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Show Notes

Are you wanting to grow your business? Looking for new and innovative ways to drive more customers, increase visibility and expand your operations? Then don’t miss my friend Donna and I discussing the power of LinkedIn! We understand how daunting it can be to navigate this ever-changing digital terrain, which is why we’re here to help. In this episode we dive into how to use the platform most powerfully for business growth potential.

Connect with Donna Serdula

LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin-makeover.com/

https://www.linkedin-makeover.com/linkedin-resources/

Want to Work with Jennifer and her Virtual Marketing Experts Team?

Are you a coach, consultant, or online course creator who are looking to grow your business, increase your income, and scale your impact? Connect with me at YourMarketingMatchmaker.com I look forward to hearing from you.

Jennifer Tamborski 

Hey there. Welcome back to marketing matchmaker, I am super excited about today’s episode because we are talking specifically about LinkedIn. And I have a friend here that specializes in that. So I’d like to interview to introduce you to Donna. Donna is the founder and president of Vision Board Media, a professional branding company that helps individuals and companies tell their unique story on LinkedIn.

And beyond being dynamic storyteller, brand storyteller to the masses, and empowering people to dream big. That’s the ink in her pen. It’s her website, LinkedInmakeover.com, where she and her team of over 20 writers and coaches help people collide with the opportunity and transformation their lives via transform their lives via future forward brand career branding.

She’s authored two editions of LinkedIn profile optimization for Dummies, which we should probably all go run and get if we’re not going to hire her directly. She has been featured on Forbes business insiders times money section, Wall Street Journal MarketWatch, LA Times, NBC, Sirius XM radio, the focus group and many other news outlets, I am super excited to have you on Donna, I actually don’t spend nearly enough time in LinkedIn, even though like I run late, I don’t spend nearly enough time in social media land in general, I run ads, it’s all done in the back end, whether it’s LinkedIn ads, or Google ads, or YouTube ads, whatever ads, so we don’t spend a time enough time in front ends. So I love being able to talk to people like you, that can really help the audience understand the what, why and how of using platforms, from the front end of things. So I, we had a quick talk before our interview started. So just tell the audience kind of who you are and what you do, who you serve, like who is your ideal client when it comes to working for LinkedIn and in LinkedIn world?

Donna Serdula 

Well, Jennifer, first off, thank you so much for having me, I appreciate it. And it’s true. I love love LinkedIn, it’s my favorite network out there. I’ve been on it forever. I mean, I signed up for it back in 2005, which, you know, it’s like a lifetime ago. But, you know, I came from a corporate environment, I was in sales and marketing. And I also did a lot with CRM and Salesforce automation. And so you take that type of a background, and you present the LinkedIn platform, even back when it was, you know, in prehistoric days, I saw set, I saw such potential. I mean, it was this, like light bulbs were going off. No, not immediately, of course, but you know, the more I used it, the more I saw how it could be, you know, manipulated and and, you know, really just just used in a very organic way, it was like, everyone should be on it.

This is this is fascinating.

And, and one of the things that I noticed early was was the LinkedIn profile, specifically, that here was a personal website for every single person, and they didn’t have to pay for it. And it was not just a personal website, but it was something that you type a person’s name into Google, more often than not that LinkedIn profile is going to be one of the results.

And and people do like to click to see who Who am I meeting? Who have I met? You know, who is this person who’s calling me? Where did this email come from? Who is that person? Are they who they say they are? I need help understanding who this person is? And how do I relate to them? And what I should think about them, basically, how do I judge them?

And that, that LinkedIn profile really becomes almost the the fodder of that perception. And, and so what was LinkedIn saying, and what did LinkedIn say, for years and years and years, it’s your resume, and it’s not your resume. It’s not even even if you’re a job seeker. It’s not your resume, you know, but for most people, you know, it’s your it’s that first impression, it’s that introduction.

It’s that professional manifesto that says, This is who I am, this is what I stand for. This is what I do and why it matters. And how I make a difference. That that is what the profile should be. And it should be strategically written to the target audience and it should tell that story. The problem is, it’s really hard to write about yourself.

Jennifer Tamborski 

That is so true. I mean, every website that we’ve ever built or ever any website that you know anyone I know in the entrepreneur world, the about page, the hardest page to actually get written?

Donna Serdula

Yeah, it’s hard because one, people sit too close to themselves. Right. And oftentimes, you know, in their mind, they’re, you know, if it came easily to them if it if they enjoyed doing it, they don’t see it as being something that’s impressive. Right?

Jennifer Tamborski

Right.

Donna Serdula

It’s, it’s, and they sit so close, they don’t see their strengths. It’s like, it’s hard to really understand that. So you almost have to work with an objective third party to say, Well, wait, this is like, what you’re doing is amazing. This is special. This is this is important. This is fabulous. And we need to tell that story. So, so recognizing that was a huge platform, recognizing that it’s hard for people to do it, you know, I, I put out LinkedIn-makeover.com, we were one of the very first

agencies out there that said, Yeah, we’re gonna write your profile, but we’re not going to write it like it’s a resume, we’re gonna write it as a real, you know, manifesto, a real marketing document.

And I have 20 writers on my team, we’ve written over 1000, LinkedIn profiles, we work with companies, large and small. We work with individuals, you know, coaches and entrepreneurs, businesses, owners, who realize, you know, businesses about connections and contacts, and they’re looking so let’s, let’s make sure we shine.

Jennifer Tamborski 

Yeah, absolutely. I love that. Because I will say, I mean, I think I’ve probably, well, I looked at everything from a marketing perspective. So my profile is okay, but a lot of my clients not so much, because you’re right, the hardest thing to do is understand what makes us special? And what makes us stand out, because we assume everybody knows what we know.

Donna Serdula

Yeah, does true. It’s also when you look at that LinkedIn profile, right? What do most people do? Oh, it looks a little bit like a resume. So let me get my, my old, dry, out of date resume? And let me just copy it in? Or let me get that old bio, that, you know, yeah, I used for that, you know, panel that I was on five, six years ago, and let me copy and paste that in. Or let me go to the About section from my website and use that. And the thing is, you don’t want to keep recycling content, right? You want this content to build, and you want it to be very purposeful, and very strategic to that audience.

So you know, maybe they did visit your website, and they read that about section. But now they want to learn more. Do you want to just deliver the exact same message when they visit your profile? No, you know, and people do business with people. You know, so like, the profile shouldn’t be about you, it shouldn’t just be about your company.

Jennifer Tamborski

I agree. So when people are thinking about their profile, because I know, we’ve said two things, one, it should be about you, and it should also be directed to your ideal client.

So how do you merge that? Like, how do you merge it so that it is about you and your ideal client, it’s not like a resume or an about page, it’s something that’s going to attract the people that you want to attract on LinkedIn?

Donna Serdula

You know, it’s, it’s really about saying to yourself, Okay, you know, why am I on LinkedIn? You know, what am I really trying to accomplish? You know, is this for prospecting and sales? Is this for showcasing my expertise? Is this for reputation management? Is this for branding? Is this for networking, like really getting clear? This is why I’m on and then recognizing, okay, here’s your target audience, what do they need to know about you?

Like, what’s important for them to know, to feel good to feel confident in working with you? So is it is it understanding your background? You know, is it understanding how you cut your teeth? Is it is it understanding, you know, the other people that you’ve worked with? Is it understanding, you know, there’s, there’s just so many things to think in terms of, but really thinking, what do they need to know? Because we’re not going to throw everything against the wall and hope it sticks.

Jennifer Tamborski

Right?

Donna Serdula

It’s really catering that message to their needs. And, and, but also saying, you know, like, what am I proud of? What do I love, you know, and where do I want to aim? So I don’t want it to just be an obituary, I want it to be future forward. You know, so let’s, let’s talk about you know, where you want to go and what you want to do.

Jennifer Tamborski 

So obviously, there’s a difference, I think in like, someone who’s in corporate networking or looking for a job versus someone who’s out there as an entrepreneur business owner trying to attract clients? What does that look like for that entrepreneur and business owner that that makes it different from like, someone trying to find a corporate job?

Donna Serdula

You know, when you think of a job seeker, right? You want to think in terms of, they want to collide with recruiters, right? Hiring managers, right? What’s important to them? So, so let’s, let’s think in terms of like a salesperson, right? A salesperson who copies and pastes the resume, or really just thinks in terms of, oh, you know, what have I done and what was important to me as that job seeker, they’re going to post things like they’re going to have, you know, I have no problem prospecting, I have no problem asking for the check. You know, I can close big deals. Is that a message for recruiter? Yes? Is it a, is it a message for their target prospects? And clients? No, that would turn off a prospect. They’re like, No, they just see me as a number. I’m nothing more than you know, $1 sign to them, you know, so it’s, it’s now, now if that, that if that salesperson is now suddenly a job seeker, their target audience changes, then it works, right?

It doesn’t work there. So the same thing goes for, you know, that business owner, it’s not necessarily your own accomplishments, but it’s the accomplishments that you helped your clients achieve. Right? Right. It’s understanding that, hey, this is what I bring to the table, this is how it makes a difference. This is how I can make your life easier, whatever, you know, their business is based upon. Yeah, but it’s not just saying, Alright, this is my, you know, this is all the things that I did in the past. It’s how am I helping into the future? My clients, my prospects make a difference.

Jennifer Tamborski

Awesome. So how often should someone update their profile?

Donna Serdula

You know, it’s, it’s one of those things, if you think of LinkedIn as, as it is a search engine, right, a whole bunch of things, but one of which is a search engine, and you want to collide with opportunities. So if you if you think, Alright, well, maybe a person is going on to LinkedIn, and they are searching for a service provider. Maybe they don’t know that I exist, but they’re searching for someone who can help me with, you know, whatever it is that you do.

You want your profile to top, pop to the top, right, so you want to make sure that those keywords that they’re using are in your profile. But you also want to think in terms of what LinkedIn would be thinking. So if you haven’t updated that profile in a year, or two years, are they going to push that to the top knowing how stale and outdated is?

Donna Serdula

They’re not? Right, they’re going to favor a profile that’s much more fresh.

Jennifer Tamborski

Right?

Donna Serdula

Right. That just makes sense. You know, like, so we have to know that there. That’s what’s the in the algorithm? It just makes sense. Why would they be serving something that’s old?

Jennifer Tamborski

You know, I never thought about that. But you are absolutely. Right. I mean, if you think about just Google searching, Google pushes people’s SEO based on the amount of times they’re updating their website, right, that’s part of search engine. So that’s an amazing point. And mind blowing when I think, about it.

Donna Serdula

Yeah, so. So they, if you want to pop up, you want to make sure that your profile is fresh. And maybe that’s every, you know, once a month, maybe it’s once every two months, three months. But but you’re going in there and you’re you’re creating an edit, and you’re making a change, you’re you’re keeping it fresh, but you’re also active on LinkedIn. Right? Because LinkedIn doesn’t want to serve up a profile in which the person never logs in and never has any activity and never does anything. Right.

They want to, they want to reward the people who are active and involved. Because what if that profile pops up, the person loves it, they click the Send them a message, and there’s crickets, right? That’s not going to that doesn’t help LinkedIn, be known as that, as that provider that makes those connections and helps you find opportunity. So it’s that it’s a combination of keeping your profile up to date, and fresh, but also having activity on LinkedIn as well.

Jennifer Tamborski

So when it comes to activity, there was at one point, Facebook hated having like auto posters posting to their there, they’ve gotten over that it’s, you know, not a thing. But how does LinkedIn view that kind of thing of having, you know, an outside application pushing rather than going into LinkedIn directly and posting directly if that makes sense.

Donna Serdula

LinkedIn, it does actually. And LinkedIn actually has a list of of those aggregators that they like, they, you know, like, we like Hootsuite, we like this one and a list of the ones that they prefer. But with that said, I have noticed that if you are using, you know, one of those auto posters, those posts don’t do as well as if you go straight to the website or to the mobile app and enter it in yourself, there is a difference. But don’t let that deter you. It’s not a huge, it’s not a huge difference. It’s not a huge difference.

And it’s, it’s one of those things that if you can post and post consistently and in a sustainable, frequent manner, and you can do that utilizing, you know, one of these, you know, posting mechanisms, use it. Right, it’s better to do that and suffer a very slight little decrease in views and reach versus not posting at all.

Jennifer Tamborski 

Sure. What about like the LinkedIn newsletters that are relatively new? Um, you know, I mean, it’s, I think it’s been around for like, a year or so. But now they have the newsletters that connect to the LinkedIn articles that you’re posting. How often should you be posting articles? Should you be posting articles versus posts a combination of everything? Like, what is LinkedIn like on that kind of front?

Donna Serdula

You have to as a business owner, you have to say to yourself, Okay, how much time? Do I truly want to invest? And, of course, it would be great to be posting three times a week and putting out a newsletter. And then of course, we’ve got Instagram and Facebook, Tik Tok. You do have to work?

Jennifer Tamborski 

At some point? Yes.

Donna Serdula

At some point, so. So. Yeah, like the LinkedIn newsletters are fabulous. But do you have the time and you have an audience that’s going to read them? Right? No, and and you have to make that decision? And I’m not going to say yes, do it. You have to really sit down and think, Is it worth that your time investment? Do you have another newsletter that’s going out that it’s very easy to take that information and put it in. And maybe if that’s the situation, maybe it does make sense. I can’t even tell you the last newsletter that I read on LinkedIn, I subscribe to a slew of them. I rarely see new ones come out. And so So, you know, take it with a grain of salt.

This is what I would say. You know, I do think with LinkedIn, it depends on your target audience. But if you’re dealing with business people, if you’re dealing with people in corporate, if you’re dealing with business owners and entrepreneurs, LinkedIn is applier. Right, and more and more people are getting on. And they are and they’re using it to network because we don’t network in person like we used to.

And so LinkedIn is allowing us to network at a professional level, in a virtual way. And so when we look at that LinkedIn feed, and you start to scroll down, you see the people that you engage with, and you interact with regularly. They’re the ones that are populating your feed. It’s those close connections. And if you think about it, Instagram and Facebook have kind of gotten away from that, haven’t they? You know, at one time I go on Facebook and see my friends, I’d see my family now all I see are ads and, and, you know, companies that I’ve you know, I’ve liked, you know, so in some ways, LinkedIn is bringing us back to these are the people that you know, and you trust and you interact with and you engage with. So let’s, let’s show you their feed, let’s make sure that that’s elevated within your LinkedIn feed.

And I love that.

But with that feed, you scroll through and comment, right, you don’t even have to be posting, you can just be engaging with the content that’s already there. And then if you can post once a week, because posts live so much longer on LinkedIn than they do anywhere else.

Now, if you want to be a huge, huge thought leader and like you want to have 1000s and 1000s of followers, yeah, you’re gonna have to post every day, like, but for the most the average person out there. I think trying to post every day is not the best usage of your time. I think if you could comment on a post or two, that’s fabulous. But you know, if you could post once a week, something that, you know, an accomplishment, some advice or recommendation, news, things happening in your industry, you know, something that’s motivational, something that’s inspirational, something that’s honoring someone that you work with something of that of that level, and you put it out there, and you do that once a week regularly, you’re gonna, you’re gonna see some really good things happen. And I think it’s something that is completely and utterly possible within your current job and productivity and time management.

Jennifer Tamborski 

Awesome. So I think one of the things that I know about Facebook and Instagram and a lot of the platforms is that almost everybody is going to like short form video content, like that’s what they’re pushing reels or tiktoks, or Facebook or YouTube shorts, in LinkedIn kind of universe. What is it that they’re looking for when it comes to content when it comes to being present in in their world?

Donna Serdula

They are looking right now this is always changing. We know this..

Jennifer Tamborski

All of his social media platforms are always changing and so hard to keep up, which is why I encourage people to pick one or two, like, don’t try to be everywhere and everything.

Donna Serdula

Yeah, I will say this, the posts when you log into LinkedIn, and you scroll through that feed, and I that’s the big thing, scroll through your feed, scroll through it, engage with it, look at it, read it, you know, and you’re going to understand what LinkedIn values and what LinkedIn thinks you value because they want to make that feed the people you know, talking about the things you care about. So what do they value, they value conversations and engagement.

They want posts that produce a back and forth in terms of commenting and replying and commenting. That’s important to them. And so when we look at these posts, oftentimes they’re text based, oftentimes, they have some type of an image associated with it. But more so than anything, the posts that really do well, are the ones that have conversations taking place.

I do not see a lot of videos on LinkedIn, we do have them from time to time. But LinkedIn has not gotten to that point where it’s all video all the time. And if you’re not doing videos, you’re off the platform.

And I think it’s more because I think LinkedIn recognizes who their clients are.

 

Yeah, you know, we’re, we’re we a little older. We’re busy, we’ve got stuff going on. And you know, it’s a place to go to learn to be inspired to really understand what’s going on in your industry. It’s very, it’s still very professional.

Jennifer Tamborski

Yeah, yeah. So if you are because a lot of my my audience and some of my clients, some of them are b2b, and in that they’re looking to work with other business professionals. Some of them are b2c, right, they’re looking for, you know, people who they may be life coaches, or they may be health coaches, where it’s not necessarily looking for specifically an entrepreneur or CEO or whatever.

Is LinkedIn a good platform for them to be out there to find clients? Because I’ve said for years that LinkedIn is like a blue ocean, right? If you’re a content creator, and you’re looking for some place to settle, there’s a lot less noise to compete with on LinkedIn as a content creator than there is on Facebook, and Instagram, and YouTube and all of the other platforms. What’s your opinion on that?

Donna Serdula

You know, with with b2c, if you think of LinkedIn, it’s full of, it’s full of successful exactly, people. I mean, if you want to sell something, that’s a pretty nice audience to go to. I don’t want there are so many people out there who talk about the social selling and like, let’s get out there and prospect and sell and, and really, that it’s obnoxious, it’s obnoxious, you know, people take this, like, I’m immediately gonna get on there and I’m gonna sell, sell, sell, sell, sell, and it doesn’t work. It really doesn’t work.

But LinkedIn is a place to go to forge relationships, it’s a place to go to be seen, and to offer advice and, and to educate and to add value. And, and, and really make connections with people. And if you do that, consistently, sales happen, because people know you, they like you. They’ve learned from you. They want to work with you.

So is it a good place to go to find clients? Yes. I just don’t want you to go there thinking Let me sit let me let me get bot. And let me

Jennifer Tamborski 

Right? I totally get that because I think I think in general with marketing and as a marketer, You know this but people think it’s going to immediately work, right? They’re gonna go on they’re gonna post one thing or, or comment or connect with one person and automatically have buyers and that’s not how business or marketing or anything else goes right it is about creating relationships with people, whether it’s your audience or power partners or whoever it is, it’s about creating that that relationship. I still firmly that

Donna Serdula

it’s also about almost creating that army of people who love you who know you who who remember you. And when they hear, Oh, someone needs the I have someone for you. Yep. Absolutely.

Jennifer Tamborski 

Absolutely. I wholeheartedly agree with that. And I firmly believe LinkedIn is that blue ocean that it is a place for experts to show their expertise, whether you’re looking for b2b or b2c? I definitely think it’s a fabulous platform to be at. So as we wrap this up, let my audience know, how do they get ahold of you? Like what, where? Where can they connect with you, obviously, on LinkedIn, where else?

Donna Serdula

Obviously, LinkedIn is a good place. In fact, visit my profile, click follow and then click the bell in the upper right. When you click the bell, you get alerted to my most popular posts. So you can always stay up to date with the newest tips and tricks that are taking place on LinkedIn. I didn’t even know LinkedIn had a bell. like LinkedIn has a bell. Yeah, it’s relatively new.

Ring that bell ringer chime. You can also visit my website, LinkedIn, Dash makeover.com, LinkedIn dash makeover.com. And we do a whole bunch of things kind of weird. I will tell this odd we do some things strangely, we’ve been doing things strangely, for a long time. What do we do strangely one, I have tons of free tools, tons and tons and tons of free tools.

So check it out, I have a LinkedIn post generator. So what what it does is it gives you ideas of posts to create for LinkedIn, because it always people want to post they don’t know what to post. So these are just it’s this stream of ideas that you can tap into. I also have a LinkedIn headline generator. So if you want to start, you know, optimizing your profile, that headline is super important.

It’s a big part of the optimization of your profile, I have a way of generating a generating one for you automatically just put in a few things. And it’ll spit out a really great headline that you can copy and paste. So those are two of a bunch of tools that we give away. But we also have our new instant profile ecourse, which we use AI to generate your profile.

And we also have where you can work with us directly. And we do it for you. So you don’t even have to think about it. You can talk to someone and really have them pull the story out of you. And all of our pricing all of our services, everything is listed on the website, there’s no question. And if you if you look at it and you want to talk to us, it’s easy to pop on our calendar.

Jennifer Tamborski

That is awesome. I am super excited, I’m actually going to go check out your website because I am sure my LinkedIn profile could use an update. I’m not sure when the last time I updated my LinkedIn profile as y’all so if you haven’t done that yet, um, might be a good time to look at your profile.

 

And get started on that. Thank you Donna, so much for joining me today on marketing matchmaker. I thoroughly enjoyed our conversation and I know my audience will get a ton of value from it.

Donna Serdula

Thank you so much for having me.

Jennifer Tamborski 

Thank you all for joining us. I will I look forward to hearing from you on your view of LinkedIn and how things are working. Make sure you comment and on the YouTube channel or it on iTunes or whatever platform you listen or watch this podcast on so that I can know what you think of LinkedIn. Talk to you soon.

OUTRO: Thank you for listening to the marketing matchmaker podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, I would love to hear your feedback. Please head over to Apple iTunes and leave a review so we can hear from you. And if you are a coach, consultant or online course creator who are looking to grow your business, increase your income and scale your impact. Connect with me at your marketing matchmaker.com I look forward to hearing from you.