge marketing team with lots of, you know, people running, and making sure that we've got new, you know, processes in place on that website to capture leads, most of the time for small businesses, it's you pay someone to set it up, you write a few blogs to stick it on there. And then you leave it there and hope and pray that someone will find you and come to your business. Now, what I love about the LinkedIn company pages is almost becomes like a dynamic website that's updated daily, it becomes almost like a mini representation of your website, but it's dynamic. It's what's going in on your business today. And it's a more human side to your business, not just what you do your products and services. It's also, you know, who are you? What do you stand for? What makes your business different? because there aren't too many unique businesses out there with a you know, where lots of the same same versions, you know, variations on a theme, it's still the human side of your business is what makes you stand out. So that's interesting to I think a lot of people will be a bit taken aback to hear like what I'm supposed to put a human face on my LinkedIn business page. I salutely. Tell me more. Yeah, look at this is the craziness of it. And this is why people say personal branding and personal profiles are where you should focus on LinkedIn. And I agree with, you know, the personal side of LinkedIn is important. But it's important to show that as part of your company page as well. So I know that across the various pages that I manage, and the industries it doesn't matter the industry, if you grab your smartphone, and take candid photos of anyone or anything in your office and surroundings, especially your people that type of content will outperform anything else that you can create Wow, it's so easy. It is it is and the less manufactured and branded and corporate that you make your content, the more people are relatable, so we want to know, Oh, is that what that email address from the lady and accounts? You know, is that what she looks like? You know, she's got a dog I've got a dog you know, we become relatable when you start to share more personal, you know, grab the guy in the warehouse that puts all that fit into make sure that things are packed properly. You know, eight videos of watching you know what He does show us the effort and care that you put into your business, or how you go above and beyond and what makes your people different. And the more you show us that, like the Wizard of Oz shows behind the curtain, you know, what's what's going on in there that we can't see from your website. So what is in your recommendations that you would give to your clients for businesses that you work with? What is the balance and or the relationship between their strategy if they have one for their website and their LinkedIn business page, should they know them or they'd like to monoliths? Theoretically, they should, you know, support each other. So you in LinkedIn has a plugin, follow a button that you can put into your website for company pages. And when someone when someone visits your website, they click on this button, and they automatically become a follower of your page. And that's slightly different from having an icon that hyperlinks you across to the company page, and then you're relying on them to press the Follow button when they get there. This is an automatic button. So that's one way that it works, you know that way. And vice versa. There's a follow button that you can direct people from the company paid back for your website. So theoretically, we want these things to be bouncing off each other. And there's other things like an insight tag that you can put on your website and start to get the demographics of what LinkedIn followers or LinkedIn profile, hard holders are coming onto your website. And you can find all kinds of demographics. So who's coming to see your website, and that's a thing that a lot of people don't know about your website, or your business page and your website. So it's called a, it's called the insight tag from LinkedIn. And you basically insert it onto the pages of your website, and anyone that visits your website that has a LinkedIn profile, you start to pull their demographics of who they are sorry, not their names, but where they're from. And so you know, the pixel? Absolutely, absolutely. And people aren't using it. So you get a real picture of who is it that's coming to your website that's on LinkedIn. And, you know, obviously, there's, you know, steps down the path that if you want to run ads, you can retarget those people and send them, you know, ads that would actually say, you know, speak to, you know, the pages that they visited, and maybe get them on board. So, you know, there's lots of complicated and simple tools that the two of them work together, that a lot of people just haven't explored yet. You know, it's more than just a company page. And this is where, you know, LinkedIn does a lot of things they don't what they don't do well is tell people, you know, these are cool tools only company. We just think we just think company pages where people advertise their products and services. And they're really annoying, and they look like ads. And we scroll on by but I'm here to kind of hopefully change that. And you know, like, what, as we're speaking about this, it occurs to me, I have a business page I've had I actually have to one business. That is that's the question, should I be putting that LinkedIn business page to bed when the company is now been folded? Right? Yes, absolutely. So because, again, if you have no intentions of ever bringing that company back to life, you can actually archive it so that people don't accidentally find it, and then get frustrated that it's not coming back to you. If you don't have that business page, then over on your personal profile, when you have your company listed. It just shows up as like a neutral LinkedIn icon. So how do you? Is there anybody voting? Yes, yes, yes, yes. So there's nothing worse than going on somebody's personal profile, going down to their work experience and seeing that they've got those poor little grey buildings that LinkedIn uses as the go to icon. So if you want to change that set up a company page, and even if you have no intentions of creating content, it's really important that you leave a trail for people because if they're on the platform, and they're searching, we want them to find you if you know, organic search results are great. And you know, it means you're not paying for things paying for people to find you. So it takes about 15 minutes to set up a company page, it's free. And then you go back and link it to your personal profile so that your logo shows up. And again, just think of it free free advertising in a passive kind of way. And you know, then people may find you accidentally there the great opportunities, the ones that we didn't know, we're out there, we've haven't actually had to actively go out and find and they're attracted to us. That's ultimately what we're trying to do. So kind of following the breadcrumbs in my mind here, okay, so I've got a business page, okay to one that should probably be archived. I, I'm the kind of person that if I hear of somebody who's actually having this conversation the other day, you don't even exist until I've gone and I've found you on LinkedIn. And then I've looked in your contacts and I've found your web page and I've seen Activate. But you know what I don't look at? I don't look at your business page on LinkedIn. Yeah. So what is the relationship? And the question I'm getting to so like, is, as somebody who's managing to it, as you mentioned, it's time consuming. There are do's and don'ts about like, you can't just post the same thing on both your personal and your business, and you can't cross post to my correct in that kind of thing. What I would say is don't press the share button. So that's the worst button to press on LinkedIn at this point in time. And I reserve the right to come back later and change my mind. Because what's happened is LinkedIn has recently updated the home feed algorithm. So and they've really mentioned reshares, and shares is having value. Now, that's not our experience on the platform right now. But I feel it's going to change in the coming months. And that's to encourage people to really share just like retweet on Twitter. Why was something of value? Like I'd heard that too, don't bother. It doesn't help anything. Yeah, the reach has been atrocious. And so I think it's a bit of both things, you didn't get good reach, so that everyone said don't do it. So then it didn't perform. And then it was like this vicious cycle going round and round. What happened is because of pods, which are just engagement groups that all try and gain the LinkedIn algorithm, jump on and do lots of comments. I think what we're seeing is LinkedIn, trying something else to try and encourage people away from just comments being gold, and moving them to say, actually, we're gonna say, if you take the time to promote, you know, by sharing someone else's pose, yeah, that should be moved up the food chain, because to me, like, you're put you're going, Hey, guys, check this out. This is amazing. Yeah, that's, that's, yeah, so if we're looking at how does that work between a business page, and also your personal, so you're right, it's a, you know, a timing thing, you know, something's got to be sustainable. So what I would say to you is, it's okay to repurpose, you know, a huge fan of repurposing, just don't do the same post to your person on company page on the same day. So spread it out a little bit, make it a brand new post copy replaced, if you've had something performed well on one on the other, you know, use it across, I will quite often make sure that I tag my company, in any of my personal posts and say, Hey, come and follow a good trading code, and really use one to feed the other and vice versa, you know, I build myself up on my company page just as much. So yeah, it's really important to us, as I said, use both of them to build each other up, one builds up my business side of me, the other one, hey, I'm human, I'm a person, here's my expertise. You know, if you like me, then you know, come over here. And, you know, maybe we can do business as well. So we're building up social proof is the fancy terms for it. So we want when people are doing their research, and we know that 70% of the buying decisions done before anyone even reaches out to a salesperson, think about that for a minute. It's not like old school, we have an abundance of information available, Google omega changed selling, right, it changed. I've been doing it for 20 years. Once upon a time, I was the keeper of knowledge, and you needed to come to me to find out about my expertise that I could then share with you. It's no longer exist, you can find any answer and what under half a second on Google, tell me the answer to anything in the world. And then what happens is people do their own research, and then they come to the salesperson when they're ready to buy. And it's that last little bit where the sales team really gets involved. So if you don't have an online presence, you know, no one else does, then you're gonna miss opportunities. So you you're working with companies trying to get optimize what you can optimize with them with the time and then the bandwidth that they've got available. What are some of the I wouldn't say egregious, but what are some of the the mistakes or the LinkedIn, no no's, you see companies making that if they just fix that it would really make a difference. The simple thing is, it's not free advertising, okay. So it is not your chance to just bombard people with every product and service that you offer. No one is interested, they do not care, they will not engage, they will unfollow you if you bombard them with what is essentially just spam on LinkedIn. You know, we don't like it anywhere else. We don't like ads. That's why we all moved across from you know, onto Netflix and channels like that, so that we don't like ads, right? So don't make your content look like ads. So if you're not going to do that, what are you going to do? You're going to be of service, you're going to add value, you're going to solve problems. So think about in your industry, what are the top questions that your clients or potential clients may ask and start answering those, you know, how do you solve their challenges because we know when people are scrolling through LinkedIn, they're often looking for solutions to problems that they're having within their own business. And so making sure that it's really obvious what you do and how you make life easier for people, and it doesn't matter. What you do, the process is the same across industries, is that you're solving people's problems, be the one that stands out and says, I'm ready, when you have that problem. I'm the company you need to come to. Now that just totally brought to mind the conversation that we'd had recently about video and creating video, that whole thing of immediately telling people who you are and what you do. And 72% of people would rather get their information via video than read to x. So when it comes to video in LinkedIn, and particularly on our business page, is it a good idea? Because I have heard it said that actually text posts performed better than video posts and image posts. What How do you advise people around using video on their business page? I think as I said before, if you've got a smartphone, use it, you know, it doesn't have to be a full scale production, although it can be there are times when that actually works, right? When it's worthwhile investing in something that really highlights You know, I've seen some really cool examples of the, you know, two minute business card video that actually, when you're asleep, someone else can watch it and actually see what your business does. And I love that idea. So what we're looking at is just really making sure that people can find out what you do when you're not there. You know, that's, that's the cool part about the company pages. Is there any way on a company page if you were to because what we were talking about was making that kind of video, this was kind of new, is there any way to pin it to the top of the page like you can in some other platforms? Yeah. So what's great is we have the opportunity to post pin one to the top. Okay, so what we're hoping and what we're pushing the LinkedIn product team to do is have a featured section, which is currently available on the personal profile, but we don't see it as well on the company page. Now, what a company page does really well is you can always set up your own mini YouTube channel, because it has a video tab, which actually looks really good, which isn't on personal profiles. So if you're uploading native video to LinkedIn, it looks really good. You know, and it's something that stands out that not a lot of people notice. And so, you know, should you use video, video is a really cool way to actually show people who you are. And you know, it's that instant, you know, affinity with someone that you can build that trust that words can I love words, I love writing. But there are just some things that videos just like this, you get to say more than my words will ever convey. Yeah, it's for something if I'm searching, and I want a solution, and I do not want to just like slowly and leisurely look through many, many pages. It's like, no, I need to know this answer now. Yeah, I go looking for a video. And in fact, a little bit if I go to somebody, if I go to somebody's LinkedIn profile and or their business profile or their website, and I can't find video, I'm kind of like, Are they a thing? Yeah, I want a video, but it's good to know that you're no, it's not something that you're punished for by posing video and LinkedIn. No, definitely not. I'm always a fan of rotating your styles of content. So you love videos. That's what you look for. There are people that don't listen to videos, they just want to read, they just want to skim and scan. There are people that love infographics, you know. So when you think about it, we're all different, right? We're all different. So I rotate my content, so that I use the different format. So I pick up different people in my audience. And it doesn't mean that you won't read something that I've written, but ya know, gravitate, you'll gravitate to maybe a video and so it's important to make sure I leave a trail for all kinds of people. And rotating content make that not boring as well. Like, don't make your company page boring. Yeah, same, same, same, like no one's into it. Right? So we've got the format that you rotate through, do you also have like, I've heard it, some people who were talking about doing social selling on other platforms, Facebook, in particular, talk about a ratio of the kinds of posts like value information teaching, called action value, you know, do you have any kind of formula that you use like that on LinkedIn, or that you would recommend for business pages? Absolutely. And I didn't come up with this. So I have to put it out there LinkedIn did, and I wish I had but it's really simple. We're gonna call it the three to one method, right? So 321 is six posts over the face of I would say fortnight so you've got six posts, and you're going to do three of those are going to share about your industry knowledge, you know, what's going on? What are the changes, what things are impacting, what do you see the future? What's the new technology, the legal changes that are coming out, you know, really show what your business understands about the industry that it's in. So that's three posts throughout the fortnight. Then we're going to do two posts, which are your feel good posts. So you know, that's your human stories about your business. You know, it might be some people are purpose LED. So it might be some of your things that you're doing out in the community. So you know, think people community, corporate social responsibility, things that your company undertakes all kinds of feel good things. So that's two posts in a fortnight. And then you get to do one post, where you get to talk about your products and services, and how they solve the challenges of your ideal client. three to one, there's your fortnight done, we'll keep it simple, right? Because LinkedIn doesn't need to be complicated. There are people that make a lot of money, trying to turn it into a very complicated process. But I love the three to one three about the big picture to about the feel good and human side and one about your products and services and how they solve things. So yeah, that's my method. As I said, LinkedIn came up with it. I'm latching onto it, because I just think it's such a great way to put it out there, it probably makes sense or something that works with the algorithms. It's funny. Well, you were saying that I mean, you're in Australia, I'm in Canada. Canada kind of straddles the American English, and then the British English. And I'm thinking for anybody in America under the age of 35. They're thinking fortnight, but that game, right? weeks? Do I miss Canada Day? I forgot to say, yeah. You there was something I was reading through the notes. As always, I always want to, you know, get a real good feel for my guests. And I had asked him a million questions. And one of the things was, what did you wish people knew? Or what do people have a misunderstanding about? And you said that people think it's so easy to be creating consistent, good content on an ongoing and frequent basis? Now, first of all, first of all, I think that it's like, Hell no, that is not easy. First of all, who thinks it's easy? Well, you know if the answer that one, but how does one even begin to have business, have a life and get that consistent flow of good content? And you've said it a few times that consistency is key. And, you know, there is no prescribed number. So because I don't know, everyone's individual, you know, it's like, at the end of the insurance ads, you know, check your individual circumstances to make sure that this product is right for you. And the same goes with content, you know, we're looking at it and saying, Okay, what are your overall business goals? What can you do consistently with the resources that you have. And so if that is like one post per fortnight To start off with, and that's one post per fortnight, if that's something that you think you can do twice a week, then that's what we do, the consistency is more important than up and down all around, you know, skip a few weeks, come back with a vengeance, you know, and be all over the place. Just be top of mind in what we're trying to create here. Now, defining good content, good 10, good content is as simple as what adds value to your ideal clients, you know, that is out there, potentially scrolling through. So you know, if you're doing those things, there's, you know, some tips and tricks that we can do in the format of the content. But ultimately, you know, if you just put something out there, you're in front of most businesses, you know, you're in that top 1%, straightaway, right, there's a really easy way to stand out. And that can be even more so depending on, you know, which industries you come from, you know, I come from a manufacturing background. And so if you're creating content in that space, you're way you're lightyears ahead of any of your competitors, because they're not in a digital online world just yet. Now, there are other audiences, where you might come from a marketing, you know, company or digital agency, and they're all over it. It's fiercely competitive. So, you know, there's real opportunities for lots of industries to be the leader in this space. And it doesn't have to be perfect, you know, just rock perfection. Done is better than perfect is some you know, one of my friends Leah, who has a company that does this kind of stuff she has done is better than perfect. You know, that's my message, I would love to share it. So when it comes to these businesses, who like we talked about a lot of things and in the beginning, you said like, keep it simple, and it doesn't have to be as complex as some people who have made their living in yet everything that we talked about while it was all very fascinating. That's an enormous volume of information about using LinkedIn for businesses. So do you work when you're working with a business do you take them on as a client and kind of find that sweet spot for them of like, this is the best way for you to be using it and this is how we can get your employees Yeah, I'm actually beneficial thing where we're kind of building each other up is it that's what you do with your is absolutely a process and it's unique for businesses because no two businesses are the same. What I do know is that posting three times a week is the ideal so We don't need to do it every day. So I can tell people, you know, three is ideal. If you can't get to that, that's fine, you know, again, something is better than nothing. Now, when we go into businesses, we need to then line up with what we're trying to achieve in the greater business needs to line up with what we're creating here on LinkedIn, you know, so LinkedIn is not a separate stream that we run off and do our own thing, we're really trying to drive opportunities for, you know, products and services back into the business from, you know, you might identify that, hey, Michelle, we only want to go after this particular part of the business, we know that we don't work well with, you know, businesses that have under 50 employees, we need to target much bigger ones. And so the content that you create would be around that. Now, everything takes time. And it's just a new habit to learn. So to give people a bit of perspective, around the time, if you have don't have a company page right now, and we were to start today, it would take about six months to get 500 followers, which you would use or invite credits, but we're looking for a target between 501,000 followers for a company page to be effective. Now, that's not a lot, you know, it's nowhere near the numbers that people have on their personal profiles, typically, yep. So you know, it will take about six months. So set your expectations that we don't just start creating content this week, and then we get opportunities next week, it's a slower burn, okay. But once it's set up, you get that ongoing performance, which you know, it doesn't require as much maintenance. But in the beginning, you have to do six weeks, sorry, six months of really focused, and the more people within your team that you can get, if you've got a team, the more that you can help get on them on board, the further and faster that you will go. Now, it starts with the CEO, if you don't have a CEO that is interested in LinkedIn, and you were someone in another division, trying to get that program up and running, it won't happen, you will be flogging a dead horse as we would say, there, I don't know. But yeah, and what happens is, is that if the CEO doesn't lead by example, they won't put the resources, they won't show up as a leader in that space. And then it becomes not important to everyone else. If it's not important to the leader, why should it be important to everyone else, and especially when there's normally not KPIs or incentives in place. So you know, if you are the, you know, the GM, the director, the CEO, the founder of these businesses really lead the way and teach your employees now that you want them to behave, and they'll do that by following what you do. That's a really good point. So for some companies like LinkedIn, really, as much as maybe it would be beneficial, because that company culture and the mindset of the C suites aren't there, it might not be worth your time. Look, again, it's going to be better than nothing you know about what's going to happen is typically what I find is you've got one person who's really keen, they use LinkedIn a lot, and they're trying to bring the whole business along. And you know, it's hard work. And then what we find is, eventually they give up because they're like, going, I can't drag everyone else. And so, you know, if you have a team that's around you, and you know, if you're in a small business, you may not have that team, but where you have a team, like, you know, the more people that you can get the help, the easier it is for everybody, you know, that that burden can be, you know, kind of spread or the resources can be spread, you know, depending which way you look at it. But yeah, the more that you can get involved, the better, you know, because ultimately, you know, it's to build a workplace that you're proud of, you know, that's what we want to show should be proud of what you're doing in your workplace, share with the community, what you do, and, you know, we go to work, I put so many hours into it these days, you know, and why, you know, why not share that message with other people so that you can reap the benefits of all that effort? So all of this strategy, and is the techniques all this stuff? Like? Do you bundle this together in some kind, of course, or a program or, like what what do you offer? Look at as I said, I like to keep things simple for companies because there is so much information out there and so many different ways of doing things. So I keep it really simple. If two choices. Number one, you get to spend a couple of hours with me and I will train you on the best practices. So everything that I've learned over seven or eight years plus 20 years of selling, I put that into two hours and I'll upskill you so that you're on your way. Now if you have no chance of committing to around, you know, 20 minutes a day going forward, then your job is to pay someone like me to do it for you. And that's actually what happens is I just say to people, you've got two choices. You get to learn how to do it yourself. Or you pay me to do it like that is as simple as it is the option is not see don't do it at all. Because being invisible, it means you're missing out on an opportunity. It is, you know, and we're talking revenue, we're not just talking, being popular, we're talking, you know, opportunities to make money because that digital buyer is online now I think is something for the people in the back Michelle passwords. Look, your buyer is online. And if you are not online and making it really easy for people to find you, you are going to miss out on revenue. So either a, learn how to do it, and you know, invest in your team and show them the skills or be pay someone else to do it, you know, the option is not see be invisible, because your competitors, if they do it, well, they're gonna take business from you. We can't rely on as I said, you know, throughout this process, our buyer is online, we can't rely on old school selling methods. And that's even without COVID impacting things, you know, we are not teaching sales people these days on how to close business, you know, like old school, like, you know, it was like all about the clothes, because, you know, we have to make sure that we're attracting them in the first place. That's the real skill these days is in an online world, which is crowded, how do you stand out and I think company paid is a really amazing tool. And, you know, for the investment of a couple of hours of your life to learn how to do it yourself, or, you know, a weekly management fee, which is, you know, reasonable, you actually have the choice to really stand out. And, you know, there's really no excuse not to really nail that. Michelle, thank you so much for talking with me today about this. This has just been like so fun, even geeky sort of way. But I've just really enjoyed it. Thanks so much. It's been my absolute pleasure to be a LinkedIn node with you. So to all those businesses out there, you know, it's just been amazing. So thank you for having the opportunity for me to share what I know. Toxic by. Did you know that podcast guesting being the featured guest interviewed on podcasts is one of the hottest 2021 ways to build brand audience and your business to get your unique message and personality out there to those who need to hear it. As a podcaster. Myself and a business consultant. I help turn entrepreneurs into business people who can proficiently and profitably use podcasting as a powerful part of their marketing plan. Want to know more, you can download the five step guide below in the notes or if you really want to get moving on it, book a call. And let's map out how we could make it part of your marketing plan.