Episode 152: 10 LinkedIn Activities for 2023

Bob Woods  00:00

Hey everybody, and welcome to Making Sales Social Live! Brought to you by Social Sales Link. I’m Bob Woods and I’m joined by a co-host and fellow LinkedIn and social selling professional, Brynne Tillman. Brynn, how’re you doing?

Brynne Tillman  00:14

Hello, my friend! Happy 2023!

Intro  00:18

Welcome to Making Sales Social Live! As we share LinkedIn and social selling training strategies and tips that will have an immediate impact on your business. Join Brynne Tillman and me, Bob Woods, every week, Making Sales Social Live!

Bob Woods  00:39

As you can tell, Brynne and I are putting a big “yay” behind this year, because 2023 is going to be a great year. So as the new year gets underway, it’s a perfect time for us to assess and maybe even reassess how we use LinkedIn for social selling and sales activity. 

Brynne and I have our top 10 activities you should consider doing on LinkedIn in the new year. Everything we’ll be talking about today will help you start those all important sales conversations easier than before, when you likely were, you know, maybe you were doing some of the stuff, but you probably weren’t doing all this stuff so we’re here to give you some ideas on what you could do to get even more of those conversations started. 

So the first thing that we’re going to talk about is probably the biggest one, because, as we’ve said before, everything that you do on LinkedIn, drives, eyeballs and drives people to your profile. So a profile refresh is probably the biggest number one thing that you can do.

Brynne Tillman  01:45

Yeah, it’s pretty funny because so many people set it and forget it. Like they put their profile out maybe three or four years ago, and they never really look at it again. Now, although I am constantly updating, and you have some great ideas for updating, there are still times where I’ll go back and read something, I’m like, “Oh, my gosh, this is so old” there are so many things we want to look at. But before we go through the sections of the profile that you can focus on, I want to talk about the strategy and the concept. 

So ultimately, as Bob, you mentioned, all roads lead back to the profile, we want to make sure that the profile is doing its job and if your goal is business development, the profile’s job is to convert your visitor to a conversation and so as we go through the profile, I want you to start to think of it in terms of rather than me telling everyone how great I am and how I can help them. 

Literally use this opportunity to be the resource. So instead of telling them how you can help them, actually help them. Not independent, we still need to talk about our services, but we don’t want to start there, we want to make sure that we’re earning the right to talk about how they can buy from us. So let’s go through quickly Bob your sections and what they should do, or what we should all be doing in 2023.

Bob Woods  03:24

Yeah, so with the profile, I got a couple of different things going on here. Top of the fold is important because this is what entices people to want to learn more about you and about how you can help them. So you’re looking at things like your photo, is your photo up to date, does it look like you? I mean actually, Brynne and I have had to change our profile photos this year because of certain events in our lives, all of them good, by the way, but our old photos were no longer no indicative of who we are and what we look like so we had to change those suckers. Also make sure with your banner number one that you have a banner and number two that it really reflects who you are and what you do and how you can help people. Next section…

Brynne Tillman  04:21

One of these things and this is mine. If you watch the little cover story or LinkedIn video behind my face. I don’t look like that anymore. I had glasses. I had cataract surgery. I don’t have glasses anymore. So I know part of my commitment in 2023 is to update that video. 

Bob Woods  04:40

Yeah same here because I’ve lost a little weight and you could definitely tell even in between the photo that’s up there now and when you hover over it and my heavier face appears that yeah, I definitely need to update mine as well. So you know sometimes it’s the little things but little things can go a long way. And that’s definitely one. A big thing, though, is your headline. So headlines have to tell who you are, how you help people, (Brynne: who you help) I’m sorry, this is what happens when you come off or three weeks of vacation, sometimes things slide in your mind a little bit. So how you… and the services that you provide, essentially.

Brynne Tillman  05:27

Let’s start over, let’s start over.

Bob Woods  05:30

Who you help, how you help them, the results you bring, the services you provide.

Brynne Tillman  05:37

You’re amazing! That was awesome! Just for clarity. Perfect!

Bob Woods  05:47

If your headline isn’t doing all that then you definitely need to reshape it and if you want kind of clues on how to do that visit mine or Brynne’s profiles, both of ours are done in that way. So one of the things and this is number two on the list, but one of the big things to really keep fresh, to keep your profile fresh is with your featured section. 

So you can keep that fresh with new content as often as you can. So I liken this to like walking into a grocery store. So imagine that your profile is a grocery store, which is wild and wacky but imagine it like that, what is the first place that you come to the produce section, everything there is fresh, it’s vibrant, it makes you want to explore the entire store more just based on what that is. 

Your featured section is like the produce section of a grocery store. Everything in there should be as up to date as it can be, it should help people. So definitely keep that, you know, helpful thing in mind, the content should be educational, and purely educational as well not sales oriented and you know, just keep that whole idea of fresh and new and creative in there. People will notice it, especially because it’s very graphical. We call the featured section a scroll stopper and it’s big, because people will stop as they’re scrolling through your profile to see what is in your featured section.

Brynne Tillman  07:21

Awesome. So lots of people are asking the four points in the headline. So who you help – So transforming the way technology leaders like who you help. How do you help them? What is the result that you bring? So like mine is “transforming the way professionals sell.” Who do I help? professionals that sell,  “by converting connections to conversation” Right? So that’s the value that we bring, right? And then what do we actually do? 

LinkedIn, this is mine, LinkedIn Sales, navigator training, profile development, startup advisors, investor, that’s another. And then I have in this case, I had extra space, I’ve ring my bell for social selling insights. But ultimately, I am including who I help, how I help them, the results that they get when they work with me, conversations and what we do is the LinkedIn and Sales Navigator training. So those are the areas. Go ahead.

Bob Woods  08:32

Bring up Ron’s question really quick, because that’s a really good point. So Ron is asking, “With the headline, do you find it’s more important to be brief or to tell more of your story?” So that’s a really good question. I would say that, you know, to hit on those four things, you’re probably going to have to be pretty brief like we are, because the rest of the profile is going to tell your story. And so people can scroll down and actually consume all of that, as they go farther down into the profile, you really want that headline to serve like a newspaper headline, you know, to give people just enough to want them to read more into the story.

Brynne Tillman  09:13

Yeah, and if you’re hitting those points, I mean, I do take advantage of the real estate there are 220 characters there but  you know, so to Bob’s point, I would say put it out there and then ask your network what do you think of this? Does this resonate with you? Remember, yeah, so the goal of that headline is simply to get them to keep reading, to resonate with it and create enough curiosity that they want to know more.

Bob Woods  09:41

Yeah absolutely. Absolutely. So we still have a ton of points to go through and oh my god time is just…

Brynne Tillman  09:46

Let’s go to the next, we’ll go the next thing so beyond profile what’s the next?

Bob Woods  09:50

Profile. So next we’re gonna go to finding new sources to curate not create because you’re curating at this point. Find new sources to curate content. So these are the sources that you go to, when there’s something interesting happening in your industry or things that your audience are going to be interested in, that you bring in, and then link to outside of LinkedIn. 

So finding new sources for this is very important, because you always want to have new fresh content coming in as you have that new fresh content, you’re going to need more sources for that, because sometimes places don’t publish all the time. Other times, they may not publish every single thing that you want to see and sometimes these places just go out of business too. So you want to be able to draw from as many sources as you can to bring that content in, so that you can comment with your own strategies with your own thoughts on it, and to really spur conversations with your audience, with your audience of connections through the posting of that content.

Brynne Tillman  11:01

So let’s talk about where we find that? Number one hashtags. You can search posts, and keywords and hashtags, right, so that we can find content around those topics. Number two, take a look at your clients and your prospects’ activity. Who are they engaging with? What are they engaging in? Is there a common influencer in your industry that’s showing up? Take a look at associations that serve the industry? Right? What kind of content are they putting out? You can use Google for this or feedly.com, to find really good content to curate. I’d also say spend a minute taking a look at the industry that your clients serve. So go one beyond them, what influencers are your client’s clients engaging with? Because that’s a really good area to curate.

Bob Woods  11:57

Yep, so the next one is something that sounds basic, and we teach it as a basic type of thing yet it came up in one of our group coaching sessions today. So it’s basic, but it’s so important to not only do this initially, but to continue to do it probably once a quarter as well. And that’s take inventory of your connections. 

You got to know who you’re connected to, and how you can serve them with content. And whether or not these people are the people who you want to start sales conversations with. And LinkedIn makes it really easy for you to take inventory, because you can download all of your prospects into a spreadsheet, you can use that spreadsheet to sort and to really determine who you want to contact and take things from there. 

Brynne Tillman  12:50

Yeah, so I love this. Who have we been ignoring? That’s really the question, right? We as business development people, we are out there, day in day out with net new connections, yet, we probably have hundreds, if not 1000s, of connections that we’ve totally forgotten about. So when we do what Bob just recommended, which is export your connections into a spreadsheet, put together a category, often we say conduct CPR to your connections.

Yes, we’re breathing life back into them but we’re identifying clients that we’ve worked with, prospects that we’re connected to that we’re ignoring, and referral partners, and then will we want to re-engage with them in 2023, this is a wonderful opportunity to start reaching out. 

Little bonus note, use personalized video. I know I’m jumping ahead, we’ll come back to that because it’s one of our things, but use personalized videos to start those conversations. The bottom line is we have probably hundreds of people already in our network that our folks that we want to have conversations with, yet we’re totally ignoring them. So thank you, Bob, let’s take inventory.

Bob Woods  14:01

Let’s take inventory so that we can do the next thing. And which Brynne  has already said and that’s send videos and (Brynne: I hopped ahead) That’s okay, no, that’s fine. All of these always end up working together anyhow, so it doesn’t matter. We’re specifically talking about videos, one to one messaging videos. So this isn’t content related to what we’re talking about right now, we’re actually going to get into that in a minute. 

But you know, this is where you look into the camera of your phone or your desktop, whatever, say, “Hey, Brynne, how are you doing?” And then you just send a video message like that, at that point. Video messaging is so impactful, because it’s not a text related message. People actually get to see your eyes and it’s almost like you’re having a two way conversation except a two way in person conversation except it’s not two way but still, it’s much more intimate than a text message could ever be or text based message I should say, can ever be.

Brynne Tillman  15:00

You get about a 90% response rate, just that alone is amazing. So, Bob mentioned, desktop. From the desktop, if you’re using something like dubb, if you’re curious about that, you go to socialsaleslink.com/dubb (D-U-B-B). I want to check and make sure that’s good but I think it is. You can check out dubb from the desktop, and that does all kinds of things, including telling you who’s looking at it, and for how long and you can offer other content. 

But if you don’t want to make an investment from the mobile app, if you go into messaging, you can actually send a free video to any of your 1st-degree connections right inside of your mobile app. And so you know, there’s lots of ways to reconnect but we think that personalized video is the best way to do that.

Bob Woods  15:48

So the next thing that we’re going to talk about is choosing your content mediums. And we’ll explain what those are in just a second and then create processes around them so that you can use and reuse content so that you’re not having to create new stuff constantly, which is very important. 

So content mediums are like the text only posts are video, which is where video comes in. But this is what we’re talking about more of video posts at that point, as well as polls and documents which can change into sliders if you have a multi page document on there. And so what you do with those, you share that content, and then you can pull from that content to actually create other forms of content as well.

Brynne Tillman  16:39

Yeah, so that’s great. So what we do, you are witnessing the first step of. Every week, Bob and I get on LinkedIn live, like right now and create content. In this case, we have 10 tips, right that we’re talking about. Sometimes it’s five tips, sometimes it’s three ways. Then our team will take the transcript of this and put out tips in Canvas slides, they will take the transcript and edit it and put it out as a blog post on our website. This video is now on YouTube, but they will take this and break it down into 30 to 60 second clips for Tik Tok. 

Mostly Bob’s on TikTok  and I think I’m on it but Bob actually knows what he’s doing and for Instagram and so this 20 to 30 minute little spot is the process. And this is the beginning of the process for all of our content for the week. So we choose what we want to do. Almost every single one of these gets an ebook, we get an eBook out of it. Lately, all of these get little videos for LinkedIn, Tiktok, Instagram, each of these will get little tips for Canvas slides. 

And at the end of this, all we have to do is talk and we’ve decided the mediums that we’re going to use in order to leverage this time. If you don’t have a team, there are so many opportunities out there with fiverr.com and calm and Upwork where this is an area that’s really worth investing in. And you can get you know, it’s a global marketplace, you can get some really good opportunities.

Bob Woods  18:31

Just real quick, this is also an area as Brynne mentioned before, where you can take stuff outside of LinkedIn too. So you know, we do distribute to Instagram, we do to Twitter, I just got a blue checkmark on Twitter to hopefully you know, give us a little bit more extra credibility there, on TikTok as well. So I mean, there are, you know, there are other places that people are consuming content that you need to be aware of, you’re probably still going to develop most of your relationships on LinkedIn because you can push people to LinkedIn and then engage with them there but just attracting them initially can be a can happen in a wide variety of places. Everything we just mentioned can help tremendously with doing that.

Brynne Tillman  19:16

So I love it. So let’s do it. We’ll take a little detour here with Ron’s question. “If my target audience is both my end user customer, my customer and professional advisor influencers who refer clients to me and they like different kinds of content. Do I just put my content between them?” So i If you don’t mind, I’ll start and then you can add your thoughts around that because I love this stuff. 

So the first thing I want you to do, Ron, is go to the lowest common denominator. What of your contents would both care about? And then you can then create content at the lowest common denominator place. However, if you create content, the five strategies advisors can use to get more referrals. That’s different from what your client is looking for. 

There are a few different ways to get content to people, there’s one to many, which is your newsfeed, I’d be careful and I’d spend time on your newsfeed at that highest, the lowest common denominator, however, we have found getting content into the inbox of people, starts more conversations. 

So if you have an advisor that you’re connected to, and you reach out, and you just, “Hey, Bob, as a professional advisor, I thought you might get some value from a recent ebook that we put out, here’s some of the takeaways let me know if you’re interested, I’m happy to send you a link.” Permission base, but targeted into the inbox. So there are lots of ways that you can do this, you want to make sure that nothing you’re putting out confuses the marketplace, right. So that’s the one area that I’d focus on.

Bob Woods  21:18

And there’s probably going to be a lot of good content out there that can actually serve both audiences. Now every once a while, you may have something that may serve one audience a little more than the other audience, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that things are gonna be exclusive either. So I mean, you know, just put out, just keep on putting out great quality content. When people engage with the content, just make sure that you’re engaging with them and starting conversations with them at that point. 

So the next one we’re (Brynne: What number are we on?) we’re number 7. Yeah, I know, we’ve got, we got to roll here. And this is something that Brynne is … see this is where everything, you know, kind of rolls in and out from one another. Using polls, and then the share function to start targeted conversations with the people that you want to start targeted conversations with that happens through, again, the LinkedIn messaging inbox, because you’re going to be creating a poll that you want people to respond to. So you do want to hear their opinions on these polls. 

And then you’re going to go through from the people that you know, that you want to start conversations with based on the CPR that you’ve done with your contact list. And you’re going to share the poll directly with them and just use verbiage something like “As a valued connection of mine I would like to have your quick one click response to this poll, I would appreciate it. Thanks.”  And boom. And it’s done.

Brynne Tillman  22:54

So I love that. And I love that you went back to the inventory we took, right? The people that we’ve identified. So we talked about sending that personal video, this is another great way to start a conversation is through the poll. There are, you know, and the interesting thing is we’re doing both. We are getting it on our newsfeed to lots of people, but we are also targeting. 

So we’re hitting both areas. So I absolutely love that. And I will say this is one of the most powerful ways we actually had one of our members today sit like he’s all bought into polls, because he’s now engaging very specific people and starting conversations around questions and topics that doesn’t have anything to do with sales but we’re starting that conversation. So I love that. All right, number eight.

Bob Woods  23:51

Number eight. So and this is again, something that Brynne mentioned in the past, ringing the bell of your prospects, clients and influencers and this one is big, because this actually gives you a curated-ish kind of feed of the content that you want to see yourself. And it comes into notifications because what you’re doing with your first anybody who has a first degree of yours, you can go to their profile and there is a bell near the top of their profile just below the banner that you could click. And so each time that they share new content, you’re notified of that in Notifications. 

For 2nd-degree people, you need to follow them first but once you follow them, you can then click on the bell. And then the same type of thing happens there’s it’s just when they’re 2nd-degree people, there’s just one extra step that you need to take but it’s not a big deal and LinkedIn will show you how to do it as well. So this means that you are getting a feed of the people that you want to see. It should act independently of the algorithm. It appears in your notifications rather than in your newsfeed. So it’s already targeted. It’s just a great way to keep up with the people that you really want to keep up with prospects, clients and influencers.

Brynne Tillman  25:13

So I love that! You just said something I think that’s so brilliant is this really is doing two things. One, you are staying in contact and able to nurture connections by engaging on their content. But it takes us back to curating new content, we’re doing that as well, which you just pointed out beautifully and I love that I love when we can. So I have to change it’s not kill two birds with one stone because that’s a negative. I love when you can…can… We have to find a positive for that when we can do two things with one effort.

Bob Woods  25:50

Multitasking or something like that.

Brynne Tillman  25:51

I’m going to put it out there, guys, if you have a good alternative for “killing two birds with one stone.”  I’d love to hear it. Share that with me. 

Bob Woods  26:01

That would be great! And that’s and that also helps you engage…  I’m sorry, with number nine, which is engaging with your targeted audience, because everybody that you’ve rang the bell of is, I’m guessing, going to be part of your target audience. And they are going to have people commenting and reading their shares that are part of your targeted audience as well. So again, it flows right into another good one.

Brynne Tillman  26:26

Yeah, that’s great. I love that. And I think that’s what it comes down to.

Bob Woods  26:31

And then our final one, number 10, along with the profile is probably the other truly biggest one. If you do nothing else, keep showing up. It’s that simple. Keep showing up. You can do as much of what we’ve talked about as you want. But just keep showing up. Keep getting out there. Keep commenting, keep sharing, keep doing everything so that people know that you are a part of not only the LinkedIn community but the audience that you’re trying to curate the community that you’re trying to curate if we want to get that far into how that works. But keep showing up. Because when you stop showing up, people are going to notice either that or they’re just going to forget about you, which is even worse than noticing that you’re not there anymore.

Brynne Tillman  27:23

We have gone over our 20 minutes.

Bob Woods  27:26

I know we have gone so over… You can tell it’s the beginning of the year, and we are just brimming with great ideas. So well hopefully you think they’re great ideas, we’re brimming with ideas, that’s for sure.

Brynne Tillman  27:36

It’s up to you guys. Bob and I really like our ideas.

Bob Woods  27:40

Yeah, we Yeah, well. Yeah, I hope so. So thanks again for joining us on Making Sales Social Live! If you’re with us here on LinkedIn, YouTube, Facebook or Twitter right now, we do this every week. So keep an eye out for our live sessions. If you’re listening to us on our podcast, which means that you’re listening to the recorded version of this and you haven’t subscribed already, go ahead and hit that subscribe or follow button. If you’d like more info on the podcast go to socialsalelink.com/podcast We do two shows weekly, this one and our Making Sales Social interview series where we talk with leaders and experts in sales, marketing business and many more areas. Brynne and I love doing those as well. So when you are out and about Be sure to make your sales social. Thanks everybody.

Brynne Tillman  28:32

Guys go follow Bob on TikTok. Okay, bye, guys.

Bob Woods  28:33

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