🎯 Practical LinkedIn Strategies To Promote Your Personal Brand 🚀

How do you go from boring to badass on LinkedIn to build your personal brand? Adrienne Hill sits in with Mary Fain Brandt, a LinkedIn Trainer & Consultant who coaches entrepreneurs, business leaders, executives, and sales teams. Mary explains that phase one of three is building your profile. You need to be the same person online and offline. Let your personality show through to make you more relatable. So when people meet you face to face or in zoom, they won’t be surprised. Also, make sure to hook your audience with your story. Want to know what the next two phases are? Tune in!

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🎯 Practical LinkedIn Strategies To Promote Your Personal Brand 🚀

Impactful Entrepreneur Show Guest Interview

I'm super excited because, in this episode, we are here with Mary Fain Brandt. She teaches entrepreneurs, business leaders, executives, and sales teams to fill their pipelines by using LinkedIn in just one hour a day. Her client successes include everything from landing a client one day after working with her to being offered a job three days after getting laid off. Her clients typically see a 35% to 65% increase in profile views and engagements, which lead to conversations that convert.

She specializes in working with financial and IT professionals, coaches, career professionals, and business owners just like you to help increase their visibility, but more importantly, learn how to connect, cultivate and convert. We are so lucky to have her here with us. We are going to get into all the details about using LinkedIn, but specifically how to have killer posts, how to connect, cultivate and convert, and what type of content to put out there. I'm excited about this one. Welcome, Mary. I'm so excited to have you here with us.

Thank you. I'm so excited to be here. I feel like this is going to be such an amazing summit and I can't wait to watch all the amazing speakers. I know I'm going to walk away with a couple of golden nuggets that I need for my business. We are all here to learn and grow.

I don't care how long you have been in business, I learn something new every day. Even though I host events like this frequently, I download almost everyone's gifts myself because I'm learning as I'm going. I’m getting your stuff. It’s wonderful.

I did that too with one of my summits. I was like, “That's a great headline analyzer. Where did that come from?”

I make use of it even though I'm here hosting and speaking as well. I'm always learning. I love this. Could you tell us a little about you and your journey and how LinkedIn became such a big part of your business for the readers who maybe have not had the pleasure of meeting you yet?

I never wanted to be an entrepreneur. My dad had his own real estate appraising company and I worked for him. It was up and down. I worked for him off and on. It would be feast or famine. We were doing great. We could buy what we wanted or we were starving. I grew up learning that entrepreneurship was scary and not reliable or dependable. That was my mindset. Fast forward and my mom got sick, she had early-onset Alzheimer's, and it was getting increasingly difficult to work my full-time job, which I thought I was going to retire from. I thought I was going to retire from the Bishop School in La Jolla, California, then my mom got sick.

I was aware that I needed to be there for her and be her advocate. Eventually, we moved her into a nursing home, but I was there three times a week. She always knew, to the end, who I was. That was so important to me. I had started my business, not knowing anything about business and entrepreneurship. I had gone to a class about the next steps in my career and I decided I could not get a 9:00 to 5:00 because I wanted to be there for my mom.

I had set up the worst LinkedIn profile in 2008. I was on a date, but I liked my hair and shirt, so I cropped the guy out. I put that picture up. My title was Executive Assistant. That was my headline. It was a copy-paste of my resumé. It was awful because I did not know anything. When I went through this outplacing support program, I started learning about LinkedIn. I decided I was going to create my own business career coaching women because I was turning 50 and I was going to have to get a new job. I was scared to death. Who was going to hire me?

In that learning environment, I learned that I don't want a job. I'm going to create my own business. Career coaching is not an international organization company and some of the stuff was very antiquated. I was like, “I can do this better.” I'm super organized. I had a binder with twenty sections of what you need to do, all color-coded with samples. I said, “I can do this better.” I started coaching people at my job. I started off as a career coach for women because I wanted women to find positions with purpose. I wanted them to align their skills and talents with their career. Women get stuck in jobs because of family commitments. They leave their professional life when they have children sometimes.

I wanted to help that sector. They all needed help with LinkedIn, every single one, from not having a profile to having a bad profile. That's when I started taking LinkedIn courses and webinars and dove into learning LinkedIn. I fell in love with the platform because it's a professional platform and that's what I was using it for. The segue came, my mom passed in 2016 and I was not sure if I was going to keep my company. I had two clients at $100. It was not enough to even pay any of my business costs. I was at this crossroads, “Do I get a full-time job or do I keep trucking along in the business?”

Align your skills and talents with your career. 

I'm a woman of faith and I was like, “God, what do you want me to do? Give me a sign.” I’ve got two more clients then we rebranded. Moving forward, here I am as this International LinkedIn Coach and Strategist. I still do career coaching. It's not the main focus. My main focus is helping people go from boring to bad-ass on LinkedIn, show their personalities, and become more relatable.

There are so many things that popped as you were telling your story to me. How many of you have heard someone say, “LinkedIn is basically your electronic resumé, make it look like a resumé?” That's so far from what we use it for.

“Put your resumé up there because that's going to get you a lot of traction,” said no real LinkedIn trainer ever.

There’s this incorrect assumption that a lot of people have. It's super common. They assume that they have to be these cookie cutters, super professional, stuffy people because it's a professional network. You don't have to be that way.

They are coming from Corporate America. I work with a lot of women that were in Corporate America and now they are launching their own businesses. They don't know how to share their voice. They don't know how to tell their story. One of my clients and business partners, he's like, “We need to change our headline. You are the extractor of stories.” One of the things I'm known for is when I'm talking to my clients, I tell them, “Every time I talk to a client, they walk away with five pieces of content.”

I extract their stories and we turn that into the content. I love helping people find their voice, polish up their profile, and put their personality in there. Let’s face it. Everybody is online these days. 2020, the world came to a stop and everyone realized, “I need to be on LinkedIn for my professional network because that's the only way I'm going to be able to connect and cultivate.” Those words connect, cultivate, and convert into opportunities by using LinkedIn.

We saw this influx of people that were LinkedIn trainers with those titles because they saw an opportunity. Kudos to them, but they were not LinkedIn trainers. They were maybe Social Media Managers. Maybe they were a consultant of a networking group. They gave some bad advice and we saw people go in hot and heavy in the DMs with sales pitches. It hurt me to see people get bad advice and it pissed me off getting all these DMs. If I could be frank, I was like, “No.” That's why I created my 3-C method, which is to Connect, Cultivate and Convert into opportunities.

I have seen and experienced that as well. Every time I go on LinkedIn, I have a bunch of people trying to sell me stuff in the DMs. I never go over there, honestly. It's not going to do you any favors if you are doing that. I love that you are specifically focusing on those 3-Cs, things that actually allow you to connect with people like real connections. Cultivate that relationship, and then step three, convert them into whatever it is you are trying to direct them into.

Let's unpack that a little bit. There are a lot of people realizing, “I don't have to be stuffy and professional, it should not look like an online resumé.” If they are wondering, “How do I use LinkedIn? What should I be posting? How do I connect and cultivate?” Let's start with those two pieces because it is all about the connections. It's all about relationships. A lot of people, they hear that, but they don't understand how.

Let's start with connect, cultivate, convert, and then we are going to add content because you need to do that. I'm very systematic and strategic when I work with my clients. There are three phases: you build your profile, build a strong and strategic network, and then it’s content and engagement. Let's start with connecting. You want to add the right people to your network. It's not Instagram with 10 million followers or 10,000 followers. You want to have the right people in your network, but you also want to have a diverse network. A network that you can learn from, that you can educate, you can mentor, and you can be a mentee.

Personal Brand: If you have 500 people in your network, only 50 people are seeing your posts initially.

I want people to take off the blinders. Sometimes people think very linearly, like, “That person's in a different country. Why would I connect with them? What value are they going to add?” We don't know who they are connected to. That happens all the time where someone will connect with someone in Canada or United States. Maybe they are not service-based, maybe it's a product that they sell. In this world, we are a global world. Take the blinders off, think of a diverse network that you can learn from, and think strategically. Who can you connect with? I'm not looking at clients. I'm looking at quality people. What are they posting? What does their profile look like? Are they engaging on LinkedIn?

When you connect with someone, you want to send them a very short, sweet, and simple first message. No links, no articles, no PDFs, no, “Let me fix your website. You would be great on my team.” None of that. It would be like, “I saw some of your content over on LinkedIn. I liked the post on scaling your business and the tools that you mentioned. I used one of those. It made me pop over to your profile. I like your profile. I love adding savvy businesswomen to my network. Can we connect?” Right from your heart, make it relatable, and don't overthink it. That's tip number one, connect with the right people and send the right message.

Let’s take it back to junior high. You see a cute guy. You don't run over and kiss him. In junior high, you have a crush. You look at each other. You might share lunch, you might walk to class together, you might, in three weeks, hold hands. It's cultivating. You are cultivating that relationship. It’s the same thing with your online relationships.

Let's take it to business now. At a networking event, if you are the person that walks up and starts throwing a business card in my face, you are the person I'm not going to connect with. You talk to them and you get to know them. It’s the same thing online, talk to your connections. How can you do that? You can look at their content. You can cultivate the relationship by commenting on their posts, by sharing it, by doing an introduction to someone that would be cool for them to know or someone that can help them. I have my girl, Jamie Hayen. She's an amazing website designer. I introduce her to people because she's just amazing. She's someone you want to talk to. The benefit is if you need a website, you might go to her.

Connect people with other business owners that you think are cool, engaging, and thought leaders. That's how you can cultivate your online relationships. That third C, Convert to opportunities. When I say opportunities, I don't say clients. Did you notice that? The reason for this is I want people to take their blinders off and I want you to rethink how you are using LinkedIn. If you are using LinkedIn just to find clients, you are missing out on a ton of opportunities. I want you to think about brand ambassadors. What's that? That's when someone's already organically commenting on your posts. They love you already. That's what we call a brand ambassador. We all need to have a few of those in our back pocket.

I have a few and one ended up being in my masterclass. He was so amazing. He had been commenting for six months on my stuff, joined my private group, then we had a conversation, and then we were in another group. I was like, “I would love for you to come on and talk about how you use LinkedIn as a recruiter.” He was so amazing, but he started as a brand ambassador. What about people that you can collaborate with? We are collaborating. Collaborating is my favorite thing.

I find more people on LinkedIn to collaborate with than anywhere else. Podcasts, live shows, writing a book, that's on my list for 2022. If anyone wants to co-collaborate writing a book, hit me up. Let's talk. LinkedIn local event, I'm collaborating with those in 2022. Brand ambassadors and collaborations. Of course, we are going to get clients, but you know what is even smarter than getting clients on LinkedIn? Referral partners. A client pays you once. A referral partner pays you for life. They keep referring people to you. When you think about converting to opportunities, stop thinking about converting to clients. We all want clients. Those are going to come organically when you follow that 3-C method. Does that make sense?

A client pays you once. A referral partner pays you for life.

I love this advice that you are helping the audience to think that there's more than one purpose for connecting with someone. It's not just, “You are either a client or you are dead to me.” Maybe they are a good connector, a referral or a friend. Maybe you make a friend. Maybe you end up speaking on their podcast or vice versa. Maybe they become a client. That's possible. There’s more than one possibility. Simply by planting that seed and approaching, not the platform, but any connections you have there with that mindset, what it does, commission breath has gone. People can smell that. They can tell that the only reason you are messaging them is that you are like, “How quickly can I turn you into a client?”

If you DM me with a sales pitch, you get deleted and blocked. If it's a bad message and if it’s off, it's not even business-related, you will get reported. I want you guys to know that you have that option on LinkedIn. You can delete and block someone and they won't know. I have done that because I don't want those people in my network. That does not serve me or my network. I don't want those people in my network. I don't have that time.

It brings another C to the table. If you are curious when you meet someone, if you think to yourself, “I wonder why I'm meant to meet them or what kind of relationship we are going to have. Let's find out.” That curiosity of being open to any one of those 6 or 7 potential reasons why you would be a great connection, all of a sudden, the commission breath is gone. You are open to possibilities and opportunities.

I love opportunities. I like options too. Maybe that's why I created that method because there are options there. It's not just going in for the kill and finding the client.

Every platform has its purpose.

People who are now going through this process are connecting and they are open to all the different ways that they can connect with someone beyond signing a client or a customer, the content that you share, what role d At the end of the day, it's a social media platform. People are posting things. What should that process look like?

I'm in a couple of different LinkedIn mastermind groups and we were talking about algorithms, what's killing your posts, and what's helping it? Let me start with this statistic. There are nearly 800 million users on LinkedIn and around 5% are creating content. Why is that important? That's an opportunity. That's a huge opportunity for you to get in front of people and start creating your own organic and unique content.

The fourth C that I'm going to have to add to my 3-C method is content. We are going to have to add that and then maybe consistency. Let's dive into content. First off, there are a couple of things that do matter. The size of your network. If you have a small network, you will have a smaller reach, which will result in smaller engagement.

That's Math 101 for you. That’s why you have to connect, grow your network, cultivate, and then convert to the opportunities. Your numbers could be smaller if you have 1,000 connections or followers with that content. That's one thing. Also, your profile strength, how well is your profile set up? Is it boring or is it bad-ass? I like to say that because most people have this boring generic profile, we need to turn that around and make it you. You need to be you online. The same person you are offline is who you need to be online so that you are more relatable. When people meet you face to face or on Zoom, they are not going to be shocked or surprised.

I talk with my hands. I wear bright colors. I'm excited. This is who I am offline and online. No one is shocked when they get me on a Zoom call. Let's talk about some more statistics before we get into the type of content. You probably don't realize it, but LinkedIn only shows your posts to 10% of your network. If you have 500 people in your network, only 50 people are seeing your posts initially. That’s called the test group. If they engage, LinkedIn is going to continue to show your posts to more people in your network. If they don't engage, it will tank horribly. They will not show it to anybody else. I'm going to let you guys know. It happens to the best of us.

Even us, LinkedIn experts, strategists, and coaches, post content and not all of it is a success and that's okay. Tip number one, don't get bummed out if you have some content that does not have the reach that you thought. I posted a micro-video. It was a video clip from a show I did. I thought it was great. It was amazing. It was two minutes. It was about how to save $10,000 on your website. It’s a relevant topic. I posted it on a Friday at 12:30 PM and it tanked. Why? My audience is used to seeing my posts at 7:00 AM or 8:00 AM. Time does matter. You need to do your own research for your audience and your time zone.

I'm in Pacific daylight time. That 7:00 AM post can reach a larger network, East Coast or Central Coast. When I'm posting at 12:00 PM, it's already 3:00 PM on the East Coast. Most people are picking up their kids, taking their dog for a walk, or wrapping up for the day. Maybe that's not the time that they are on LinkedIn. Time does matter. Do some AB testing. The group that we have been doing this strategy research, 7:00 AM is a great time.

What I’m hearing is that this is not a short-term game. If you are investing your time in LinkedIn, this is a long-term play. You need to test and figure out the right number of posts, the right time to post, and how many times a day to post. I'm hearing that it might be different for you than for me because our networks are different.

LinkedIn is not Instagram. Every platform has its purpose. Do not use ten hashtags. Do not copy your posts from Instagram onto LinkedIn. It will not work. It will tank. 3 to 5 hashtags on LinkedIn, there is a pro tip. Don't use more than that because LinkedIn will punish you. If you have ten hashtags, they are not going to show that post. Less is more on LinkedIn. When you said something about how many times a day you should post, this is not a platform where you post twice a day. I do it once in a while because I have something to get out to my network. I just feel it’s important. Usually, it does not work that well. Once a day is all you need to post. If you are just starting off, three times a week.

Should it be every day or can it be every couple of days? What would you advise?

Once a day is best. I probably do four times a week. I know someone who does a post Monday through Friday, every morning and they kill it. They also kill it because they have great content and they have a large, engaged network. There are a lot of parameters when you are thinking about content and you do always have to test it. For example, if you are on LinkedIn, you know that polls have been hot. I did a poll about Clubhouse and it got 24,000 views and 200 comments. It was not about LinkedIn. It was about, “Is Clubhouse dead? Are you still using it?” I did that poll and it had an amazing reach. I also tagged two people in it. Two people that I know use Clubhouse because I wanted their input. It was strategic in posting them.

When you tag someone, it needs to be relevant to them. When someone tags twenty people, don't do that. It hurts you. I'm not sure if your readers know this, if you were to tag 10 people and only 2 of those people reply, LinkedIn is like, “This person is tagging people that are not interested or irrelevant.” They push your post down.

Personal Brand: Less is more on LinkedIn. Once a day is all you need to post. 

That can kill the algorithm.

It can kill your post if the people that you are tagging do not reply and comment. On that post I did, I tagged two people I know use Clubhouse. I was in one of their rooms. Another colleague of mine says that they were having great success, so I said, “Are you still using it?” You have to understand all these little ins and outs. Polls are starting to die. That's the other thing, something that's working. It's not going to keep working as in any social media platform. What do I see working right now? Long-form posts and long text posts. They are killing it. I’m like, “I thought those died out years ago?”

There are ebbs and flows. It might be hot now and months from now, polls might be hot again. You have to stay on the pulse.

To your point, LinkedIn is a long game. For any golfers out there, the short game is the putt and the long game, you have to keep practicing that. LinkedIn is the long game. In 2021, I had someone reach out to me that I had been connected with and spoke at an event years ago. I had someone that I connected with in 2017, not even as a business person, just that they lived in an area that I was going to. We never got to meet in person. She reached out to me and hired me, top of mind, tip of the tongue, posting consistently, quality content and getting great engagement.

I always say, “Mix up your content.” Long texts are doing well right now, so guess what I'm going to do? I'm going to write some long texts. Video always does well. My best-performing media on LinkedIn is my live show. It's more engaging. People are in the comments and I'm replying to them. I have also trained my audience, “I'm going live Wednesday 9:00 AM. Wednesdays at 5:00 PM.” I set up an event and invite them. I use Shield AI for my data analytics and every Wednesday, it spikes.

Every expert that I talked to across every platform is saying, “Video is hot. Use video.” I can see why. Imagine if we were trying to have this conversation through long-form posts. It would take a year and a day. I get it. It's the quickest way to build relationships and build rapport. What I'm hearing is if you are going to do lives, do it on a regular basis where people can start to predict.

Be consistent. Pick a day and time. I started a new show called 15 Minutes of FAIN. It's fifteen minutes, Wednesdays at 5:00 PM. I'm talking about LinkedIn, business development, and my favorite products. I had one where I had no one show up. Is that disappointing? Yes. Did I do some things wrong? Probably. Did I market it? No, I don't even market that show. We do a StreamYard. We put it up and that's it. I'm training my audience Wednesdays at 5:00 PM. It's for fifteen minutes. It's short and to the point. If you are doing a video, you want to make sure you are using captions because 85% of videos are watched with the sound off. Put the captions on there.

I was waiting to get called in at my doctor's office, and I wanted to watch a video, but there were no captions. Did I save it? No, I'm not going to go back. Put the captions on the video. If you are doing a live show, be consistent. Pick a day and time. Play with it. I have had three different times. I started when I was working full-time. My show was at 7:00 PM because that's when I could do it. Now it's at 9:00 AM. I'm thinking maybe it should be at 8:00 AM so I can reach the East Coast people. I don't know. We could change that.

Multiple picture posts on LinkedIn, that's called a carousel where it has multiple pictures. Those tend to do about 10% better. My post tanked last time. I was lazy. I used a scheduler. I can't post every day on all those platforms. About 85% of my posts, I use Agorapulse and for the scheduling of my content, then I do about 20% organically. I do believe you need to do some organically, but putting a link in the post tanks it big time.

Don’t share links on LinkedIn, not in your posts?

You can put them in the comments. I still don't like that, but I went for it. I put it in my post and it tanked. In the LinkedIn mastermind group, we had a whole discussion around that and all the research still points to no links in your posts. You will drop by 15% engagement.

Facts tell, and stories sell.

I'm hearing very clearly that links can hurt the algorithm. How much does it hurt the algorithm if you are using a scheduler? Like you, I'm so busy. If I'm not scheduling it, frankly, it's not going to happen. How much is that going to hurt me?

We don't feel that it hurts us enough to not use one. We all use schedulers, but I do suggest you do some organic posts. Maybe one post a week is organic. It's a thought that you are like, “I want to get this out to my network.”

If you are regularly doing a show as you have suggested, on the same day, every week. Can that help give a little boost to those posts you have used the scheduler for?

I don't know if it can help those, but it does help your overall content picture. We went over hashtags. It's not Instagram, 3 to 5 hashtags. Regarding hashtags, you should all have your own hashtag, a personal hashtag. We have #GrowWithMary because I want people to grow with me and then #MaryOnTheMove, because one of my branding people was like, “You are always on the move. How about #MaryOnTheMove?” I use those. The other two hashtags should be relevant to your posts. #LinkedInTips, #Entrepreneur, are hashtags that I use frequently. We talked about hashtags, consistency, only one post a day. It's not Instagram. If you can do three posts a week on LinkedIn, that is a great starting point.

Facts tell and stories sell. When you are creating content, think about a story that you can share because people want to connect with people, especially we are still on Zoom calls. We are not having a lot of face-to-face interaction. We need to be relatable to our audience. One way that we can do that is by sharing our stories. When I work with my clients, I'm the extractor of stories. I take a story and then I'm like, “We are going to tell the story and get them. You are going to hook them and then we are going to tie it back into the business. What’s your story? Did you overcome something?” When you are in the thick of it, you want to talk about it after the scars healed.

You don't want to be like, “My website fell apart. I don't know what to do.” You don't want to talk about that. You want to say, “Let me tell you a story. I had an awesome website and then it disappeared. I realized that my website was driving a lot of traffic.” After the problems have already been resolved, you want to start with that and weave it back into your business.

That makes so much sense because if you share a story after it's been resolved and you have gotten an amazing epiphany, that's totally different. If you are telling it while you are in that piece of struggle, you sound like Debbie Downer. You sound like you are complaining. LinkedIn is a place for professionals. I feel like there's more business content there. What mix of your content should be business-related versus personal? Is there a different blend on LinkedIn versus other platforms?

It’s more professional. I say 80% of it should be all about your business, the solutions you provide, tips, trends, and thoughts. For me, my show is tips, trends, and thoughts for business professionals. That's what I'm sharing. I always like to say 20% professional. Let me explain that a little further. On your profile, if all you have is what you do and the services you provide, I'm not quite sure that that's going to compel me to connect with you. I always like my clients to share a little bit about how did they become divorce concierges? She probably went through a divorce, right? There's a story.

On a profile, I break that About You section into three parts. It's the story. You want to hook them and then what you provide and then your call to action. That's how we break it down. It makes it easy. It's a little more detailed once we get into it. You want to share who you are. A lot of people are afraid to do that on LinkedIn. At the end of the day, there's a person behind each profile that's looking at your profile. If you are looking for a job, that recruiter is a person and you need to be relatable to the people online. If all you do is slap up your resumé and talk about your services, how relatable are you being?

It is okay to skew more towards talking about your business, 80% business, 20% personal, as long as the personal elements you are sharing are relatable moments. It's okay to have that ratio because I know on other platforms like Facebook or Instagram, for example, it's more 80% personal 20% business or that's what a lot of people recommend.

It should be more business. I'm not posting pictures of my food over on LinkedIn, unless I'm at an event and I'm showcasing the food vendor. “I went to Sensational Coffee, got a coffee this morning. It was great.” That does not belong on LinkedIn. Think about the audience. I’m seeing a lot of posts about your kid's graduation or a death. There’s some dark personal stuff that's coming over there. I don't want to see that over on LinkedIn. I don't think LinkedIn professionals want to see that kind of personal stuff. Think about it.

I’m writing a post about, “Are you an itinerary type or a go with the flow person?” It's about our trip to Nashville. I have to have an itinerary every time I go anywhere. Day by day, lunch, here's what we are going to do, we are going to go shopping, and then we are going on a tour. I break it down. It drives my friends crazy, but at the same time, they secretly like it because I have done all the research. I'm writing this post about my personal trip. I'm sharing some personal photos, but I'm going to tie that back into, “How organized are you and your business? Are you throwing spaghetti at the wall or do you have a checklist?”

Personal Brand: When creating content, think about a story you can share because people want to connect with people. 

Take the personal moments, but still tie them back to business in some way. Quick question: I know you have your personal profile on LinkedIn, but now there are these business pages. How should people be using both sides of that equation? Should they bother getting a business account? I know on Facebook, for example, the business page is pay-to-play. It's a placeholder. You can have it, but it does not have that much reach organically. What's the story about LinkedIn business pages?

LinkedIn has company pages. It’s what they are called. They are revamping. They had revamped them about this before COVID. They added some more features and functionality. I'm going to say they are still a placeholder. They have a purpose, but if you are a solopreneur, you are not going to get the traction over there as you would on your personal profile. This came up in our mastermind group. Should you post on your personal profile? Should you post on the company page? I'm a big believer in the post on the personal profile and then if you want to, add it to your company page, so you have stuff there. Do that. You have to have at least 300 followers to get any analytics.

If you are into Google or one of these big companies, you will have a following over there because people know you and are going to follow that page for sales, product development, and tips. As a solopreneur or a small business owner, people are going to follow us over on our personal profile. I always set that up because it's the only way you can have your logo auto-populate into your personal profile. Focus on building on the personal profile.

When you say, build on the personal profile, but add it to your business. Do you mean copy and paste the same content over or do you mean to share it? Is sharing good on LinkedIn?

I schedule it through my scheduler. It's the same content. Different days and different times would be better. I have three LinkedIn accounts and I will do 6:00, 7:00, or 8:00.

If you are limited on time and want to focus your energy on one of the two places, you say focus on your personal profile first?

One hundred percent.

Let’s talk about sharing posts. I know on other platforms, to share someone's content is the biggest compliment you can give them and it boosts the algorithm. Is that true on LinkedIn also? Is sharing good?

I think sharing is always good. However, the LinkedIn algorithm is not a big fan of sharing. If you are reading someone's posts and you are like, “That’s great. I want to share it.” You hit the share button and you share it that way, it's not going to get the reach. Instead, what you want to do is go to the ellipsis, click on that, and there's something that will say, copy link. Copy the link. Put your thoughts about the post above that link, “This is a great post from Adrianne. She's given three tips that can help you scale your business in three months.” Put some thought behind it and it'll do a little better, but it's not something that I focus on. Organic content is better.

If you are not sure what to post thinking, “I will make one post of my own and then share someone else's.” Don't do that.

I don't spend my time there. The return on it is so minimal. When you do that, make sure you tag the author or the company. That will help. If you had a post and I was like, “This is something my audience needs to see. These three tips.” I would copy the link. I would put my own two cents and I would tag you in that post so that you see it. That will help a little bit, but there's not a lot of ROI on the sharing aspect.

Get in front of people and start creating your unique, organic content. 

If you are skewing more heavily towards sharing super valuable content to attract clients and customers, rather than simply trying to hard-sell them in messages, for example, you are saying links actually kill the algorithm. What's the best way to lead someone down the path of potentially jumping into one of your sales funnels, watching a class, or taking a workshop? What's the best way to actually funnel them towards the link if you can't post the link?

You can put the link in the comments. If it's an event, workshop, masterclass, sales summit, create the event on LinkedIn and you can direct them to a ticket if you are selling tickets. You can direct them to Eventbrite or wherever. If it's free, you can still direct them to wherever the event is. Creating a LinkedIn event is magical. You can invite up to 1,000 people a day. Now let's say this sales summit, you want to drive traffic to it. You create a LinkedIn event. You invite all the speakers as a speaker. Each of the speakers can invite 1,000 a day. With my masterclass, I did not set it up until the week of, but over 500 people signed up for the masterclass via the LinkedIn event.

A lot of people have a lead magnet or a freebie, or whether it's a checklist, a guide, a free video series, a workshop, or a challenge, they have something free that they offer so people can get to know them a little. It sounded like the best way to share freebies is not necessarily to make a post with a link, but to make a post that references an event, set up an event, and start inviting people.

It would have to be an event. It would have to be a workshop, a masterclass, or a summit for you to create the event. That makes sense. I would not create an event to say, “Grab my freebie.” That would not work. People would be like, “I thought it was an event.” You can put that link in the first comment after the post. If you are talking about, “What type of content should I post on LinkedIn? I'm always stuck. I don't know what to post.”

I could do a post about that like, “Here is where my clients struggle. We get their profile done, but then they are not ready or they don't think they have enough ideas. I'm going to make it easy for you. You can grab my 30 days of LinkedIn posts and my PDF for free.” I will put the link first comment. Is it a perfect system? No.

On other platforms, the attraction marketing style works well where you say, “If you want my free checklist for whatever, let me know below and I will send it to you,” and then you get tons of comments like, “I want.” Is that good on LinkedIn?

I see that on Facebook and Instagram all the time. I don’t see that over on LinkedIn. It’s a very different platform. You have to remember, it’s not Instagram or Facebook. I have never seen that on LinkedIn.

Have you never seen it because it does not work there or because no one's ever tried it there?

I'm not sure. I'm going to be 100%. Go ahead and try it. Let me know how that works. That's going to be a lot of manual processes too. Would not it be easier on my freebies or sitting in a platform that I can direct people to and you get to pick your freebie? I would think that that would not play very nicely over on LinkedIn. You have to remember, what does LinkedIn hate? It hates you when you go off the platform. It hates people who were saying, “Jump over here, leave LinkedIn. I have got something for you.” Maybe you can say, “DM, and I will send you the link.” Maybe that's a better option. I'm not sure. I have not done that. I have to play with that.

For those of you who are reading, Mary referenced these LinkedIn posts ideas. That's a real thing. She has this as a gift for you. Do you want to tell us a little bit for those who want to get into posting valuable content on LinkedIn but are not sure where to get started or not sure what to even share? Do you want to tell us a little bit about your gift?

These are 30 ideas. I'm giving you a month of content ideas. Some are business and some are personal. You can always post on a holiday. You can always do it behind the scenes. Talk about it, don't just post a picture of your office. Maybe you got a new setup. Do you have a standing desk? Are you asking people like, “I need a new desk? Here's what I have. I need something new. What are your suggestions?”

I have 30 content ideas for you. Remember 3 to 5 hashtags. One should be your own. Images still do good. Videos, you don't always have to be on camera. You can create a video with captions over it. There are a lot of different ways to do videos. If you are doing a video post, it should not be more than two minutes. Short and sweet. We all have a little ADD these days.

Personal Brand: Creating a LinkedIn event is magical. You can invite up to a thousand people a day.

That’s encouraging to the people who are so tired of hearing that videos where it's at, but how encouraging to know that two minutes or less. That's all people want on LinkedIn.

My live shows are 15 minutes and 35 minutes, but that's a different format. That is a whole show. If you are posting a video up on LinkedIn, two minutes is that sweet spot.

What a valuable gift to give to the audience. For those ready to get out there, you know that this is the next platform that you want to learn or simply want to leverage it better than you are now. Either way, these 30 ideas are going to be the perfect way for you to sink your teeth in. Hopefully, by the end of those 30 days, your creative juices are flowing and you brainstormed the next 30 that you could put out there. What a great gift. Thank you for sharing that with us.

I want to see everyone get on this platform and start creating original content and sharing their knowledge because there are so many talented, knowledgeable professionals out there. I call them the LinkedIn Lurkers, the LLs. They sit there and they read the stuff, but they don't comment or create their own organic content. I'm like, “Come on, jump in the fun. There's a party over there. Start creating some content. Let me know when you do. Tag me or send me a DM and connect with me. I'm here to support you.”

If you have been a lurker, now might be the time to get more active. You guys definitely grab that free gift. It will help you get a smart start on LinkedIn, but join the conversation over in the private Facebook group we have set up for everyone. The speakers are in there too. There's a chance for Q&A. You guys will get to ask questions and meet the speakers to make sure that you are taking action because I would love nothing more than for this particular event to be the catalyst where people say, “This is the event that changed everything for me.” Let's do that together. Thank you so much, Mary, for sharing your knowledge with us. We are so appreciative.

You are welcome. Thank you so much for having me now. Let's get over there and start creating some content.

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About Mary Fain Brandt

Mary teaches entrepreneurs, business leaders, executives and sales teams how to fill their pipeline by using Linkedin in just one hour a day.

Her clients successes include landing a client one day after working with her to being offered a job 3 days after getting laid off. Her clients typically see a 35-65% increase in profile views and engagements which lead to conversations that convert.

Mary specializes in working with Financial and IT Professionals, Coaches, Career Professionals and Business Owners to help others increase their visibility but, more importantly, learn how to CONNECT, CULTIVATE and CONVERT.

Her work has been featured on Voyager-SD, Lead-Up and Authority Magazine as well as several Podcasts and online shows like Ecamm, Meeting and the “Who da you Know Network.”

PodcastAdrienne Hillstrategic network, relationship building, connect, cultivate, profile strength, LinkedInComment