The Social Media Takeaway - Louise McDonnell

LinkedIn Marketing: Tips for Success with Louise Brogan

• Louise McDonnell • Season 1 • Episode 41

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LinkedIn is a powerful tool for professional and business growth, but where do you start, and how can you use it without getting overwhelmed?

In this week's episode of the Social Media Takeaway, I’m excited to welcome Louise Brogan, an international speaker, writer, and the host of the "LinkedIn with Louise" podcast. Louise has over ten years of experience supporting small businesses who want to use social media, specifically LinkedIn, for business growth. In our conversation, we discuss practical tips for optimising your LinkedIn profile, the advantages of using LinkedIn Live to engage your audience, and strategies for crafting content that drives business results. We also delve into the latest developments on LinkedIn and what they mean for users like you! Whether you're looking to improve your LinkedIn strategy or just starting out, this episode is packed with actionable advice to help you make the most of this powerful platform.

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Louise McDonnell:

Welcome to the Social Media Takeaway. I'm your host, Louise McDonnell, and this is the podcast for business people who want to learn how to use social media to drive sales and leads. If you enjoy the show, be sure you subscribe. And if you enjoy the content, make sure you Let us know and give us some feedback either on social media or wherever you want to find us. Today, I'm delighted to be joined by Louise Brogan. Louise Brogan has over 10 years experience supporting small businesses who want to leverage social media for business. she's an international speaker, writer, host of LinkedIn with Louise podcast and her YouTube channel. She's a small business Britain champion and local hero for the small business community and she's known as LinkedIn Louise, but she's also pretty hot on YouTube as well. So you're very welcome to the show Louise.

Louise Brogan:

Thank you so much, Louise. a real pleasure to be here chatting with you today.

Louise McDonnell:

Yes, and we met at the Social Media Marketing World where I was affectionately known as the other Louise.

Louise Brogan:

Or the two Louises.

Louise McDonnell:

The two Louises from Ireland, how many Louises are from Ireland, yeah, and then no, you're the other Louise. That was fine, I didn't mind that at all. So tell us, tell us, for those people who are tuning in who don't know you, maybe give us a little bit of background.

Louise Brogan:

Sure, so I'm just outside Belfast in Northern Ireland when I started my business, we covered all social media, but we niched down to focus specifically on LinkedIn in around 2018, I think it was. And now I run a LinkedIn marketing agency, which helps B2B companies. We do content done for you services on LinkedIn. I also offer training and workshops for people who want to leverage LinkedIn. And as you know, nowadays, Louise, really all, you know, Businesses need to have a presence on LinkedIn products or services.

Louise McDonnell:

I have to say like LinkedIn for me, I think it started off as being probably one of the biggest disappointments. Because I remember when I joined LinkedIn and I'm going back now to maybe 2009, I just remember being like super excited going, Oh my God, this has so much potential. I can be here as my. business self and I can network and there's, you know, there's so many people here, it's going to be fantastic. And then it was just like tumbleweed for, for years, like, I remember at one stage I changed my phone, my phone, and I forgot to put the LinkedIn app on it because you went on to LinkedIn and nothing was happening, was the COVID the catalyst for LinkedIn or what was it?

Louise Brogan:

Yeah, I think it was actually, so the funny story was, I remember talking at a council business event here in Newton Abbey in Northern Ireland in around 2015, maybe they asked me to come and do a talk on social media to a group of management people. So I remember Louise standing at the front and looking out and it wasn't my normal audience because back then I spoke to a lot of just micro businesses, small businesses, people with. Shops in the high street, butchers, you know, those kinds of people. And I would have managed their Facebook and Instagram pages for them. And I was invited to this event to come and talk to this group. And I looked around the room and it was, I would say it's about 95 percent men and everybody was in suits. And I was like, Oh, this is interesting. So I did my little talk and I took questions from the audience. And every single question was about LinkedIn. And I stood up at In front of that audience and I held my own, but afterwards I thought, I don't know enough about this platform. Really? Like I'm on there, but I don't really know that much about using it. So I started to explore it and I thought, this is not really very fun or exciting. It's a bit boring, but fast forward then a couple of years and it started to get a bit more interesting. I discovered that when I spent time on LinkedIn, it moved into business much faster than it did on the other platforms. So I thought that was really interesting. And then I worked with a coach who said to me, I think you've got Decide Louise, why don't you decide and do one platform, either do one audience or do one platform. And I thought, well, nobody else is doing LinkedIn. Everyone else is becoming Facebook experts, Instagram experts. So I'll go for LinkedIn. And plus the whole thing about it turning into business quicker. you know, I always test things out Louise. So yes, I was still holding onto the other platforms and people ask me, I would, I would talk about those, but all my content started to be about LinkedIn. And then I was just really fortunate because when the pandemic happened, LinkedIn exploded. And it was really because The people who use LinkedIn for networking and sales, the traditional sales and those people were no longer able to go out in the road and set up their meetings and go to conferences and events and find their potential audiences. So they had to go somewhere else and LinkedIn afforded them that opportunity and LinkedIn were really good at turning around. Things really fast that they created LinkedIn events, they gave us LinkedIn live and now, you know, I'll host LinkedIn live interview panels with clients and we're setting up a symposium for a client in January, which is kind of like an online conference, I guess. They come around to seeing that having a good company presence on LinkedIn is a good idea and the, exponential growth of the audience as well since then. So I think they passed a billion members this year and whereas pre pandemic, cause I have slides from talks that I used to do, think it was around 300 million. 300, 400 million people when I first started looking at this around 2018. So now it's a billion members and they are business people. And so that's where I remember I talked to people who own product businesses and they're like, Oh, LinkedIn is not for us. I think, well, who buys your products? And to be as coarse as you like people with money. Will buy your product. Where are the people with money on social media? You know, the statistics show that the average income for somebody on LinkedIn in the U S is over 75, 000. So if you have a product that you want to sell to someone who can afford to buy it, LinkedIn is the place you should be hanging out.

Louise McDonnell:

Absolutely. Yeah. Like I think at once I think it was Microsoft as well that bought LinkedIn because I remember going back at one stage even before the pandemic and I went, Oh, because I would do training as well. And I would, you know, I would say I need to, I'd be on all the platforms. I actually really liked LinkedIn, but I remember at one point going back to LinkedIn and going, Oh, Oh my God, it's got a bit like Facebook. I really like it, you know? I think LinkedIn is amazing now. And I think even since the pandemic, I even think it's grown stronger because people have finally, I think the penny has dropped of how to use it. And the fact that you can be like, here we are, I'm in the West of Ireland. You're like in the North of Ireland. and we can do business and reach out to anyone in the world. Like,

Louise Brogan:

yeah.

Louise McDonnell:

Every single day of the week. It's, it's really phenomenal. Okay, brilliant. So I'm gonna go just throw this question at you. Tell me why you liked LinkedIn so much so for somebody who's,' cause I know there's quite a lot of people either not on LinkedIn or on LinkedIn, but there's a lot of people who are like outside looking in and they just don't even know about how to use it. Yes. Then there's other people who are probably active on it, but maybe haven't thought too much about using it strategically. Tell us why I like LinkedIn so much and how you can use it strategically.

Louise Brogan:

Oh, I love this because you're right. There are people who are going on there and they have no idea what to do. So most of the people don't do anything. The majority of people who have LinkedIn accounts. We'll check it out, we'll scroll through it and not actually do anything whatsoever. Some people will create their profile and spend time on updating their profile, which is fabulous. But if you don't actually post anything or comment on anybody's stuff, nobody's going to find you on there. I think what I love about it is I've worked with so many people now who have embraced what I've suggested to them. And then they come back to me and say You know, thank you so much for pointing me this way, Louise. Because I'll give you an example. There's a, a lady that I worked with first came to me in 2020 and says, I think I need to understand how to use LinkedIn. She's based in Cork. And she said I think this is where my ideal clients are. So she does Microsoft. 365 training to corporates. Just so that's where my audience is, but I have no idea how to use LinkedIn. So we first started by doing some work on her profile together and then off she went to figure it out herself. Then she came back to me and she said, I think there's something in this Louise. Can you help me? Can we do some strategy sessions together? So when we did some strategy together and her business started to grow. And then she came back again. So this lady actually came back to me four times, Louise. She came back again and she said eventually, Louise, can you actually, you know, help me create some content for LinkedIn? Cause I can see it's working. And she did we did with this video package that we do that I love. We did a series of 12 videos. together where she is talking on camera about her area of expertise. And I've written a book, Louise, it's coming out. Hopefully before Christmas this year, raise your visibility on LinkedIn. And this lady is in my book talking about how she implemented all the things that I suggested and how she signed a contract for 50, 000 euro off the back of interacting with one post on LinkedIn. Being strategic about this. I'm not saying go onto LinkedIn, find a post and you're going to get 50 grand's worth of work because it doesn't work that way. LinkedIn is a long game. This person shows up and talks specifically about what she does and how she helps companies. And she followed the strategy piece is build a network of value, which means a network of people. Who are going to be interested in what you have to say, so when you post something, they actually enjoy what you're talking about. They're posting stuff that you find easy to engage with and interact with, because actually, once you get your profile set up and you have a brilliant profile, you want people to go look at your profile. And the easiest way to do that is by posting your own stuff and commenting on other people's content, but be strategic about it. That's what she saw. A company that she'd done a little bit of work for had posted that they had rebranded their whole company and they're very excited about the rebrand. And she went onto their posts and said, you know, congratulations on the rebrand. You know, lovely to see this happening. And then straight away created a post herself about when you're rebranding your company, don't forget to rebrand your whole Microsoft office suite of products, your PowerPoints, your. Outlook signatures, et cetera, the person who signed the contract with her saw the post because they were following her, but her commenting on their post first raised her profile up in there. They were thinking about her then because And she commented on their posts, then she posted, and then they saw her post, because that's the way LinkedIn works. It shows you content from people that you interact with. And yeah, then she went up to Dublin, had a conversation with them and signed this big contract.

Louise McDonnell:

It just goes to show that, really is. Like network networking in the real world and like yes. You know, if you met somebody at an event, you know, if I met you at an event, like we wouldn't just go up and not that we'd pi be pitching to each other, but if you met anyone at an, at an event, you just wouldn't go up and start the Big hard sell or you wouldn't just not talk to them because you, you didn't think you were gonna do business with them. No. You talk to people in the real world because they're people and the relationships can lead to, opportunities.

Louise Brogan:

Yes.

Louise McDonnell:

And it's the same on LinkedIn.

Louise Brogan:

People buy from people. So someone listening to this might think, Oh, you know, Louise Brogan sounds like somebody we could work with, or they might think, Oh, I don't think we could work with her. I don't like how, you know, how she goes on, you know, people resonate with somebody. And then there'll be people who are watching us, Louise, are listening to this. Who will like how I'm talking and will come and connect with me on LinkedIn. They will not get a sales message from me. when people connect with me, I usually send them a message and say, you know, nice to connect with you. And how did you find me? Cause if I don't know who they are, I'm like, Hmm, where does this person come from? And if they say, Oh, I heard you on Louise McDonald's podcast. Then we open up a little conversation between us. At no point do I try and sell that person anything. But then because they've interacted with me in the messages and I start sharing content, if they think, Oh, we, we actually, we could use some of that training with our team. They're much more likely to, reach out to me and most of my business. fact, I would say all of my business are inbound leads and they are people who have heard me in a podcast, seen one of my videos on YouTube and they follow me for a while and then when they're ready to buy, it's the new like and trust factor that I'm sure you've you've talked about loads of times on the podcast, but you know, people think, Oh yeah, she knows what she's doing. She knows what she's talking about in LinkedIn. Let's have a conversation and see where it goes.

Louise McDonnell:

I actually did my last three day challenge. I actually did I think about eight slides within one of the day I created specifically just around that when somebody notices you. First thing they do is they check out your profile. And then after they check out your profile, they're going to decide whether they're going to follow you or not. And then they will follow you and they will watch you for a while. And then you might start noticing them reacting or liking or interacting with your content. And then you might start noticing them comment. And it's all, you know, and when you say this, people go, Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then you might get a DM. But that's what happens. And that's what we all do. We watch for a while because we're still getting to know the person, aren't we?

Louise Brogan:

Yeah. It's like if you're, you know, in terms of the services I use in my business. So I have worked with coaches in the past and the coach I worked with finished working. she specialized then into people who work with nonprofits. So we were no longer working together, but I'd worked with her for five years. And I really, I'm a kind of person who enjoys working with a coach. So I was looking for something to replace that. But if someone had pitched me and said, Oh, are you looking for a coach, Louise? I'd be like, Ooh, no, no, no, I'm not. I know. So I took, I took my time and I was following along some people and then they put an offer out and I thought, you know what, I'm going to test this out and see what it's like working together. And that's how most of us. Buy, I think, when you go into a shop, I don't know what you're like Louise, but if you go into a shop and someone comes up to you and says, can I help you with anything? No, no, no, no, no, I'm fine. Thank you.

Louise McDonnell:

I was just thinking of the exact same example. It's so true. Like you'd you'd nearly go, you know, please don't talk to me. I'll come to you if I, if I,

Louise Brogan:

I'm actually looking for a raincoat for a child for a very specific reason. I don't know. No, I don't want you to talk to me.

Louise McDonnell:

Yeah. But then sometimes then there will be a time where I will walk in if maybe if I'm under pressure and I'm like, I'm looking for this, if you got it, but it's, you've initiated the conversation. You've made that decision, you know, and that's, and that's, what's different. Okay. So LinkedIn, tell us, what are your favorite features, favorite like native features on LinkedIn?

Louise Brogan:

Oh, okay. So I do love going live on LinkedIn. I I think I love it Louise, because you get the engagement interaction from people who are watching you. So I use StreamYard to go live onto LinkedIn. So I would set it up as a, I also love LinkedIn events and these kind of go hand in hand for me. So when you are going to go live and you're planning it I use StreamYard and it creates an event on LinkedIn and if you want to do this, I suggest you create it at least a week in advance and it pops up as a LinkedIn event. You then go into the LinkedIn event and you invite people to join you on the LinkedIn live. And so they, if they say they accept your invitation to join you in the LinkedIn live, then when you do go live the week later. It pops up and says, Oh, today, remember Louise is going live today and talking to, Louise Brogan about LinkedIn. So I love the events feature and the LinkedIn live feature, but really, I would say the majority of my Time spent on LinkedIn is probably actually in the messaging, messaging back and forwards. And it's people who are just connecting with me and asking a question. And I do get lots of questions that I use then to create videos for YouTube, because this is all the stuff people are asking about. if someone, someone messaged me and said, Louise, can you help me with my profile? No, I'm not, I'm not going to give away my skills and services for free. But if someone says, Louise, I can't find this, this, you talked about something on a podcast and I can't find it. Where is it? And I will usually already have a video about that thing. And I'm able to go here, here's the video about that thing. So I do like the messages. I think the key for your activity on LinkedIn is to show up and create posts of people that start conversations. But what you really want is to get people off. So we can talk about how we can help them with whatever issue they are having that our business can help answer. And I'm not saying ask someone for, don't be asking people, can you get on a coffee chat with me so I can pick your brain? Cause that is the worst. But if someone seems to have a genuine interest, so for example, this week Someone reached out to me out of the blue. Turns out they've been following me for a while, Louise. They work for a company here, a big brand here in Northern Ireland that most people would have heard of. And she says, we're kind of, we're interested in, and it was really woolly. Her message was really woolly. She says, I think we need a little bit of help with LinkedIn. I'm like, okay, like help us outsourcing the LinkedIn or help with training, or you just want to ask me a question. So I dug a little bit deeper and I said, Oh, what, you know, what kind of help are you looking for? And she said, so, well, I think I'd like to get some training for me and my team. Oh, right. Perfect. Looking for training. So I said, well, look, I can send you over our brochure that outlines the training, or why don't we just have a call, you know, let's have a conversation. So then I didn't hear back from them for a few days. And this is the trick, not the trick. Key thing to remember when you're working with companies, Unlike entrepreneurs who like to move fast and break things, companies take their time. So don't think, Oh, I haven't heard back from her in three days. They've obviously, they're not interested. couple of days later, I just messaged her back and said would you still like to have a chat about this? And she came back to me and says, Oh yes, absolutely. She says, I was all, I was off for a couple of days there. Absolutely. Please send me all the information and I'll book in a call. I'm like, Oh yeah, I have got to remember. That working with companies and corporates moves a lot slower than, you know, when you're working with entrepreneurs who are like, Oh, can I have that training tomorrow, please? Yeah.

Louise McDonnell:

Yeah, exactly. Are you free now?

Louise Brogan:

Yes. Are you free? I do. I get that all the time. Could we hop on a call now? I'm like no. No.

Louise McDonnell:

Or do you know what? Actually, I don't know. Was it the pandemic? Like, I remember maybe at some stage people, my phone would ring and I'd be like, Who thinks they can just ring me like now. So like, then I was like, take my phone number off everything. I don't accept calls anymore.

Louise Brogan:

Well, interestingly, that happened actually happened to me yesterday, Louise. And I thought, I must remember that, like, I do answer my phone. If it's not somebody, if the name doesn't pop up, I don't answer it. They can go to voicemail and then I can decide if I want to answer it or not. Yeah, somebody had rung me and I thought I think I answered it because I thought it was a number that I recognized and it turned out it was somebody who wanted to like talk about business and I was like horrified. I know. And

Louise McDonnell:

then you're like, God, but in the past, you know, you would have picked up the phone and rung someone. But now I just think, I remember thinking that to myself, going, why was I so horrified that somebody rung me? But normally I took the phone off my website because I would normally get phone calls you know, on a Saturday morning. We've lost access to, and, oh no, somebody in a complete panic, and of course, and then I'd be like, well, this is what you need to do, so then I was like, just take, because once I start the conversation, I'm in it,

Louise Brogan:

yes,

Louise McDonnell:

you want to help, but like, I was like, no, this is not, you know, and then nobody wants to pay you for all that advice, so, no,

Louise Brogan:

of course they don't.

Louise McDonnell:

No. Oh, but anyway, oh, tell me now, so predictions, where do you think it's going? What do you see happening? What features are, are, can we expect to see coming or have you heard, or would you be in the know or?

Louise Brogan:

Well, they're definitely focusing so much more on video. Which is great because our, all of our clients, I have persuaded all of our clients to do video. And you know, Louise, you know, a lot of people are reluctant to go on video. But we do video with all of our clients at the moment. And I, I love because we write content in the voice of the company. When you actually have the person in the company speaking, it's really easy to turn that into content in their voice. But yeah, LinkedIn have, I've created this vertical video Yeah, so it's really hard to get into it. You can't upload a video directly into the vertical video feed. You have to upload your video. They've given best practice tips on it. needs to be under two minutes, probably 30 seconds is best. They seem to be doing a lot of like upping your face. You know, kind of like, you know, people just talking to their, their camera phone like this. You do need to be saying something that's valuable to people of course. But they're really pushing that and I think, I predict the next big thing they're gonna do is monetize. For creators. I think they're watching YouTube probably quite closely in this regard, and I have seen. A couple of articles about it, about creators getting monetized, they brought it, they've got sponsored posts already where brands will pay people with big LinkedIn followings to create a sponsored post or not even a big following. If you have a very specific following a company would pay you to do a specific post about their brand. But definitely monetization. I remember speaking to somebody who works in LinkedIn a couple of years ago and he said this was, this was one of their, aims to monetize the creators because LinkedIn is a platform for recruitment. and finding your next job. that is the crux of what this platform is about. But they recognized that the reason people come and stay on LinkedIn is because of people like you and I creating interesting content that people come to engage with. So they want people like us to create stuff. That keeps people on the platform you know, the LinkedIn lives, if someone signs up to watch a LinkedIn live, they're going to spend 30 minutes on that platform. So they're much more likely to see the adverts or the job posts on there. And that's LinkedIn's revenue comes from like the recruiter The recruiter license, which I think is 10, 000 a year. But don't, don't hold me to that, but that's, they get money from that and they get money from people promoting jobs as well. That's where their core revenue comes from. Right. You want to get people onto the platform and then, so vertical video attracts the younger audience and then the LinkedIn games, they do daily games. And people like to do running streak on games, like if you are somebody who plays Wordle and you've, there are a lot of people who've been playing Wordle since day one and do not want to lose their winning streak. My, somebody I know, a retired minister, never misses her Wordle, never, posts it on Facebook every single day. And I think if she missed. A game, she'd lose her winning streak and she'd be like devastated, it's, not properly devastated, but it's like, that's a distraction. So LinkedIn have introduced an addiction and they've introduced a fourth game and they're word games. And I have to say, two of them I like to play, two of them I find nearly impossible, so I just avoid them. So it'll be interesting to see if they dump any of those impossible ones and bring back easier ones.

Louise McDonnell:

I got to roll back then for a second about the video, cause I did notice that new video feed. To be honest. I was really disappointed when I saw it.

Louise Brogan:

Yeah, I don't like the videos that they're showing out.

Louise McDonnell:

No, I'm not disappointed because that there was a video feed, but disappointed for that very reason. I went on, and I'm not joking you, the first three, four, five videos I saw were all about meta. And I was like, geez, have you no content, lads, like besides this? And it was all very, very, I felt like I was on Instagram.

Louise Brogan:

That's so funny. That must be tailored though, Louise, to you because I am not seeing that. I'm seeing more life hack advice type stuff and maybe, but like, how would they even know? Maybe because I don't, it's not like I talk anymore. Like I wouldn't. It might be in your profile though, maybe, I'm not sure. I don't like it because it's just, it's just irrelevant. It's irrelevant nonsense. It's like, Tik Tok stuff and I'm like, I, I'm not here for this, you know?

Louise McDonnell:

Exactly. And, and also, as you said, it's very hard to get into that newsfeed. So I'm like, it's very

Louise Brogan:

hard. Now, there is a lady I know from East coast of America who was determined to get into it and she is, she did appear in it yesterday for me. I think she'd said she's had over a million.

Louise McDonnell:

Oh, I'd say if you can get into it, it's like you, you've hit the jackpot. And so how do you get into it? You just create a video that they pick up is I presume.

Louise Brogan:

I think you've got to be consistent. I don't know enough about this yet, but I think you have to be consistent with it. Your videos have to be short. They do have, there's a weird, there's like a weird recommendation about the number of words you're supposed to use it have to have captions of course. And the ones that I've seen, it's just all a bit fast moving and flashy and that's It's not the kind of content I create my YouTube channel is all, it's explanatory. It's here's how to do this thing. and actually that's most of the comments I get are, thank you for doing this Louise. you know, you just explained exactly what I wanted to know and you didn't jump all over the place and wave your arms around in the air.

Louise McDonnell:

But that's what those videos are, they're reels and like, I noticed as well, like that if even if you are trying to promote something or it's multi scene reels, multi locations, it's fast moving, it's just to hold it's attention. Yeah.

Louise Brogan:

That's exhausting to create. I don't create those kinds of videos. So I'm never, probably not going to make it into that vertical thing.

Louise McDonnell:

they take a lot of time and effort. I did one for, to promote my three day challenge, but they're never going to use that because that's selling something. So another thing I just want to talk to you about is again, another thing that disappoints me about LinkedIn, I feel like I'm giving out, so we would use for our clients and for myself, we would use Facebook, Instagram for some of our clients are just on Facebook and Instagram and potentially tick tock, depending on the audience. And other people then would be maybe LinkedIn and. Facebook even or LinkedIn and YouTube. So it depends on the client, but I love the fact that when we have a client on Facebook we can use the paid ads and like we can get lots of new leads, get lots of new, you know, in front of new people and we can use the ads really effectively to like, I was just looking at a campaign we did for a client that spent. Less than 200 euros and they've made 2000 euros. So,

Louise Brogan:

you

Louise McDonnell:

know, so you can do that. Like, I love that with the meta ads and then LinkedIn, like I remember being, really excited about LinkedIn ads because when you go in the backend, they look like Facebook. So it's easy to figure them out and to set them up, but by God, they're expensive.

Louise Brogan:

Yeah. They're really expensive.

Louise McDonnell:

I just think that like, why I feel like LinkedIn are kind of missing a trick there that if they just made them a little bit more, affordable, that you'd use them.

Louise Brogan:

but I think this goes back to their core. business model and they're not interested in you or I, they're interested in Hewlett Packard spending millions on us, you know? Yeah, you're right. So for us to spend 200 euro on, on an ad versus they can get Half a million from some company we've never even heard of, nevermind Hewlett Packard. That's who, that's who those are. I think that's who they are aimed at and that's the ads that I get are from larger companies. yeah, again, we're the cheap entertainment Louise. we're the side entertainers, you know, they're big focuses on the big players that, you know, the white collar employers happy to spend thousands and thousands to recruit their teams we're there in the cheap seats. But we can leverage that and we can build a big business out of that. don't mind if I'm not the focus of if they don't want to help me with ads because I have made a pretty nice business out of, what I do on there anyway.

Louise McDonnell:

I know. And I suppose that's, that's an important as well as that you don't need ads as much on LinkedIn.

Louise Brogan:

Yeah. Oh yeah. I don't think you do. I think right now in 2024, 2025, so few people know how to actually, or are interested in posting content on LinkedIn. Nevermind, don't know how to that you can really build your visibility on there once you know how to actually use it properly.

Louise McDonnell:

Exactly. Yeah. So that's a key message from anyone listening in. It's still a platform to be rewarded organically. Yes. So if you've got a good profile, you've got good content and you know how to follow all the strategies, you will get rewarded and you will get leads. Okay. Brilliant. so any last questions? Pieces of advice, Louise, going forward. So we know that the new features, the video, if you can do the real style videos, new creators, the games, which I have absolutely, I do Wordle every day, but when I see the games, I'm like, no, I'm not going to start. I don't need another thing. But very clever on their part to keep people coming back in, day out with their streaks. Anything else then that's coming down the line or?

Louise Brogan:

There is a new thing actually coming and I haven't seen it yet. And that was there's going to be apparently a new news. section at the top of our news feed. So if you're looking at LinkedIn right now in desktop, this is weird because not everyone has this, but most people will have a LinkedIn news block in the third column. So you've got the first column, there's two skinny columns left and right, and then the middle column is your news feed. The column on the left is your profile and events you've attended and stuff like that in your company pages and the column on the right hand side at the top of it there's usually the top five news stories on LinkedIn that day and if you click on it you can get into the 10 top news stories. As a side note Louise, if there's a story there that you can talk about that relates to your business you can get picked up by the LinkedIn news editors and featured which is a really nice It's easy way to get visibility on LinkedIn, I think it was the vice president of LinkedIn said that they can see that people are coming to LinkedIn for their news. So introducing a new top of the newsfeed section. On the big news stories of the day. So I'm interested to see, A, if it happens and B, what kind of stories they're going to feature. Like, would you see different stories to me based on our activity on there? And how's that all going to fit in anyway with our, you know, cause it's a pretty busy space already when you look at the, platform. So let's see if that comes about. I don't know. It'd be interesting to see. But most people listening to this. If you just get your profile up to date and start connecting with people who may be interested in your products or services, or they may have people in their network who would need your products and services and start posting, even if it's only once a week, start posting on there and post stuff that helps people. That's the key. Don't post stuff that you're trying to sell, you know, post stuff that starts conversations and be of service. To your audience. So, for example, I could do a post that says here are three reasons why you should consider using LinkedIn Live next year and I'll give the three reasons and I'll say, have you tried using LinkedIn Live yet? What are your thoughts on it? And that sparks a conversation with people in my network. When you do a conversational post like that, you get much more visibility because the comments push your post out into the newsfeed. So I talk about having four pillars of LinkedIn. Get your profile sorted, start building your network, create content to share on LinkedIn and start conversations with your network. If you can do those four things, then in six months time, you will be loving LinkedIn and you should be getting really good quality leads from it.

Louise McDonnell:

That is such great advice, yeah, and I love the fact that you say six months because people sometimes expect that it's a light switch and it's not. It's that constant coming back, you know, and even the days when you feel it's not working, just keep going and keep going and you will build and build and build and build over time. Louise, how can people find you? And I know you've got a special gift for everybody listening in this today.

Louise Brogan:

Yes. So hop over to LinkedIn and connect with me there. It's Louise Brogan. If you're able to send a message and if you, so if you don't have premium, you can only send five free messages a month, but if you're able to send a message, then let me know that you heard me on the podcast. And yeah, we have a free guide on your daily and weekly activities. To get you going and consistent on LinkedIn. And that's over at louisebrogan. com forward slash download. So it's nice and easy to remember.

Louise McDonnell:

Excellent. Excellent. That's brilliant, Louise. Thanks so much for coming on the show and for sharing all your advice on LinkedIn. Anyone tuning in like LinkedIn really, it is like, it's, I think it's my favorite channel at the moment. It's where I like to hang out the most. I really hope that The LinkedIn people stay in their lane. I hope they don't ruin it. I hope they don't change it too much because it's pretty good at the moment. But thanks so much, Louise. And we'll post all the links to how you find Louise in the show notes as well.

Louise Brogan:

Thank you so much for having me.

Louise McDonnell:

My pleasure.