LinkedIn as a Marketing Tool

Episode 931: LinkedIn as a Marketing Tool, with Robin Ryan

LinkedIn as a marketing tool? Listen to this podcast with Robin Ryan on why business owners must use LinkedIn as a marketing tool.

Robin Ryan has appeared on over 2000 TV and Radio shows including Oprah, Dr. Phil, CNN, ABC News, Fox, NBC News, and NPR. Her advice has been seen in most major magazines and newspapers including USA Today, the NY Times, and the Wall Street Journal. She currently writes a weekly career column for Forbes.com

Robin Ryan has a busy career counseling practice offering individual career coaching, resume writing, interview coaching, LinkedIn Profile writing, using LinkedIn as a marketing tool, and job search services to clients nationwide. 

She is the best-selling author of 60 Seconds & You’re Hired!, Soaring On Your Strengths, What to Do with the Rest of Your Life, Winning Resumes, Winning Cover Letters, Retirement Reinvention, and Over 40 & You’re Hired. Robin donates the profits from her book sales to Breast Cancer Research.

A popular speaker and corporate trainer, Robin has spoken to over a thousand audiences on careers, LinkedIn and job search topics. She holds a master’s degree in counseling and education from Suffolk University and a bachelor’s degree from Boston College. She is the former director of counseling services at the University of Washington, in Seattle.

“Robin Ryan is America’s top Career Coach.” — Houston Chronicle

What you will learn from this episode about using LinkedIn as a marketing tool:

• Why Robin chose to become a career counselor in the early 1990s, before it was a viable career path, and why she is passionate about her work
• How a guest appearance on Oprah Winfrey’s talk show helped Robin’s career explode, and how a breast cancer diagnosis brought everything to a halt in 2012
• How she uses LinkedIn as a marketing tool and many more
• How marketing, networking, and writing have been the cornerstones of Robin’s efforts to rebuild her business, and how she is finding success once again
• Which “three LinkedIn blunders” business leaders often make, why they are a problem, and how to avoid falling into the trap of making these common blunders
• How applicants often use LinkedIn profiles to determine if a business and its culture are a good fit for them, and what steps you can take to improve your profile
• Why your LinkedIn profile should be written in the first person rather than in the third person
• Why 500 networking connections on LinkedIn is the magic number, and why you should accept connections from people outside the circle of people you personally know
• Why your background image should include something to do with your industry, your company name, and logo, and why everyone in your company should use the same image
• What resources are available to learn to better use LinkedIn as a marketing tool and create compelling content on the platform
• How mentors have influenced Robin and offered her important lessons she has used throughout her career

Resources:

• 60 Seconds & You’re Hired by Robin Ryan: https://amzn.to/2QKuKpP
• Website: http://www.robinryan.com/
• LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/robinryancareercounselor/
• Learn how to use LinkedIn as a marketing tool and to land a job

Additional Resources:

• Sell With Authority by Drew McLellan and Stephen Woessner: https://amzn.to/39y7x13
• Predictive ROI Free Resource Library: https://predictiveroi.com/resources/
• Stephen Woessner’s LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/stephenwoessner/
• Listen to this podcast on how to use LinkedIn as a marketing tool and other strategies

 

 

LinkedIn as a Marketing Tool: Full Episode Transcript

 

Get ready to find your recipe for success and learn how to use LinkedIn as a marketing tool from America’s top business owners here at Onward Nation with your host, Stephen Woessner.

 

Good morning. I’m Stephen Woessner, CEO of predictive ROI and your host for Onward Nation, where I interview today’s top business owners so we can learn their recipe for success, how they built and how they scaled their business. In fact, my team at predictive ROI, I know that I’ve been talking about this now for several months, but you know that our commitment in 2019 was to double down.

 

And part of that was double down. On being helpful to you Onward Nation and how we could build out our resources section, which has really become a resources library. So there are a number of now free practical and tactical guides for everything from search engine optimization to the Trojan horse to sales to living your core values to hiring rock stars.

 

It’s just all in. There is a way to be helpful to you every single day. So these are all success strategies that we’ve compiled from the brilliant insights by our guests. So just go to PredictiveROI.com/Resources and whatever you request we will send it right to your inbox. 

 

Learn how to use LinkedIn as a marketing tool and for your job hunting

 

LinkedIn as a Marketing Tool: Robin Ryan’s Introduction

 

Before we welcome today’s guest, Robin Ryan. Let me share some additional context by when our mutual friend Henry de Vries, when he made this introduction and said, hey, Stephen, I think you need to talk with Robin because she’s got this key piece, this this depth of expertise around LinkedIn that I think is going to be super, super helpful for your audience.

 

I’m like, okay, Henry, I want to know more about that. And so when Robin and I had a chance to get to know one another before we started recording during the green room, and as we were preparing for this conversation, you know, she has uncovered what she’s going to probably in title three big blunders that business owners, business leaders are making on a consistent basis within LinkedIn.

 

Now, why is that important? But we’re not just talking about social engagement, but we’re talking about attracting top talent. We all know Onward Nation that it is a very, very tight labor market, and your next key hire is likely already employed someplace else. So how are you going to unseat that person? How are you going to unlock that person?

 

How are you going to attract that person in order to be receptive to interview your company and learn about your culture and become a valued member of your team? Well, it does have to do with you as the business owner putting your best foot forward. And that is exactly what Robin is going to walk us through. That type of very strategic yet practical and tactical advice.

 

So I am so very excited for us to have this conversation because I know it is going to be super, super helpful to you Onward Nation. So without further ado, welcome to Onward Nation, Robin.

 

Learn how to use LinkedIn as a marketing tool and for your job hunting

 

LinkedIn as a Marketing Tool: Ups And Downs in Robin’s Career

 

Well, thank you for having me, Stephen. Well, thank you for saying yes. I’m so very glad. Henry, if you’re listening, thank you very much for making the introduction, my friend.

 

And so, Robin, before we dive into the questions that I want to be able to ask you about how to use LinkedIn as a marketing tool and solving that problem we were talking about. I mean, obviously that’s only a portion of the story. There’s so much context that brought you to today your path and journey. So take us behind the curtain.

 

Tell us more about you and your path, your journey. And then we’ll dive in. Well, I made the step to become a business owner in the early 90s when nobody was making a living as a career counselor. And I said to my husband, I absolutely love this business, and I want to make sure that it’s something that I can do for the rest of my life.

 

I love helping people. And he said, okay, so I left the University of Washington and I started my own business, and it was a speaking business and a career counseling business where I was helping people with resumes and cover letters and interview coaching. Because back in the 90s, there was no LinkedIn, there was no social media then. And so, one of the things that happened though, early in my career, once I was, you know, doing this, was I wrote a book.

 

Somebody told me, look at if you really want to be an expert, write a book. So I wrote my book, 60s and You’re Hired, which I’m so blessed to have, is still selling really well today. Through interviewing and through networking, I was able to find and talk to a producer at the Oprah Winfrey Show, and I was a guest on The Oprah Winfrey Show, so they featured me for an entire hour.

 

Wow. It was a show about making money and careers and job search. And so it just exploded my career, as you can imagine. And my fees went up, my speaking fees went up. You know, I had a wonderful run doing all kinds of coaching. I’ve seen all kinds of markets. I’ve seen, you know, there’s so many employees out there looking for work that you put on an ad.

 

You get 500 applications to this market where you don’t get many applications. But I want to share something that happened to me that I think is really important. In 2012, everything came to a screeching halt when a doctor said to me, Robin, you’ve got breast cancer. Oh no. And so I needed a mastectomy. And in fact, it was two years that I had to close my business completely.

 

Oh my gosh, too sick to be able to take care of it. And so for those of you that are listening, I actually restarted it at the end of 2013, beginning of 2014. So those of you that feel like, you know, you’re struggling and and you’re trying to get the business going, I can really relate because I had a great reputation.

 

But, you know, all my contacts, my network, kind of everything had faded away because I went out of the marketplace completely. So I’m in a rebuilding mode and have been in a rebuilding mode for the last few years. And I’m happy to say that, you know, things are going great, things are moving along, and I market heavily.

 

I network those are kind of my strategies to try to build the business. and I write and, I write a column for Forbes. It’s a weekly column on careers and baby boomers. Sometimes I write about business owners. So it’s been a full circle, so to speak. Well, kudos. And I don’t say that lightly.

 

You know, I’ve had family members who have battled courageously through cancer, and I’m super, super, what’s the word that I’m looking for? happy that you were able to be successful in that courageous battle. Because it takes everything. It takes all of us. And so for you to set aside your business, which is obviously very personal and then to fight the good fight and then come back to the business.

 

What a gift to be able to do that. Well, I love what I do. I love helping people, especially helping them build their businesses or helping them with their careers. And so that’s why I do this, what’s amazing and that. And then what really stuck out to me too, is if you were sharing your path and journey to it is that obviously you had and do have a speaking career, but then you also mentioned books and you also mentioned other writing.

 

Learn how to use LinkedIn as a marketing tool and for your job hunting

 

LinkedIn as a Marketing Tool: Learning About a Company

 

I know that you’ve been a guest on over 2000 different interviews and including your guest appearance with Oprah. And so when I think about that from a thought leadership perspective, you know, here Onward Nation is a business owner. And Robin, who, you know, is not the one trick pony that we talked about before, not just having a book and resting on those laurels, but it’s really paid attention to, okay, how can I be helpful across all of these different channels?

 

Because those audiences are different. But then how can I bring that all back together as part of my thought leadership, which doesn’t happen by accident, takes a lot of work. And kudos, Robin, for doing it. Thank you. So let’s shift our focus to LinkedIn. And obviously LinkedIn is huge. 700 million members. That’s awesome.

 

On the surface. Why are you so pro-LinkedIn? It’s seeing that as such an opportunity for recruiting talent. Well, because most people don’t realize that when job hunters are out there and they’re starting to job hunt, you place an ad, they go and they start looking at, well, who owns that company? And what about that company, and what can I find out about it?

 

And you know, many of you have smaller organizations where you might have, you know, 10 or 15 employees. Some of you might have big organizations where you’ve got 1000 or 3000 employees depending on, you know, what you do. But the point being, we all get concerned about, you know, who’s their company, what can I learn about them? And they go to LinkedIn to do that also too.

 

When they’re job hunting, they are more actively looking on LinkedIn. They’re creating their own resume. They’ve gone in and updated their LinkedIn profile. They’ve updated the headline so that hopefully you can find them. It’s a great tool. It’s a tool if you know how to use it. But I will tell you this: 94% of all recruiters and most of those people work inside some of your companies because somebody is doing the, you know, placing the ad and looking for the people.

 

They’re on LinkedIn and they’re searching for talent 94%. Yes. Holy bananas. That’s a huge number. Huge number. Okay, so then really compelling, like when you and I had a chance to obviously chat and connect and get ready for this conversation. And when you mentioned the three blunders, I thought, okay, so I love, you know, tangible golden nuggets like that.

 

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LinkedIn as a Marketing Tool: The Three Blunders

 

So let’s walk through it at a high level if you can if you can walk on, Onward Nation business owners through at a high level. First, like the three blunders, you know based on your experience. And then and then if we can go back and kind of slice those apart and take them deeper. So here in Robin, what are the three blunders?

 

So the three blunders for you, this is for you personally, not your company’s profile, but your profile. Okay. The head of the company, the president of the company. Okay. Number one, that you’ve just ignored to use LinkedIn as a marketing tool completely. You might have made a profile eight years ago and forgot about it. And you don’t think it’s important that it be? You don’t matter and you don’t have the appropriate information there either.

 

You’ve got to understand that you, in your summary and in your talking about your company, need to share your passion for what you’re doing. And most people don’t in their summary, they just have whatever the PR person gave them, or they just copy a job description and post it in. If they do that at all, it needs to be written in first person, and it needs to talk to us about who you are, what your passion is, what you’re trying to do in your company, the kind of employees that you want and why it’s a good place to work there.

 

And then number three is you ignore connections. You can’t do that. You want to solicit as many connections as you possibly can. Those are how people are going to learn about jobs. You can post about job listings online, on LinkedIn. Lots of people do that. Of course. I know it’s expensive for companies you can post jobs on.

 

Indeed, you can post jobs on Google if you want, but the important piece is you need to have connections. You need to be able to tell people we’re hiring. We’re looking for these kinds of people. If you know anybody, refer them to our website and refer to wherever you’re listing the jobs. So those are the three big things that I see are problems for most of these business owners.

 

And like I say, I deal with them because I write their LinkedIn profiles, I write resumes, I write bios for them, so I know their problems and I know they do ignore this. Okay, so let’s go to the ignoring piece. Because is it possible that a business owner is like, well, and maybe that’s the point that you’re making here is that you’re ignoring or maybe just, ambivalent to it, not treating it as a priority.

 

So why do you think that that’s happening? Too busy. You’ve got too many other things going on and you don’t see it as any kind of priority. I worked with a woman yesterday. She owns a medical practice. Very, very successful. Okay. She said, look at. I’m running around crazy, you know, I’m the network queen here doing, by networking.

 

We’re talking about technology, networking. And so all the technology I have to learn all the things we’re doing to keep our clients going and keep their services online, their medical records working, etc., etc.. And she said, I just didn’t even think about LinkedIn until she got asked to be on a board. And she really wanted to be on this board.

 

And they were very dismayed that, number one, she did not have a LinkedIn profile. She didn’t keep it public. Two, she only had two connections and three, it wasn’t even filled out. And so she said, I was just too busy. I didn’t care, it didn’t matter. And then all of a sudden she’s hearing from everybody’s LinkedIn profile and she’s realizing, I gotta make time for this.

 

And so she did, you know, we work together on that, but the key here is you can’t, you have to put it in the marketing plan. My advice is you should be doing 1 to 2 marketing things per day, okay? That’s something that keeps your business going. You can’t just ignore marketing. You can’t give it to a marketing person.

 

They need you to help with inspiring them, giving them ideas, giving them direction and strategy. And so having 1 or 2 things, one of those could be I got to work on LinkedIn, got to get this up to date, got to get this to show why my company is well worth coming to work for. Okay. So let’s put it in the context of your experience, because you’ve worked with so many business owners, I like tackling this issue.

 

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LinkedIn as a Marketing Tool: People Who Use the Platform for Job Hunting

 

So let’s do the flip side of that. What does a business owner look like who is not ignoring it? Who is? I don’t know, maybe you would describe that person as proactive with respect to LinkedIn. What is that person doing differently? And I know we’re going to get into like the profile summary and connections and so forth.

 

But maybe it’s a mindset issue. Like what are they doing differently in how they approached using LinkedIn as a marketing tool. Well, they see it as a marketing tool. They realize that this is where so many people are on LinkedIn, and we know that, you know, people are on their one usually about two times a month. But when they’re actively job hunting, many of them are there every single day.

 

They’ve gone to update their profile, but when they get called for an interview, the first person they go to look at is the hiring manager, and the second person they go to look at is the business owner, and they want to see what kind of culture, where is this place going, you know, what are they doing? Is it a place maybe I’d want to work?

 

Because right now every employee has choices and believe me, they will turn down your job offer if they don’t think it’s a good fit for them. You know, and it’s not just money, it’s only a piece of it. It’s the culture. What is it like to work there? So that’s what you said. You as the CEO and president, you help determine what the culture is because that comes from the top.

 

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LinkedIn as a Marketing Tool: Advertise The Best Things About Your Organization

 

Okay. So you just gave me a really, really big. And you know, we just hired three new, full time, employees to our Predictive ROI team, which was awesome. Very critical positions. And during that process, you know, during the interview process, we have a very structured process. And one of those final interviews is where I get a chance to, to meet, our candidates as well, or finalists as well.

 

And all three of them. Now, you might say, well, they took this out of, you know, like a textbook for getting hired and that kind of stuff. But all three of them asked me about mission vision values. My what? In my opinion, my business partner and I were seeing the future of Predictive ROI. And so now hearing you say that I was internalizing that thinking.

 

Do we have any of that on my LinkedIn profile? And the answer is no. And I’m thinking, oh my gosh, I need to be doing a better job with my own profile and summary. Right. And speaking to that right. Absolutely. And you have to realize they want to see what the leader is setting for the course of the company.

 

Where is this company going? The other thing, too, is your own employees should be ambassadors for the company. So in their summary, not only are they talking about themselves and what they want and what they do, but also why is it great to work at your company? Why do you like going to work there every day? What is it about the company’s president or CEO that you like following their direction?

 

Those are important and those are really key aspects that I think the audience that’s listening today didn’t even realize that, you know, these people that are out there looking for jobs got a lot of choices. Yep. You’re only one of them. And so, you know, take the opportunity to use this tool to advertise what’s best about your organization.

 

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LinkedIn as a Marketing Tool: Making Your Profile Look Professional

 

That’s super, super smart. And not only is it smart and a big like it would take 30 minutes to do it right I mean it. You’re not talking about something that’s going to take 40 hours. Right? Okay. Well it takes me 90 minutes when I do it with a company, with anybody. But that’s simply because I’ve got to get to know them and we’ve got to go through the whole thing.

 

I go through all the pieces. I make sure that profile is the best it could possibly be when it’s done, but if you were doing it, break it down into nuggets, go down, do the headline first, go down the next day, do the photo. Do the background picture the next day. You know, tackle something out. The summary is the hardest.

 

And then your job description for your company. Those are the two hard pieces, you know, write them down, take a pen and a paper and actually write them down. Sure. And you don’t need a PR person. People will see if it’s a PR person. This has to come from you. This has to be what you value, what you think.

 

Now you can tell somebody else and they can write it for you. But it still has to be your vision. It has to be really what drives you and what’s driving your organization. Okay, so let’s move that into the second piece. When you were talking about, you know, writing an appealing summary profile, one of the things that really stood out for me, aside from it, has to be reflective and include your passion for doing what it is that you do.

 

But I also heard you say, write it in the first person, and I see so many profiles that are not written in the first person, they’re written in third. And that just always felt weird to me. And so tell us a little bit more about your experience in first person and why you believe in that. Well, the whole writing on LinkedIn used to be third person, but that’s very passé.

 

You know, I think in the last 3 or 4 years we’ve all had people, you know, all the big thought leaders out there, people who are really sharp on this have gone to the first person, and it touches somebody. It talks about you. You become a real person. It reflects a little of your personality. Remember, LinkedIn’s like you’re talking to a friend.

 

This is supposedly a close network of people who know you and who want to get to know you. So, you know, sharing a little bit about yourself and your personality. Now, you don’t have to say, you know, I have two Westies and there’s Zoe and Duffy. because that’s a good fact about. And Ryan. But, you know, it’s not on my LinkedIn profile, so it’s but I do talk about my passion for helping people and how much I like writing.

 

I mean, writing is just a big part of my life. It always has been. That’s how you write eight books. But, just so you know, you know, I never would have predicted I’d have been a writer, especially since, you know, well, grammar is like the worst thing ever. And Grammarly is the best app out there for those of us that aren’t the best, when it comes to grammar.

 

Oh, amen to that. Yes, I love it too. Okay, so let’s move to the third piece, which is connections, because here again, I, I suspect that, you know, some unrelated business owners are thinking, but because this is a typical pushback that I’ve, that I’ve heard business owners suggest before. And my guess is you’ve heard it, too.

 

Where? Yeah. Robin. That’s fine. I know I should have more connections, but, you know, I don’t want to connect with people who I don’t personally already know. And so then they might have 50 connections or maybe 150 connections or in the earlier example, you mentioned two connections. So help Onward Nation business owners to to really better understand your philosophy around connections and why it’s so important.

 

Learn how to use LinkedIn as a marketing tool and for your job hunting

 

LinkedIn as a Marketing Tool: Know Who to Hire

 

LinkedIn itself says the critical number is 500. And if you’ll notice that once you hit 500, it just says 500 or more connections. And you want to remember that when you’re networking, when you’re promoting an opportunity, because you can certainly post and say, we are hiring, we are looking for, you know, a graphic designer. We are looking for a project manager.

 

We are looking for an office administrator. We are looking for an admin. We’re looking for whatever a marketing director doesn’t matter. You can write and say that and tell them you know who you’re looking for and say, here’s how to get in touch with us. Or here’s the link where the job is listed. You know, you should also be posting about your field industry knowledge.

 

Anything that has to do with, you know, facts, changes, especially changes in new trends in your industry. You should be posting. Those people will start following you. They want to listen to you. But if you only have 50 network connections, it’s too small. So one thing as a business owner, think about this advantage. People that might connect with you might be your next employee, or they may know your next employee.

 

And so maybe your attitude needs to change a little bit when it comes to who do I accept? There’s a gold mine out there of people and through your neck, your networking connections, people, you know, and maybe the second in the if you’re a premium member, the third tier, that’s where you might be able to find great employees or get referrals for great employees.

 

Learn how to use LinkedIn as a marketing tool and for your job hunting

 

LinkedIn as a Marketing Tool: Put Your Thought Leadership Training into Practice

 

So let me give that back to you. Make sure I’m tracking you. So if you’re an Onward Nation business owner and somebody who you don’t know, but maybe you have a few mutual connections, somebody that you don’t know personally sends you a connection request. It sounds like you’re encouraging our listeners to go ahead and accept it.

 

As opposed to, I don’t know that person, and I want to keep my connections to only people who I personally know. Am I tracking you? You’re tracking with me. Now, I understand that a lot of people disagree with me on this fact, but you’re trying to expand your business. You’re trying to hire more people in a tough market.

 

So remember, we’ve got to look at the economic climate and why we’re making this decision. Well, and I think about all of the thought leadership that you’ve done over the last several decades and whether that’s the 2000 interviews or being on Oprah’s show or, the eight books that you’ve written, like all of that thought leadership has put this expertise out into the marketplace.

 

And then reciprocating or not reciprocating. But then the reverse of that is you’ve probably gotten a lot of, you know, LinkedIn connection requests because people become aware of you and so forth. It seems like it would be counterproductive to not accept those and not let your network grow after you’ve done all the work to grow the influence.

 

Yeah. If you want to be a thought leader, I think it’s after things start happening, after you get 10,000 connections. So, yeah, I accept people because I write about their careers. I write about job search. I write about how to improve your career, how to handle your career, how to manage it. And so, you know, I focused a lot on baby boomers and this and people.

 

Learn how to use LinkedIn as a marketing tool and for your job hunting

 

LinkedIn as a Marketing Tool: Think Through About Making an Information Public or Private

 

So people between 40 and 65, I’d say, you know, these are the people that really are looking for help. They want to listen to the guidance. They read articles. So it’s been, you know, it’s been an interesting time for me too, but I just can’t recommend it enough if you keep your network really small, which is great.

 

You can tell some things, you can get advice on certain things, but, you know, you can send a private message to any connection, right? And then get it and look at the contact information, see if they’re emails there and send them an email, right if you want. If you want something private, that’s how you do it. Be careful what you make public.

 

Really think through anything before you make it public. No politics, nothing like that. So let’s think about that then, because that’s kind of a good segue into daily habits, into maybe a recipe for success as it relates to LinkedIn. So one of the things you mentioned a few minutes ago was that we should be active, we should do marketing things every single day.

 

Learn how to use LinkedIn as a marketing tool and for your job hunting

 

LinkedIn as a Marketing Tool: How to Optimize Your Profile

 

So in your opinion, Robin, what are a couple of things that you would like to see business owners doing with respect to their own profile? Let’s say they’ve invested the hour and a half and they’ve got the kind of the script, they’ve got the words, they feel good about that. But what should they then be doing at this kind of next level beyond that on a daily basis?

 

One thing is LinkedIn now lets you create a background photograph. And I would suggest that they look at what industry is. I am, you know, who it is that I’m trying to attract. So let’s say, for example, that you’re in the music industry for some reason or you’re in medical practices. So say you’re a dentist and the background might be something related to your business, but you also want your business logo in there.

 

If the business logo is something that can be easily seen and it’s not going to distract from the image, you’re going to need a graphic designer to do this, because you’re going to want to put your business name in no matter what. And really think about that. It’s going to grab people’s attention once you create that, once it’s created for you, send it to all of your employees, send it to all your executives, and with a personal request, make this your LinkedIn background photo.

 

Here’s the steps on how to do it. So you want to make it easy for everybody, and you want to make it easy for yourself. You know, I did write an article about LinkedIn. It was a series of six articles. You can get that on my website. RobinRyan.com, if you, you know, need more guidance on this.

 

But it’s really important and it’s a real opportunity to do something to really market your company and make you stand out that your competitors aren’t doing. Yeah. It’s staggering. It really is staggering. How many business owners don’t take advantage of that? And I like how you were talking before about thinking, oh, it’s going to be the HR person is going to be the VP of culture is going to be the person of talent acquisition or is going to be, you know, that person.

 

That’s super important in using LinkedIn as a marketing tool. Whereas the business owner, not so much when I think you’ve illustrated expertly. Well, that sure, the person who might be running the hiring process might be the first visit, but then the business owner is going to get checked, too. and that’s going to weigh heavily in the decision making.

 

Learn how to use LinkedIn as a marketing tool and for your job hunting

 

LinkedIn as a Marketing Tool: Advertise And Make Recommendations

 

So, let’s think about this from a skills perspective. So is there a skill? Is there a skill set like a series of skills that you think business owners need to master in order to be good on LinkedIn? You just have to go there and use it. And if you don’t understand it or you don’t, and you’re really a neophyte, you know, ask somebody in your office who can maybe show you or you can go read the article that I talked about.

 

You can also go to Lynda.com. If you have a library card, you can often take the classes on Lynda.com for free. And there’s a lot of things there about LinkedIn. There’s a lot of videos so you could learn that way, but you’re going to learn it by doing it. And posting is really important. One other thing too.

 

You want to get some recommendations. It’s interesting how SEOs don’t think they need them, and so they don’t post them. But if you have a company that’s not a brand name, you’re not Apple, you’re not Google, you’re not Microsoft. You know, you’re not Starbucks. You’re not going to be bringing in everybody just on your brand name. You need to advertise and people need to come in, read a couple recommendations.

 

People who work with you say, wow, she’s fabulous. What a great manager. What a great leader this president is. Those are the kinds of things that really sway people to say, wow, I want to work for that company. I really hope I get that job. So, that’s something people don’t think about and it’s got to be part of your marketing plan.

 

So it’s another one of those, you know, one to every day you’ve got to do you make a list and within a couple of weeks you’ve made it all happen. Let’s go back to the 10,000 you mentioned. Some mentioned things start to get kind of exciting around that threshold. And that’s something that I wasn’t aware of.

 

And so should that be a business owner’s goal. Like if they’re, if they need to add more team members, you know, they’re in the recruiting phase and and yes, knowing that their best candidates are probably employed by somebody else already or some other firm. So what is it about the 10,000 number that sticks out for you?

 

Learn how to use LinkedIn as a marketing tool and for your job hunting

 

LinkedIn as a Marketing Tool: Seeking Out Top Talent

 

You know, it’s kind of a mystery. We’ve heard from LinkedIn that when you get there you make a move and you shift in the algorithm, and that means your posts are moving ahead of other people’s posts. See, the number of followers that you have is the clout that you have when you are posting. So if you post to 50 people, the algorithm is not going to be the same as if you’re posting and you’ve got 10,000 followers.

 

So, it’s something to strive for the right person. It’s not something you have to do. It’s not something. It’s not a personal goal of mine. You know, I’m probably going to get there pretty soon, but I don’t really care. I accept people because I want to help them. I want them to learn how to shape their career.

 

I want to make sure I use the media and I use the posting on LinkedIn and Twitter and whatever so that I can get a message out there. And that message is a helpful tip that matches. It’s a story that tries to show them, hey, there’s a different way to do this. I know most of your leaders are reading because they have to state in the, you know, advance, part of the business to be able to lead it, to be able to know what’s happening in the industry, to be able to see the changes.

 

You don’t want to miss the changes. You also want to follow other leaders like yourself. they may be competitors, whatever. But you want to see what they’re doing. You want to be paying attention to anybody in the industry who might have insight into a new change coming that you can take advantage of and make money off of.

 

Of course, but you might also need new staff. And so looking at competitors, that’s where a lot of the talent management goes to try to recruit new people. absolutely. And maybe well, okay, so let me throw this out and get your litmus test on this. Let’s say that a business owner is thinking about, you know, hiring some very key people for some key positions within their company.

 

Which would you think this would be an opportunity for them to go to the LinkedIn pages, the business pages of competitors go in and and click on see all employees for all the employees of that competing firm. And then to actually start, sending out connection requests to those employees or does that breach some level of I don’t know if it’s ethics or what, but would that be a good way to to start kind of proactively seeking out top talent?

 

Well, I hope it works that way. How we happen to look for talent is now recruiters have a different option. They’re paying a large fee and they can search headlines. They can search profiles of everybody. But for most of us, when you go in, you can search levels one two and you can see three. And so if you’re trying to look at another company.

 

So let’s just say we were looking for people who happened to work at Nordstrom. You type in Nordstrom’s and people, and then you’d click and all the people in your network that work for Nordstrom or have worked for Nordstrom would pop up. Those might be people that you want to connect with first, telling them that you have a job, sending them a personalized email.

 

You know, something that you’ve created that you can obviously copy and paste, and you could even pass that function on to a staff person, but you need to be aware of what’s going on. Don’t just think somebody else is going to do it, because remember, nobody responds to messages like you do. You don’t want to have a PR person that’s answering everything for you.

 

And then people come into the office to meet you, and you don’t sound anything like what they imagined because they imagine you when they read your profile and they read your posts. Okay. Fair point. okay. So let’s shift from LinkedIn as a marketing tool. And now let’s think because and here’s why I say that, because I want to chat a little bit about mentorship, and because I think what you’ve done during this conversation is you’ve given us great mentorship.

 

Learn how to use LinkedIn as a marketing tool and for your job hunting

 

LinkedIn as a Marketing Tool: Being Mentored by Dr. Pepper Schwartz

 

You’ve been a great LinkedIn mentor for Onward Nation business owners, and you’ve given me several really good authors, which is awesome. So, now I want to shift that and and now ask you to share with us the most influential lesson that you ever learned from one of your mentors. And then how that lesson helped you become the thought leader, the business owner, or the expert that you are today?

 

Pepper Schwartz was it? She is a sociologist at the University of Washington. And, Doctor Pepper is someone who really influenced me a lot when I was doing television early in the day. And she talked to me a lot about, you know, how to get on the national shows, what to do when you’re on the national shows.

 

You know, what kind of angles, what kind of stories they’re going to respond to? Because I had decided that television and radio was the way that I was going to get my message out about job search and career development. And through that, as people listened to my messages that my devices developed, people came to me. They wanted me to come and speak to their groups.

 

They wanted me to work with them on a one-on-one basis, but I didn’t do it for that reason. My goal was to help the masses, people who could never afford to work with me on a one-on-one basis. They might never buy a book, but they could take that tip and use it, and it would help them land a new job that was important to me.

 

So, she was a big influence. You know, there’s been a lot of different people in the course of my career, but she’s one of the ones that I think taught me a lot. It was awesome. I love the helpfulness, you know, mindset and whether there’s something in there or not for your business. And you might just be helpful to your audience for a day or a decade until maybe an opportunity arises in order for you to actually help them from a business perspective.

 

But I love the helpful piece. That’s awesome. So we covered a lot. I am grateful for that. Robin. But before we go, before we close out and say goodbye, any final advice you want to share? Anything you think we might have missed? And then please tell us the best way to connect with you, okay? 

 

Learn how to use LinkedIn as a marketing tool and for your job hunting

 

LinkedIn as a Marketing Tool: How to Connect with Robin Ryan

 

Your reputation as the head of your company is critical, and making sure that people want to work with you, that you’re easy to work with, that your company and your organization provides great customer service that whatever your product and services are, are, you know, really first class, that you’re the leader and you’ve got to ensure that’s what’s happening there. 

 

I’m Robin Ryan. You can find me many places, but the easiest is my website RobinRyan.com. So it’s RobinRyan.com. The article I refer to it’s called LinkedIn. You know, step by step guide. It’s a free article. I don’t know 15 pages. It’s on my website. everything you need to know in the real strategic step by step tips on, you know, what your photograph needs to look like, the background, so on and so forth.

 

So thank you for connecting today and teaching us about using LinkedIn as a marketing tool. One last thing. Oh yes, even the audience. You need to connect with Robin Ryan on LinkedIn and you need to connect with Stephen on LinkedIn. If you haven’t done that, go do that. That’s my tip for the day. You know, that’s a great tip. That’s awesome. And okay so here another big thing is that’s something I never say.

 

And I should write like absolutely. I should be encouraging Onward Nation to connect with me through LinkedIn. And how silly. Like I never ever ever say that. Well, everybody that’s listening, go to LinkedIn, find Stephen, find Robin Ryan and connect with both of us, okay? We want to connect with you. Okay. Really smart. So, Onward Nation, no matter how many notes you took, which I took a bunch of, I hope you did, too.

 

Or how often you go back and re-listen to Robin’s words of wisdom on using LinkedIn as a marketing tool. And I hope that you go to her website, RobinRyan.com and download the article. The key is you have to take action on what she shared with you today, what she so generously shared with you today. Take it, apply it into your business and be better for it.

 

And Robin, we all have the same 86,400 seconds today and I am grateful again that Henry introduced us. I am grateful that you said yes. Thank you for taking the time to come on to the show, and to be our mentor and guide to help us move our businesses onward to that next level. Thank you so much, Robin.

 

Oh, you are very welcome. This is my passion. This is what I love to do. This episode is complete. So head over to OnwardNation.com for show notes and more food to fuel your ambition. Continue to find your recipe for success here at Onward Nation.

 

Learn how to use LinkedIn as a marketing tool and for your job hunting