Welcome to Social Media Hangout Time. I’m Janet Johnson and I’m here today with Lisa Saline.
Hi everybody! It’s great to be here today.
Hopefully you’ve caught some of our shows before and if you haven’t we’d love it if you would leave a review if you’re an iTunes user on iTunes so that we could get some more reviews, it always helps and we’d want to hear your feedback, too. And if you’re in a live hangout with us, definitely leave comment, I would be checking them periodically. Leave comments and questions so that we can answer you live. Today we’re going to be talking about LinkedIn Publisher and tagging. We’re just kind go into some conversation about how to use it and just the whole LinkedIn platform. It’s not something that I’m the biggest expert in so we’re going to be kind of focusing on Lisa who has worked with it even more. I, I mean, we all use all the social media platforms but this is one of those that I just wouldn’t put myself at the top of the list for LinkedIn. So Lisa, let’s get started, so…
Yeah, yep, I mean LinkedIn is a and some wonderful tool for the business to business community and one of the things that I see happening is people are overlooking the power of the LinkedIn Publisher. You know awhile ago when they first released the Publisher they literally it was only to a select group of people. And now it’s open. So you can find that Publisher tool right in the status update. So when you go into your home page, you’re going to see all of these articles that are streaming. People that you are connected with are publishing articles. And it really does help to put some authority around you. If you want to be an authority in the marketplace, you should start publishing your articles, very similar to a blog post. Status updates on a regular basis help you get in front of your audience. And on just a standard status update which would be posting your quick comment and then a link to an article that you found that may be helpful to your audience. You know that’s a great tool but go one step further and click on the little pencil icon on the top right by your status and then you can create a blog post and start with a captivating image. You can do everything that you can do on your regular blog in Publisher. But remember that the title is what gets people to open. So Janet and I know we’ve talked about, you know, when the best time to post is and they’re saying you could put video on there and I’ve put that in there myself but they’re saying just your simple text is more readable and people will scroll through that. So I recommend kind of split testing.
Let’s go back a little bit though. Why would you do the Publisher? Tell us some differences between a Publisher and a status update?
Well a status update is just something very quick and short and a link to an article outside of LinkedIn. And sometimes people have to click on it and they leave the site. With Publisher it actually is a conglomerate of, it’s a full blown blog article. And so there’s some good SEO factors in there, it allows you to tag other people within LinkedIn. It allows you to put call-to-actions in there. So it’s just, you know, 300 words, 300-500 words you can write about your industry. So you’re scrolling through you see the full article instead of having to click and go outside of LinkedIn and then coming back in. So inPublisher you can put graphics in there. It’s more robust and it allows you to have a voice in the business to business community.
And the other thing I think that I would say about the Publisher also is just that it alerts your connections. So you’re actually going to be alerted about that post and so it shines. I mean it just if you’re not even, I actually use LinkedIn well probably the right way but I don’t look at the news feed part of it much, hardly at all. And I, but I always check my alerts because I just want to make sure, you know, that I connect with the people I need to connect with, that kind of thing. Do I have a message and all these alerts that are happening I notice. But I wouldn’t notice a status update in the news feed necessarily. I don’t know what they call it
Actually the point.
… in LinkedIn but so that’s one thing that I think will make that publishing raise up is just you’re alerting people, ‘hey I’m creating good content.’ So if you do it on a consistent basis, I’ve noticed some of my connections that some people really do it on a very consistent basis. And seems like kind of the same people, too, so it’s kind of funny but it’s great. And I also know that the other piece of it that can make a difference is the traffic that goes to that. You can do, I heard some, I was listening to another interview about this and they were talking about how the stats went just through the roof on their LinkedIn post that they published but they were very status quo on their own blog. So let’s spin in that into that what would you say, do you think it’s okay to do your blog posts like the exact same thing over on LinkedIn publishing? Do you want fresh content? What’s your suggestion there?
Well I think in this day and age your blog is really your hub into your main positioning. I don’t think there’s any reason why you can’t take that same blog post and publish it on LinkedIn but you might as well optimize and utilize repurposing your content. You might have some blog post that you wrote a year ago that are still relevant. So take those blog post and put it in your LinkedIn Publisher because then you’re repurposing your content. It’s still new to the new audience in LinkedIn. Because the reality is there’s so much content out there now that if you’re posting on your blog on Monday and then you do the same thing on Tuesday on LinkedIn, you’re going to see duplicate content. People are probably going to wonder what the heck. But if you’re taking something that’s older and repurposing it just flipping it around, there’s nothing wrong with that.
Yes.
So as long as it’s related to your industry and it adds value, your audience is in multiple places so for sure using the content that you already have.
That’s my thought, too, but I have heard against that so I’ve heard both ways.
I’ve heard both ways and I think it’s just your own perception and everybody has a different audience. And I guess you have to know who your audience is and where they are.
Well you want to kind of keep it somehow relative to LinkedIn, too. And you are doing this on linked in and it could be about content, visual marketing. It could be about anything but you just don’t want it to be irrelevant either. So I’ve always wondered should I, you know I do a lot of Google+ posting about all about Google+. Well is that proper to be doing that on LinkedIn? You know what there’s no answer to that to be honest, I don’t think. Why wouldn’t it be? People that are linked in are probably using Google+, too, some are some aren’t. So I don’t know, I toy with that idea, if do we have to write all about LinkedIn to be on there? I don’t think that’s right either.
Well I mean the thing is Janet your social media expert. So you’re going to talk bout social media and everybody has a niche. It might have an Instagram person that’s got that niche, they can share that information on LinkedIn because they’re teaching it. But take a look at like an insurance agent or Kimmy, the salon owner. If Kimmy wanted to do consulting and teach people how to color their hair or what’s new in the industry trend on cutting hair, you might capture a great audience on LinkedIn from other salon owners. So it’s relative to the industry that you’re in, not specifically to the platform. And I think sometimes we’d look at, we get wound up because we’re in social media but the reality is how can we help these other businesses by educating them on what platforms are out there and where their audience might be.
I kind of reminds me of when Facebook and Google+ started and they have that big battle. In Google+ when you’re on there it was, if you mentioned Facebook, it was like you were scared to do it. Should I mention Facebook marketing because this Google+ doesn’t really like Facebook marketing. So it’s kind of but I think that’s been overcome, I think people do cross platforms at everything and depends on what you’re the expert in, you’re exactly right.
Absolutely.
But I just look at it. There’s so much B2B business out there. There’s the business consultants who got social media trainers, you have people that are experts in finance or franchising or health & wellness. So it’s about capitalizing and how you position your self as an authority in your marketplace. What do you want to be seen at? So the Publisher option allows you to put graphics on there, video, connect out maybe to your email landing page, you know where you’re capturing an email address.
Yes, I do that a lot when I’m doing mine.
Yeah and I think you’re not selling anything but if you can give something away for value I think it’s an overlooked tool. And when you say the alerts, it’s on the right hand side of your LinkedIn account it will drop down and headlines are key because I will get alerts. And if the headline doesn’t interest me, I don’t even open it.
Yeah.
So headline is something you definitely you want to start with.
It’s just like a blog. I mean in blogs you have to word the headline, the title correctly. What about SEO? Does that , do you know if gets affected by SEO, too?
You know honestly I haven’t seen a whole lot of results for the SEO when you do Google search pulling in the articles so I don’t think it is at this point.
Yeah.
But I could be wrong. I just haven’t experienced or seen any of that right now on Google
Yeah because the one thing to think about, and what’s in my mind it never hurts to think about those keywords still. It’s just, you know even if LinkedIn doesn’t have that specific format. Because the one thing, like LinkedIn profiles and pages are very, very prominent on Google. And so if you, even if it’s not there yet, it could come down the road and if you’ve optimized it with those keywords it could make a difference. So it doesn’t hurt to think about it.
Yep and regardless you want to be aware of what are people searching for. So if your headline includes words that people are searching for even if it doesn’t show up in Google, they’re going to capture your attention. So you’re going to want to pay attention to that because that’s what people are looking for. So you might as well incorporate SEO for sure in that.
Yes, yeah.
I like the ability to hyperlink to articles outside your Publisher but also to people within LinkedIn. So you could go to, you could link and hyperlink from your article to your group page, to your business page or to a group. So think that’s really key when you’re going through an article if you want to invite them to participate in a related group within LinkedIn. You can link there then grow your audience that way, too.
So expanding on that, what about the option of taking a blog post that you have but instead of, let’s say we have 5 steps to blank, blank, blank, we don’t want to go into any specifics.
Right.
And you do 1, 2 and then you, like I do the salon on my email newsletter. Then to read the rest, 3, 4 and 5 have to click on this link and then it takes them to the full blog post. What about something like that? What’s your thoughts?
Well what does your audience want? I mean do they want you to, do you want them to click outside of LinkedIn? Do you think that as they’re reading through the blog post they’re going to stop and move on to something else if you’re not giving them all the information? I really believe it’s the quality of your information if it’s something that’s going to capture them. I personally wouldn’t recommend that you give them 1,2,3 and then have them go somewhere else just because that’s a marketing tactic to try and capture something and people are catching on to that. Maybe in an email format you could do that because people don’t like to read long content on an email. But in LinkedIn I think it’s give them the meat and let them decide what they want to do with it. I wouldn’t break it up. I will just do the full article.
Yep, yeah. And that’s what’s I’ve seen done. I’d just be curious to see because it is always best to get them to your own website. But at least you can, this gives them showing your authority, showing that you’re educating them and it puts you in front of them and alerts them. So it’s kind of like they say advertising needs to be seven times or that somebody’s supposed to see. So that’s why some people are using it so much because it’s learning the connection, otherwise you kind of forget about specially if you have the amount of connections we have. You forget who your connections even are. And so I think that’s something that can make a big difference in your marketing, too. Now one thing I want to ask you, too, is how often do you think you should be doing one of those publish, publishing?
You know honestly if you could do one a day I really would encourage that. A couple of times a week at a minimum to do a blog post or a Publisher post. But I see people doing 2 a day. I’m on LinkedIn in the morning and get in the afternoon so there’s no harm in doing it a couple of times. At least twice a week.
Yeah, yeah, I’d say a couple of times a week. If somebody’s in mine twice a day alerting me I might disconnect them if I don’t want to see their stuff, that’s quite
It depends on what’s the content.
Yeah.
Well Michael Hyatt, for example. I read everything he sends out because he is awesome. So if he sends it twice a day it doesn’t matter. But if you get in the habit of doing maybe do one status update and then you do a blog post or a Publisher post.
Yeah.
So that it alerts that one per. But the biggest thing and that calls for any platform is consistency. You have to be consistent and I struggle at two sometimes because there’s so many areas that you want to focus on. So if you have a good content calendar, add the LinkedIn Publisher as part of your content calendar. You know, just making sure that’s going to be in your strategy and your plan. And then I love to use the tool Mind Maps because I would just start mapping out headlines and you could tweak headlines and you can change the headline and then you write your article based on that headline.
Uh-huh.
So if you could start a content calendar where you have publishing as part of your strategy I think that will work, works pretty good.
And my suggestion would be one a week minimally probably would be the thought. I don’t know that there’s any specific number that has to be done but if you did, like you said the consistent aim it at once a week. And if somebody’s not doing it at all like I’ve been sporadic, I’ll be honest. I’ve done some and I haven’t done any in a month. I mean it’s something that isn’t top of mine for me because I’m not a major LinkedIn user. So I guess all the people that are not doing it currently my thought is at least start with once every couple of weeks then try to move it up to once a week then try to move it up to twice a week and and so on and so on. Also depends on how much you blog and how much content you put out there, too.
Yup and sometimes it’s, if look at some of the people that I’m on an email list for I know that I’m going to get an email on Tuesday morning, every single Tuesday morning from Jeffrey Gilmour. I know that so I expect that to be in my inbox. So having that same method and process in LinkedIn. So set a date, set a time and just do it every single week and people will expect it to show up in their tracker or alerts.
Yeah, yep. There are alerts out, cool.
And it helps you, too, because then you kind of have that deadline of oh I got to get this article done by Tuesday morning.
Oh absolutely.
You know just like what we’re doing with our podcast like midnight, the night before we publish it.
Exactly, exactly, yes. You know you have something to get to somebody that makes a big difference. And some wait til the end and some people pre-plan it, it just need to be planned and I can relate though that. Now we want to talk a little about tagging also so let’s get into that. Go ahead and tell us how that works.
And tagging I love LinkedIn there’s a little tool that you can actually track the people that you’re connected with. You can tag them for the groups. When you connect with someone, say I’m going to connect with you Janet. I will tag you as social media expert. If I meet somebody at the chamber I’m going to tag them at the chamber that I met them at. So that I can sort my contacts by the tags. So it’s kind of like an internal CRM and so a lot of time we do, and I’ve been guilty of this when I first started out is you’re connecting with all these people and then you pull up your contacts and then you’re like, “shoot, I wish I could sort it” but there is an opportunity. So if you tag when you connect, go to the profile and there’s a little button at the bottom underneath your face that allows you to tag that person. So you can tag it as prospects, you can tag it as clients so that when you pull up your contact list you have the ability to communicate immediately with that.
I use that mostly with I’ve tagged mine as Minneapolis, MN area. And then if I’m going to do a local workshop it’s really hard to get a hold of people, you don’t want to send it to everybody.
Right.
Then you can bring it in to just the Minneapolis market. So that’s one of the uses I use those tags.
And once you tag them and you can set reminders. Like send an article, a related article to this person on a vote. That just help you remember to stay in front of them, to stay connected. You could set a reminder of if I just met yesterday at a coffee shop, I can set a reminder in LinkedIn to do a follow up email a couple of weeks later — checking in. And that’s why it’s really powerful about LinkedIn is staying in front of and connecting with the person. Where as if you don’t do that on LinkedIn you have, if you don’t have an email follow up system they’re going to forget who you are. And that happens because there’s so many people that you meet a lot of people and if it’s something that you’re not in front of them frequently, they’re going to forget you and it’s nothing against you. They’re just not going to remember who you are. So if you could take your offline connections and bring them online and give them good value and touch base, not selling, you don’t sell on LinkedIn. But you give value and you connect and you reach out. Let’s say you have a phone call, LinkedIn gives you the opportunity to keep those tools up front. And the reminders have been wonderful because I will get a list everyday on my email that says, ‘hey send this person an article or give this person a call.’ So…
Yeah that’s a good idea. Now don’t they have something for the cards, business cards, an app? What is that app called?
You know it used to be CardMunch.
Yeah.
And LinkedIn no longer utilizes that.
Got it.
I use a software through Infusionsoft that’s I can do but it adds to my email database. And there are some applications but the one that I was familiar with is no longer available.
Yeah. CardMunch is what I use, too, so but otherwise I depend on how many cards you can manually just connect with people to. Cool, yeah so tagging. So another use of tagging just while you were talking I thought of that too, would just even be like your target market. And connecting to that target market and having a specific group. Let’s say well, I work a lot with the orthodontists and all dentists. So if I tag those and then I, like you said, to set reminders to teach and make sure that I’m getting things out in front of them that would make a big difference. So that’s cool, okay.
Well and another thing, too, tis here’s a lot of people who do webinars and educational webinars. We just interviewed Josh Turner and he does Webinarli and they use tagging to find people that would be potential prospects for the webinar. So when they have the webinar that’s ready to come up then all of a sudden they have a group of people that would be interested and they can reach out to them and invite them to the webinar.
Cool. Yeah and then on the backend, of course, what are they doing on that webinar?The backend is they’re teaching
Education.
And the front end but on the backend they have a product that they’re going to be selling. And so leading to the sales, part of the sales funnel. Cool.
Right.
Okay.
Sounds really powerful.
Uh-huh.
And then just the other thing, too, is the reminder to use the group, the company pages. So you have an insurance agency. Publisher is under your personal profile but then you have your company page so that’s your company profile’s. So if you’re writing articles for the company is very similar to the Publisher. So post them on your company page, as well.
Okay.
People follow company, they don’t have to follow the person.
Sure.
So you might, like I would follow Coca Cola. I don’t have to follow a person that’s in Coca Cola but they might have information that would be good for me. So you could follow them and when they publish on the company page I would be notified.
Okay.
So that’s an area for content. So you could dominate the B2B space on LinkedIn.
Okay.
A lot of people have done that. A lot of people have gone away from the Facebook and Twitter. Frank Romagosa does the same thing and he used to run a big SEO company and now he’s dominating on LinkedIn. Very similar things.
Oh yeah. Well and LinkedIn even has SEO power. I mean it’s got power within and outside. So it’s got a lot of, it’s robust and it’s one of those platforms that isn’t going anywhere. So it’s only getting bigger, better and it is one of the best for B2B. So cool. Lots and lots of tips here and we could, I know there’s a whole ton of uses for LinkedIn so yeah, well get some more awesome guests on and get to teaching more about LinkedIn. So if you’re B2B you’ve got to be there. It’s one of those things, I mean, B to C, that’s a discussion to be had, it’s a little different but I definitely think it’s a best B2B. Well thank you Lisa that was tons of information.
Oh you’re welcome.
And this will be show number 33 so you can find out all the notes and anything we discussed will be at socialmediahangouttime.com/33. So thanks a lot.
And I want to remind everybody, too, that if you want to share the show with other people, if you go to socialmediahangouttime.com/love that will help syndicate this for us, as well. So thank you.
Yeah, thanks Lisa.
Alright, thanks, see you next week.