LinkedIn Mastery: From Beginner to Expert | Networking, Career Growth & Personal Branding

1. Intro skillshare: Logging into LinkedIn make you feel like you're shouting into an empty room? You see other people landing new careers, landing business opportunities and really progressing within their career, and you're really trying to figure out what are they doing that's so much different than me? It's really not that you lack the experience or the know how. It's more so that LinkedIn can be complicated, hard to navigate and feel very intimidating, especially if you're just getting started. So here in LinkedIn Mastery, beginner to expert, we break everything down, make it as easy as possible for you to navigate. There's no jargon, there's no complication. It's all very straight to the point in helping you get started, getting better and ultimately mastering LinkedIn. I cover everything from your profile to how to enhance how you utilize LinkedIn and much, much more. If you want to see the course curriculum, you'll see right away that it's going to help you every single step of the way. Whether you're a career seeker or looking to enhance your business, this class will be for you. So stop feeling confused, stop hiding. It's time to take on LinkedIn, jump into this course, enroll now, and you will make steady progress within your career, within your business, and take LinkedIn to the next level. I hope to see you in the course and look forward to working with you. Hello, and welcome to LinkedIn Mastery, your complete roadmap to professional success. This course isn't just about having a LinkedIn profile. It's about actually making it a powerful tool for you and your career. Literally going to take you from the basics to becoming an expert, helping you unlock opportunities that you might not even know exists. So go ahead, get ready to elevate your LinkedIn presence and help you achieve your career and life goals that you've set out before you. I want to start off and talk a little bit about why LinkedIn matters and why should you even care about LinkedIn? Because it really is one of the most powerful tools I've ever seen throughout the last several years. First of all, it's really more than just a website. It really is a global professional hub. As you can see from some of the stats here, there are literally over 1 billion professionals using it, 80% of primary source for leads, business to business. Is through LinkedIn. Every 6 minutes, there's a hire that's being made, and this is taken into account worldwide. And really, for professionals with complete profiles, they are typically getting 21 times more views. So yeah, the numbers really speak for themselves. Recruiters live on this platform. This is where a lot of employers seek talent. If you can understand the immense power that this has, then this course will really be for you and really help you out. And so talking further about the opportunity for LinkedIn, really, you want to make sure that it's just not a digital resume, but it really is your 247 career engine. So think about it. You can go from job seeker to talent magnet. You can actually attract opportunities without constantly applying. You can literally transform from an unknown professional to a recognized thought leader. You can share your expertise and gain influence. And instead of cold outreach, you'll actually leverage warm introductions through mutual connections that will open doors more and more easily for you. And your network can expand across the globe. You can literally break free from geographical limits, and the platform truly unlocks your potential in ways that traditional networking can't. So let's take a moment. We'll look at how we'll guide you through this journey. So quick outlook on this course. It is literally This is going to help you seize the LinkedIn opportunities. So we'll start with the foundation and the profile. From there, we're going to be covering everything from algorithm basics to optimizing your personal brand, and then we'll move on to strategic networking. This is literally where you're going to identify your target audience, manage your connections effectively, and then from there, we will go through content and engagement. Not only giving you a content strategy, but how to write hooks, take you through visual storytelling and engagement contacts. And then Part four, you can even become a thought leader. So this is where we'll really help you find your niche from there, we'll even help you develop your voice, help you create articles and ultimately become an authority. And then also from there, we'll finish off with advanced growth. So you can look at different sales tools, a 90 day action plan on how this is going to help you out. And so, yeah, let's go ahead and explore the many ways that this is going to help you out as we dive in to the LinkedIn course. And so our course is designed as a clear four stage journey really taking you from beginning to expert. And so, first of all, we're going to start with the foundation. This really is where you will build a fully optimized profile and establish your professional identity. Next, as you move to stage two, you're really going to move more towards connection. And so you'll be learning to expand your network strategically and authentically. Then we're going to progress to stage three, which is engagement. This is really focusing in on creating valuable content and establishing yourself as a thought leader. And then for stage four, you're actually going to become an authority. And so that's where you're really leveraging LinkedIn for business, for growth, for influence. And really, each stage it's built on the last. So it is a progressive course. It's also a comprehensive learning experience. And with this, we can even go ahead and jump into the first part, which is foundation. 2. LinkedIn's Algorithm: And so how does LinkedIn actually decide who sees your post? It's not random, and really understanding the algorithm is key to getting your content seen. So think of it as a four stage journey that your posts take from creation to potentially going viral. First, every post hits a quality filter. AI can quickly scan for spam, for low quality content. So you really want to keep it clean and you really want to keep it professional. From there, it enters into a testing phase. So this is where really a small piece of your network sees what you posted, and then it kind of gauges that initial reaction. And then from there, this is where engagement and velocity really matter. Comments are weighted heavily, even more than likes. Shares are really important. If your post gets really good early engagement, this is where LinkedIn starts distributing it to your second and third degree networks. The golden rule here, it's called dwell time. The longer people spend reading your post, the more engaging that it is, the more that LinkedIn really loves to promote it. So yeah, and then from there, this means that creating content is all about capturing attention. So now you know how to do your content so that it gets seen. And then we can talk about which kind of content you should be creating really by understanding the difference between a profile and a personal brand. 3. LinkedIn Goals: So you really should be setting your LinkedIn goals, and you really want to build on the idea of having a dynamic personal brand. It really is how you can define what you actually want to achieve on LinkedIn. So without goals, your efforts can be very scattered. There's a lot of professionals that are just going online, wasting hours and hours. And so you really need to set your intention up front. Are you looking to land a new position? If you are, then your strategy is really focused on optimizing for recruiters. It's really optimized for showcasing your skills so that you stand out. And yeah, your key metric here would be really profile views as well as messages that you're getting and employers that you're attracting. Or it might be to really grow your business. So if it is to grow your business, this is where you really focused on connecting with decision makers. You really want to focus on solving problems for potential clients. And here's where your success is actually measured by the qualified leads, the meetings that you're booking, and really, yeah, focus in on growing the business overall. And then your goal might even be to build authority. So this is where you're focused on content creation, maybe you're looking for speaking opportunities, you're engaging with your community. And here's where follower growth as well as content reach really might be the metrics that you're looking to expand. And so I'm sure you hear a lot about SMRT goals, but this really is where SMRT goals apply. You need your goals to be specific. You need them to be measurable, you need them to be achievable, relevant, and time bound. To everything that you're doing. So if you're just thinking LinkedIn is a social media platform, it's just to waste time to kind of be inactive or on the sidelines, this is where you can really break down whether what your goals are and what you're looking to achieve. 4. Profile Optimization: And really, with all of this, you want to start off and you really need to go ahead and optimize your profile. Here we'll take a moment to do a quick overview. And this will be really helpful. And I guess the main thing I encourage you to do is not just go through this and say, Hey, that sounds great, but actually step by step, take your time and implement this into your LinkedIn profile. Literally talked with thousands of professionals that consume this. But this is literally you take this, you implement it, you take it, you implement it, and I'll throw in some tips along the way. But we've broken it down to eight essential pillars of a high converting, LinkedIn profile. So think of your LinkedIn profile as your digital storefront. So literally every single element, it needs to be intentional. It needs to be high converting. And we can go through these one step at a time. So first of all, really is your profile photo. This is absolutely your very first impression, so it needs to be professional and it needs to be approachable. Also, there's your banner image. This is literally some of the most prime real state for your branding. So you can use it to really convey your value. And then from there, you have your headline. So this is more than just a job title. It's actually your chance to use keywords, tell people how you can help them out. This is really one of the most prime real estate pieces as well as it can really stand out to help you stand out to others. Then you have your about section. So this is literally your sales pitch. This is your call to action. This is where you tell your story. So it can really give a full overview of you, and as much as you want to be comprehensive, you also want it to be really concise and really get to the point of who you are. What makes you stand out? And then you also have your experience. So this is where you can focus on your achievements, focus on your metrics, not necessarily just your duties. From here, you actually want to make sure you list your education. This includes degrees. This includes certifications. These are little extra ways that can help you stand out. And definitely want to make sure you include these. I've had people that go through, they earn these degrees, they earn these certifications, and they don't even list it, even though they've spent months if not years pursuing these, and it's really something that can help you stand out. And then you really need to pinpoint your most relevant skills. This oftentimes is for SEO. This is for visibility. So whatever your top skills are need to be presented within your profile so that you can really stand out amongst others. The good and the bad is a lot of people have a ton of skills. A lot of people actually don't list them, so they miss out if they're in sales, marketing, do presentations, whatever it may be that are your top skills, there's a lot of people that actually forget to list them or skip over this section, but this is literally how you become the most visible within LinkedIn. And then you also want to make sure you gather recommendations. So this is from colleagues, this is from clients. And really, these elements help you stand out. This is what will literally take you from being someone glancing at your profile to someone really highly considering you for a job, for a business deal, for you as an influencer. And again, another area where people just don't take advantage of this opportunity to really stand out amongst the competition. 5. Profile Picture: And so breaking things down a little bit further. So, I said, Hey, you need a professional photo. And so what does that mean? I literally see different photos of all sorts, anything from selfies to group photos to, Hey, I just crop someone out. Anything from vacations to professional photos to on the beach. And so here are really some of the very best practices as you're picking your folk. This really is your first digital handshake. This is the first impression for anyone you're going to be doing business with, anyone that you're laying a job with. And so, first and foremost, you really want to make sure that the lighting is great. There are some photos that are way too dark, way too light. And so you need to find something that avoids harsh shadows. You really want that natural light facing you, and you really want a photo that is backlit. And I think even if you take five, 10 minutes searching around LinkedIn, you'll start to notice photos that really stand out and that are professional. And then you'll really start to realize that there's a lot that have a lot of room for improvement. And then from there, you really need to pay attention to your background. There's a lot of people that have distracting backgrounds. They have other people in the background. They have their car in the background, non professional setting. So make sure it's clean, make sure it's not distracting, solid colors or blurred office space, a couple of things that work really well for this. And then this is really important, as well. So when it comes to a tire you want to wear what you're typically going to work, what you're typically going to wear as you're client facing, as you're doing deals. This is really the same impression someone would have if they were to meet you for the first time. And then last is really that expression. So you want to be warm, you want to be approachable, direct eye contact really builds that first impression. And all of these things seem minor, seem like, Hey, I can get away with it, or, Hey, I don't have a photo or I really don't want to spend the time and energy or the money. But this is so important. This is passing out your business card. This is what other people show other people. And so it really goes above and beyond to make sure that this is great and this stands out. And so a pro tip, I really think investing in a professional photographer, it doesn't have to be expensive, but you do really want a headshot as it is going to last for years. It's something that's going to represent you for a while. 6. Banner Image: And so looking further into your banner image. So this oftentimes it's part of that first impression within the first couple seconds that people are seeing this. People are able to judge, like, where you're at, what you're doing. So really a great example of how you can use this digital billboard that really is considered prime real estate on your profile. This is where you can make very powerful statement. A quick and easy template to use is I help insert your target audience, achieve and insert the results. You want to have your website front and center. And then also this is really how you build authority. This is how you build trust. This is where you can show results. And it's a great place for logos. It's a great place for, like I said, your website or an email. But the trick here, there actually is a blind spot, so that bottom left corner will get covered by your profile picture. So make sure that you keep that clear. And always make sure that your text has contrast, make sure that it stands out, and that your key info here is centered so that it looks great on mobile, as well. Very easy to use tools like Canva, very easy to get this setup, really, this is a lot of what's going to sell your value. Make sure you take advantage of the banner image to really help you in your career and in your business deals. 7. Crafting Your Headline: Alright. And from here, this is where you're going to actually craft your headline. This is where a lot of people just put their job title, but you're actually going to want to do so much more than that. Your headline, it's not just a simple label. It actually is a powerful statement of your value. And it can be very easy to do. The winning formula, it's actually pretty simple. You really just want to combine your core role with your unique value proposition. What does that mean? It's really talking about who you help and then the results that you deliver on. And you're going to want to sprinkle in some key words for searchability. A quick example for that is you don't want to just be sales manager at TechFlow Inc. Instead, you want to be a essay, like a SAS sales manager helping FinTech startups scale to 10 million annual reoccurring revenue. And so you can see the difference. One is not very searchable, whereas the other one explicitly lays out, like what you do and what you help out with. And it really is about showcasing your impact, and it really is not only talking about your core role, your value proposition, but including those keywords that are going to help you out. And so that was the example I was giving and you can see the difference. And then the main thing I recommend is if you are looking to create a great headline, you're running out of ideas, you really want to search around other profiles to really see what else is out there, what else exists, and you'll start to notice that there's a lot that fall more into a client magnet versus just a boring default overview. 8. The About Section: And then of course, there is your about section as well. This is where you're actually going to tell the story that truly sells your expertise. And it isn't just a list of facts. You actually want it to It's designed to really draw people in. And so you're going to start with a compelling hook. You want something that really has people wanting to see more. So you're going to start with a bold statement, a question or a surprising fact, something like I used to hate sales until I realize it's just helping people. And then from there, you are really going to talk more about your story. So this is where you're connecting the dots of your career, why you do what you do. You can even share a struggle or a pivotal moment. Quick example here is after ten years in finance, I pivoted to tech, to build, and then talk further about what you had the chance to build. And then also and then next, you're going to talk about the value that you provide. So a lot of times this is that service. This is really shifting the focus to whoever's reading it. So how does your experience actually help them out? Here, you want it to be easily readable. So this is where bullet points are very helpful, quick and easy to the point, keeps you organized. A quick example here is I help SAS startup scale 1000000-10 million. Then you do want to make sure you have a call to action. So this is the section where it actually allows you to tell them what they can do next in order to connect with you and leads to an actionable item. 9. The Experience Section : Alright, and then we're going to start talking about the experience section and how to make this actually stand out. So this is where you're moving beyond just a list of duties, and you start to actually quantify the impact that you're having. And so one of the secrets here is you do want to start with what we call power verb. And then from there, you want to describe the specific task that you're helping out with, and you also want to go ahead and improve with a measurable results. And so talking a little bit further about what this looks like. Instead of just saying you were responsible for selling software, you would say you generated 1.2 million in new revenue by closing 15 enterprise deals. You can start to see how that actually changes the dynamic of what you're saying, how you're saying it. And it's just a lot more impactful for someone that's reading it. Another example, something that's duty based. This is really, Hey, I manage social media accounts and wrote posts. A way to strengthen that is to say that you spearheaded content strategy that grew LinkedIn following by 150% and increased engagement to 4.5%. Again, a way to say the same thing, but a lot stronger to the reader. And then one more example, instead of just saying you led a team of project managers, you can go ahead and say led a cross functional team of ten implementing agile workflows that reduce project delivery time by 20%. So yeah, there's a lot of ways to stand out. This experience section is definitely a way to start to quantify that impact. You don't just want a list or a simple list. You want to go on and always keep in mind that it's an employer, it's someone that you're networking with. It's really someone that is ultimately deciding if they want to work with you or not or promote you or not or consider you for a job opportunity or not. So the more that you can stand out, the more that you can show with power verbs, specific tasks, and measurable results, it's really the more that you're going to stand out to the person that's reading this. 10. Skills And Endorsments Strategy: And so here you come to the skills and endorsements section. There really is a strategy to this. These skills and endorsements, not only are they going to help out with your visibility, but they're also going to help out with trust. So people are not only going to see you more, but they are going to have a lot more trust in you, as well. And so first of all, you really want to make sure that you max out your 50 skills. You have a whole lot of ways that you can pick different keywords, different ways to stand out. A lot of people go through. They pick out maybe five, ten. You really don't want to stop there. You want to go ahead and use all 50 as this will help you get more overall visibility. And then you're going to actually go ahead and pin your top three. These are the only skills visible at a glance. So you really want to make sure that these are truly geared towards either what your goals are, who you're working with, and really help you stand out the varied most. Alongside of that, you have SEO keyword match. So you're going to use industry terms instead of, like, for example, you want to say project management rather than creative variations so that recruiters can actually find you. Sometimes there's a lot of acronyms. You can put the acronym, but actually recommend that you write the words out. So instead of saying, I mean, something as simple as MBA, like you might put Masters of Business Administration. I mean, you can have both, but really, you need these keywords to ultimately help you stand out the very most that you can. And then also, you do want to go ahead and endorse others. This is called the give to get rule. It's really one of the fastest ways to get endorsements is to first go ahead and give them out. You can go ahead and endorse colleagues, and you want to do it for things that they're genuinely skilled at and that make a lot of sense. So if you have a colleague that is really good at sales or communication or project management, whatever it may be, you want to actually genuinely give out endorsements that pertain to what they're doing and what makes sense. And then they're going to be a lot more inclined to return the favor and also do it in regards to what makes sense for you. You don't want just a random click, click. This is where you can actually, again, genuine being the main word, the main way to help other people out. So, yeah, skills and endorsement. There really is a strategy behind it. You really want to max it out. The top three are going to be what helps you pinpoint it, and then having a variety of keywords spelled out, as well as going ahead and endorsing others before you just expect people to pour into you and give you endorsements for your own profile. 11. 500+ Connections: Alright. And here we have the 500 plus connection milestone. What is this talking about? Basically, on LinkedIn, the first major thing you want to do in order to establish yourself on the platform is have 500 plus connections. And if you're thinking, Hey, is that a random number or why 500. The major thing is, it really provides a certain sense of social proof. So anyone that has connections over 500 it just says 500 plus. So what that shows is if you have less than 500, that you might be a newbie, you might be someone that's barely using the platform, it ultimately shows that you really don't have that big of a network. And so where 500 is also really important is it does lead to a bigger network reach. So the power with LinkedIn is once you connect with people, then you're able to connect with their connections, which means once you're connected with them, you can connect with their connections. So simply adding even one or two connections that have 10,000, 20,000 connections, you instantly like exponentially grow your network. So it can get pretty big pretty fast, but as other people are looking at your profile or potentially wanting to reach out to you, they have that sense of that they want to know they're connecting with someone that is well connected, as well. This also does help with your search visibility as well. So if you have a small network, you might get weeded out or filtered out. Others won't see you as often as if you do have a large network. And so 500, it really doesn't take that long to get to. I think within a month or two of a concentrated effort, consistency, reaching out to those who can expand and really has a snowball effect as to who else you can go ahead and connect with. At the end of the day, yes, you want at least 500 mainly for that social proof. It allows you to reach more and allows people to be able to see you a lot better on the platform. So if you haven't already, get out there, take your time, but also be consistent, and you'll be to 500 plus in no time at all. 12. Who To Connect With: Alright, now I want to talk about who you actually want to connect with. And so you really do, at the end of the day, want to build a balanced network really across three key tiers. You'll see up here. So we have your peers and colleagues. You have deal prospects, and you have industry leaders. And all three of these are going to serve different purposes. All three are a little bit different. But yeah, getting a little more specific about who you should connect with. First, your peers and your colleagues. So these are really people that are at your level. They might be alumni, they might be co workers. Really, they are very likely to engage with your content and help you provide social proof. And really, the primary goal here is engagement and reach. And so this is definitely going to be a critical part of your support system. Yes, they are likely to help you out. They're likely to keep an eye out for you. And these are people you should definitely prioritize and connect with. And then here is where the real networking starts to begin. So these are your ideal prospects. This could be your hiring managers, potential clients that you're looking for, or decision makers. These are really the people that can directly impact your business or your career or your revenue. And this is where you can be you don't have to be ultra selective. But at a certain point, if you're looking to make progress in your career, looking to land a deal, these are the people who can actually have an impact on the decision making process. Really, a big focus here is really finding the right people, not just necessarily expanding your network. So this is really where you're starting to look into conversion and sales and really leading towards some decisions being made. Then from there, industry leaders are great. I wouldn't put this as the number one priority. Typically, these are either influencers or top voices in your niche. You're really connecting with them to stay updated. Again, this is a lot of the learning as well as visibility. This can keep you in the know, whether it's within your career field or news or updates or trends that are going on. So these can be very important, very good ways to really expand your reach as well in the sense that most of the time industry leaders are pretty well connected. So it makes it easy, once you are connected with them, and sometimes it can bring that bit of credibility to you. If you're connected with a key leader in that area and other people say, Oh, you're connected with SNS outswere I might make it an easier connection to make with them. So yeah, so just looking through it, I would definitely say right away, first and foremost, you want to prioritize peers and colleagues. Some of the lowest hanging fruit, if you will, are the easiest people to connect with for that engagement and reach. Ideal prospects is where a lot of real networking begins, the sales, the conversions, the advancing your career path. And then you definitely don't want to overlook industry leaders as they can keep you in then, help with visibility, help with learning, and overall, make it easier for other people to see you and want to connect with you. This all helps out with the balance and with building out your network. 13. Connection Request Formula: And then every time you're sending out a connection request, ideally, you're not just sending out a blank request. So this is a little bit of a formula that you can use super helpful, super easy to use, and oftentimes it is going to lead to higher connection rates, connecting with people. Put some context around why you might want to connect. And instead of people just ignoring you, they will actually make the effort to make that connection. And quick note here, there is a constraint of only 300 characters. So just keep in mind, you can't have these intro connection requests super lengthy as you do have to boil it down to only 300 characters. And so you really want to do four different steps. So you want to put context around your message. You really want to compliment them. You want to bring out a commonality, and then you do want to have a soft CTA. And so putting context around it, this can be ultra important. I think sometimes if you're virtually tapping someone on the shoulder or reaching out, they might have no clue as to why you are, what's going on. So whether you found them like you found a post they had, whether it's an event or a group, or maybe you met them in person, and you really want to tie down that context as to why they should have a clue who you are, and you're not just a random person reaching out to them. Compliments go a long way, specific praise that proves that you're not just spamming them. So if you read an article they wrote or you notice they have an amazing profile, and they really maybe went to the same college as you or I guess that's more under commonality, but really just being able to pick out something that's specific to them so they know you're not just copy paste. And yes, that's where commonality can be one of the strongest polls that shows that you actually looked at their profile. So if you're able to say, Hey, we both went to the same college or, Hey, I know someone that went to your college in the same class as you, or you have shared group or just anything that you can relate to or that you have in common with them, whether it's like a certification or even where they live, all of that kind of brings it more to a commonality that they can connect with. And then you do, at the end of the day, want to have some kind of CTA. It can be very low friction, something as simple as would love to connect can go a long ways and actually lead to them taking action and making that request happen. Just looking at a couple examples, again, keep in mind, you only have 300 characters, so this keeps it well within the 300 character limit. But yeah, you could say something as simple as high, put in their name. That always helps goes a long way. Show that again, you're not just copy paste, but I've been following your posts on SAS sales. Your recent insights about shortening deal cycles really resonate with me, especially the part about multi threading. Would love to connect to see more of your work. Very personalized, has their name, compliments them, has that commonality, and then really says, Hey, let's connect in a very low friction subtle way. So then, yeah, mutual friend. This can be a lot easier, a lot better way to connect and really quickly expand. Hello, their name. I notice we are both connected with Sarah Jenkins. She speaks highly of your work in Fintech marketing. I'm also in the space and would love to connect and keep up with your updates. So again, meets the formula, puts context to a very strong mutual friend, calls it out specifically there, and yeah, makes it a lot easier for this person to instantly and quickly say, Hey, yes, that makes a lot of sense for us to connect. And then here's an example if you attend the same event as someone else. Again, this makes it a lot easier to make that connection, but hello, enter their name, saw you in the comments of the product led webinar today. I also found the discussion on freemium models fascinating. We love to connect with fellow product leaders. Hey, we both connected both attended this webinar, also complimenting them, and then really bringing it home that you would like to connect. And again, none of this has to be too stressful. None of it has to be too impactful. But just simply laying out the context, giving a simple compliment, having that commonality, and then making a low friction call to action is all something that can really go from kind of hit and miss or a lot of people ignoring you. To really having where most or almost all of the connections you're reaching out to have a reason to trust you, have a reason to connect with you. And it's just one of the quickest and easiest ways to actually get that visibility, get that reach, and really expand your network. 14. Warm Vs. Cold Outreach: Alright, now it's time to talk about warm versus cold outreach. And depending on what it is, it's going to completely determine your approach, and at the end of the day, you never want to use a generic script. And so first talking about warm outreach, really, who is this? Who would you consider your warm kind of audience or warm outreach? And typically, this is former colleagues, it's alumni, it's friends of friends, event attendees. And really here, the strategy is you want to leverage that shared context immediately. Really want to remind them how you know each other. You don't want them guessing whether, hey, this is a stranger or why is this person reaching out to me. Typically, these are people that really should know you right away, almost instantly or just with a quick reminder. But again, a quick example of this is, Hi, Sarah, great to see you on here. It's been a while since we worked on the Delta project at Acme Corp. I love to reconnect and hear what you're up to at your new company. And just a general rule of thumb, really within the first 3 seconds, if they can't tell why you message them in 3 seconds, they're not going to reply. And this applies to both warm outreach as well as cold outreach, which cold outreach is definitely a different approach. And first of all, who is that that you're talking to more so in a cold outreach. This is going to be someone that's an ideal prospect. It's these recruiters, it's industry leaders, at the end of the day, it's typically someone that is a stranger, so it falls just outside the warm outreach lane, if you will. And so this strategy, you're going to lead more with relevance, as well as keeping it brief. You want to answer why me, why now, and really just instantly captivate the person that you're reaching out to. Example here would be High Mark. I really enjoyed your recent post about AI and healthcare. I'm researching similar trends and would love to connect to follow your insights. And yeah, at the end of the day, there's warm, there's cold. You do want to have slightly different approaches, but at the end of the day, if they really can't tell why you're messaging them, or it just feels weird or you feel like a stranger. They have no idea what's going on or no contacts around it, they won't reply. So make sure you reach out with a message that captures that attention within 3 seconds. 15. Following Companies And Influencers: On LinkedIn, it can be very powerful to follow companies and follow influencers. This is actually really going to help curate your feed, and it's really you don't want to let the algorithm decide what you learn. You want to craft really what you're learning and what you're seeing on a day to day basis. And first of all, when you're following companies, you really are following them for market intelligence, talk about hiring trends, company culture insights. And here is where you can actually typically follow the top five industry leaders. You can also follow direct competitors. That'll give you insights to what's going on within your own job market. And then it's always great to also follow dream employers. So keeping in touch with what you want to do or what you may be doing in the future. And then influencers, this is all rough guidelines. So take it with a grain of salt, and it changes as years goes on and things like that. But really, you're following them for inspiration. You're following them for new perspective and also for networking opportunities. And really, if you want to follow three macro, this is someone that has 100,000 plus followers. If you want to follow ten micro, this is kind of that ten to 50,000 followers, and then you can follow a variety of diverse voices as well. Then hash tags. This can actually train the algorithm to show you content inside of your immediate network. So hashtag, your industry could keep it pretty broad. Hashtag your specialty will niche it down a little, and then hashtag trending topics will kind of keep you more up to date or on the daily activities that are going on. And then for all of these, yeah, you can actually basically not just follow them, but you can click to get notifications on the profiles of your connections. And then this really helps you to be some of the first to comment on their posts, to really gain that visibility, and just a great way to be ahead of the curve. It basically gets you notifications and a keeps you on top of everything. So yeah, definitely go out, follow a variety of companies, follow a variety of influencers, look into some different hash tags. And then when you find the ones that you're looking for that are best suited for you, you don't have to do this on all of them. In fact, I wouldn't recommend doing it on most, but for the top areas for companies, influencers or hash tags, if you want to click ring the bell, that's going to keep you updated and keep you notified. 16. LinkedIn Groups: So for LinkedIn, if you've been on for any amount of time, there are a variety of groups, and this is where a lot of strategy comes into play. And so, first of all, you want to ignore the noise. You really want to find the 1% of groups that actually drive business. And so how do you go about this? So basically, there's some groups that I would consider the gold mine. So these are groups that have active discussions, people are asking questions, writing long comments. You should be able to tell right away if the group is active and people are actively participating. There's more than several comments per post. You really start to see right away that, hey, this is a group that is active and has an active audience. You really want to find groups that have strict rules, no self promotion, the policies actually force the members to add value. I'll be talking a little bit about what you don't want, but this just really helps to get you what you do want. And then really looking at a niche focus, whatever it is that you're focused in on, you want to make sure that it's highly relevant. So for example, if you're looking at AAS, CMOs in fin tech, this is going to be very niche down to those that are looking for that topic. Really puts you more aligned with others. It really leads to more business, more job opportunities. But the more niche you can find, the better suited for you it's going to be. So then looking at the other side of it, there are groups that are what we call the ghost town. This is where people are just going in there and literally blowing up the feed with posting links to their own blogs, no engagement. It's just really spam at this point in time. Yeah, there's little to no moderation. That's where the spam gets out of control. You'll notice these groups right away, pretty easy to spot. And even if you just scroll one or two pages, you'll start to see whether it's that active discussions or if it's just spam on spam. And then sometimes it's easy to get way too broad. So if you're just looking at marketing profession, this could be all over the place. It's just really hard to get a coherent or that's why you want the niche focus because you really want something that's relevant to you, but this just gets noisy and it gets hard to actually stay focused on a specific helpful topic or job opportunity that you might have. And then here you'll see that there is a messaging loophole. So joining a group, this automatically opens you up to a ton of different members. You can directly message them for free, even if you aren't connected. So out of all the different strategies, this is really one of the best and kind of most unknown. Hey, I wish I could message this person or that person. But once you join the same group, really, we call it the loophole, but automatically just opens up the lines of communication. So go out there, find the groups that ultimately are a gold mine, avoid any that are a ghost town, either stop joining them or don't join them in the first place, and then realize that groups are incredibly powerful driving business, finding opportunities, finding careers, and really allows you to send direct messages. And I think the best word here is for free. And then, second best is if you aren't even connected. So really a great way to expand your network, get focused, and really make deals and moves within your career. 17. Networking Etiquette: As for network etiquette, networking etiquette, the unwritten rules really determine your reputation, and you really have to take these seriously. If you're out there, you're networking, you're doing it improperly, I can actually ruin opportunities that you don't even realize you're ruining. And then on the flip side, it can actually gain opportunities that you might not realize that it's affecting. And so we're going to start out with what to avoid. And definitely want to avoid the pitch slab. So, what is this? This is sending a sales pitch immediately after connecting. I don't know how many per day I get of these or per week or per month, but one of the biggest ways to either get unconnected from or avoid or blocked is to connect with someone and then go straight into a pitch. It's like meeting someone for the very first time, meeting them at a party or get together, and then right away, you're just trying to sell them something not warranted, not needed, and definitely a way to ruin that connection. Also, the brain picker. So this is asking to pick your brain for 15 minutes without really a clear agenda or offering any value in return. This is definitely for anyone that's successful or busy or professional, they do not want to just waste time. And so just saying, pick your brain, it's mainly if it's really no clear agenda, no connection. Typically, this is an automatic, no, automatic like block spam. This kind of when someone knocks on your door unintendedly, and just wants to waste your time. And then this one, hopefully, you're not doing it or even thinking about doing it, but it does happen from time to time. It's basically where you go in and you tag spam people just to get that visibility. So I've been in posts where you get tagged in it or messages, and it's just not a good look, especially if it's someone that you don't even know and brings no value. At the end of the day, it's really mostly annoying. So look to avoid that. And then on the other side of all of this, some things that you really want to do. Really value first. So this is if you're offering an insight, you're sharing a resource. Compliments are the quick and easy way to really start conversations or get people to. And then the opposite of the brain picker is an actual specific ask. So if you're going in, you're deliberate about what you're asking about, it's much easier for someone to respond to that appropriately. It's much less of a turn off. So this is where if you go in, I have one specific question about XYZ. It's something where it actually sets someone up to respond and know that there's a clear cut really value or agenda that they can bring back to the table. And then there's also the graceful exit. So if they don't reply, let it go, you can really respect their silence, and then there's a lot of potential to connect in the future. So I think sometimes people think of the very first time, the immediate, the now. What can I get done today about a lot of these relationships and connections. It could be months down the road, it could be years down the road, but it's not something that you just have to smother into today, today or now now. Then really, at the end of the day, the golden rule, you want to treat LinkedIn DMs like a cocktail party and not a telemarketing call list. I think just in general, this should be pretty straightforward. But I think where the challenge is sometimes it's tempting. Sometimes you feel like, Hey, I don't want to waste time. Sometimes I want to get what I need to get and get out. But that's where that etiquette comes into play. Respect people's time, energy, respect their value. And then if you're following a lot of these rules, that's where you're going to have a lot better response. And like I said, this is all a little bit midterm, long term, and if you're going in, you're doing all of these, you can actually spoil a lot of opportunities down the road. If you're going in and doing a lot of the positive ways of networking. Yeah, months, years down the road, it can actually lead to a positive outcome. 18. Manage Your Network: Managing your network. So this is all about turning a chaotic list into an organized asset. And right here, I have a couple of different areas to cover, but first is the memory bank. Basically, you're going to use the relationship tab on the profiles to add notes, record how you met, and what you discussed. Really, you're doing this because there's probably way too much information, way too much going on. So it's going to be hard for you to remember, but this is a great way to keep tabs on what's going on. And then there is a tier system. So basically, tier one is your VIPs. This is who you're interacting with on a monthly basis. Tier two is prospects. That's who you're checking in with on a quarterly basis. And then just general connections are those that maybe you get, like, an annual update and aren't as infrequent of contact with. And then there's also pruning. So what do I mean by pruning? Basically, there's times where it makes a lot of sense to go in, unfollow people, disconnect from people that are inactive profiles or just really aren't relevant. Maybe they were relevant at one point in time, but now they're not. And you really just want to clean up your network so that it's most advantageous for you and for others that you're meeting. And so quick data safety tip. You don't own your LinkedIn data. You need to actually export your connections to a CSV file once a quarter as a backup. And yeah, you just want to make sure that you continually are managing your network. You want to have notes, and you might know someone well. Now, but as a year or two goes by, it's going to be hard to remember. There's definitely different levels of people that you're connecting with and the frequency that you're connecting with them, and then it never hurts to go back and declutter your network. And then as we talked about, yeah, go through, download everything so that you have it available once you need it. 19. Network Growth Metrics: So here are some network growth metrics, and you don't want to just count connections. Really, at the end of the day, you want to measure relevance and engagement. And so these are all kind of just things to be aware of, some generalizations. But really, starting with acceptance, right, this is the number of people who actually accept your connection requests. So if you're really just out there, reaching out to anyone and everyone, this can be very low. And so this is one of the biggest quickest and easiest ways to get this. You want it roughly over 30% or better than 30%, which would mean one out of three or so are accepting you, and a quick fix on this is to actually personalize every invite that you're sending out. And then search appearances. So this is Are you being found by the right people? Are they actually using the keywords that makes sense for you to be found? And so one of the quickest fixes for this is if you go ahead and optimize that headline, go ahead and optimize the keywords that you're using. And this often goes overlooked. Sometimes people are like, Hey, I'm a real estate agent. I don't know why I keep getting different, maybe outside of real estate or really comes down to a lot of the keywords you're using and especially right there in the headline. And also profile views. So how many people are actually checking you out? This is a direct result of your commenting strategy, your content reach, like what you're doing, how you look. And one way that you can really expand who's looking at you is by getting LinkedIn there, really starting to be more active. If you're doing like five different posts or comments on five different posts per day, we can really get you more exposure to others. And then also a reply rate. Ideally you're getting at least 20%. That would mean one out of five. But this is the percentage of people who are actually warmed up to you. They're really engaging with you. And sometimes here, if you're not getting a good reply rate, you realize that you need to be asking questions. You need to be taking the individual as the individual and not just pitching. And quick warning sign. If your acceptance rate drops below 20%, that's where LinkedIn starts to feel like you're spamming people or just reaching out to anyone and everyone. And so there are times where your account can be put on pause and really you want to refine what you're doing, go back to the basics of everything that we've been talking about. 20. Content Strategy: In terms of your content strategy, so here we have the 411 rule. Really, this is the secret to selling without being super salesy. And so looking at it across the board real fast, you want to curate and educate, you want to create and inspire, and you want to convert and see. So it's not always just sell. It's not always just curate, does not always just inspire. You really want a balanced combination of this. So if you follow the 411 formula, you start to see with the four curating and educating, this is where you are just out there giving value. You're sharing relevant news. You're giving helpful tips to others. It's educational content. This is not where you're pitching. It's simply where you're just being helpful to others. So as you can see, you should be doing almost four times as much as this as you are these other two. And then feel free to create and inspire. This is where you're out there building authority, building your original thought leadership, your personal stories, or case studies. Show your expertise and your unique perspective. So again, this is where it can be a little more personal. This is where it really draws people in. It should be attracting the people you want to attract and maybe keeping away the people that you don't want to attract. But yes, this should be within the blend content strategy. And then at the end of the day, a lot of people want to convert and sell. So this is where you're doing more of a direct promotion. And hopefully, at this point, as you're giving value, building authority, then by the time you ask for the sale, it's that much easier. And so this is not just selling services or products or goods. This is even where you're selling yourself. So selling your ability to get hired. This is where you're selling people to jump on a webinar with you. Yes, it can be your product, your course. And at this point, again, hopefully you've built enough relationship, you've built enough value that at this point, selling is really not salesy at all. And good rule of thumb, so you want to give value 80% of the time to earn the right to sell about 20% of the time. Yeah, if you follow all these, the 411 rule, this will come across as very authentic. You really are helping people. You really are teaching. You are overall providing a lot of value. If you've ever seen anyone that stays only in the cell cell cell, it can get very annoying very quickly. And then if you really stay only in this area, you're basically selling yourself short on potentially building your business, developing opportunities and really yeah, at that point, ideally, you have that you've earned the right to go ahead and sell, and it feels natural and, like, an easy choice for those that are buying. 21. Types Of Content: So there are a variety of types of LinkedIn content. And here, you really have to make sure that you match your message to the right medium. And so just looking at it quickly, kind of the snapshot, there's text posts, there's documents or carousels, there's native video, articles, or newsletters and polls. So all of these are great. Having a balance of these, having a blend of these is great and just taking it one by one. So your text posts, those are your posts that are typically pretty short, pretty quick, pretty easy, actually upwards of about 3,000 characters, but this is one of the easiest ways to stay consistent. Again, this is where you're telling stories, you're telling opinions. It can even be quick and easy tips. And really, yeah, anywhere between as little characters as possible, up to 3,000, and it's really a great way to stay consistent. And then documents, you can turn PDFs that turn into swipable slides. So this is where you get high engagement. This is where people tune in. Ideally, they are swiping through your Carousels, craving more information, really good for tutorials, really good to use as step by step guides. And these are pretty fun to play with. You can make them beautiful. Ideally, you're doing everything within the Carousel. It's very unified. It's very branded. And I mean, everything flows together. And then there's native video. So what is native video? This is where you're literally uploading your video directly to LinkedIn. You're not out there posting a link to YouTube or TikTok or Instagram or any other platforms that have video. And this actually Autoplays within the feed. So LinkedIn obviously likes this, going directly to them to get it posted. It's really good for building trust. It's really good for building personality. And yeah, I think a lot of times people will post somewhere else and then just link it into LinkedIn. But this is even better way to go directly to LinkedIn and upload it directly there. And then there's articles or newsletters. This is long form content that's indexed by Google, and this is where you really start to establish more authority, more SEO. And it's fun to see because you develop subscribers and you develop people that come back to you or rely on your updates. It's almost like a magazine or it is a newsletter, but it's really something that ideally you're doing on a consistent basis. This is where you can go more in depth because people are coming to your newsletters. They're not expecting a quick and easy post or just breezing through some things, but they're actually looking to deep dive into what it is that you have to say. This is great for industry analysis. It's great for evergreen content. Post it now, and it's something that will stay around for months, even years to come. And then pools, great way to get a lot of interaction. This, you can do up to four options, very low friction for users to engage with and surprising amount of engagement that comes through with pools. This is a great way to do some market research. It's a great way to get opinions out there, a great way to spark debates. But overall, these polls, there's times where they get a lot of people answering and for the most part, it's very helpful. If you're posting polls, you have some curiosity about what people want to see or what people want to hear about, or what product you should use next or build next. And oftentimes they surprise you. I think going into polls, you think, Hey, everyone wants XYZ, and then once the poll delivers the results, oftentimes you realize that exactly what you thought everyone wanted isn't necessarily what they wanted, or on the flip side of that, sometimes it confirms exactly what you thought. But overall, can gather a lot of helpful information by posting simple polls. And you can even do two options or three options, but four is where it maxes out. There you have it a variety of types of content. This will always continue to change and switch up. So these are five of the most really common, but everything from posts to carousels to native video to newsletters, to polls really encourage you to explore it, and then at the end of the day, really make sure that you're doing everything that is matching the right medium. So articles, if you have a short post, that's actually more of a text post, if you're in vice versa, but you really want to make sure everything fits the medium that you're going with. 22. Writing Posts: And for writing Engaging Post. So here is the anatomy of high performing updates. And so you can see here, you really want, first and foremost, the hook that's going to be followed by the body, and then you will have a CTA. So we'll go through these, and then we'll take a look at a quick example here. And so first with the hook, the whole goal here is to really stop the scroll. The first two lines are going to determine about 80% of your success. So this is a lot like a headline. This is a lot like what is actually going to get someone to stop on LinkedIn to take the time and energy to read what you've written. So here you can use conflict, curiosity, or a hard number to earn the Seymour click. And so for a quick tip, you can actually start with a negative or a contrarian view. And we'll take you through that in the example here, but starting with something like I failed is an easy way to connect with someone and get their attention. Then within the body, this is where you actually retain the attention. So you're going to use short sentences, a lot of a lot of white space. A lot of times users are on their mobile or their phone, so they don't want to just read a wall of text. So this is one idea per post. R don't need to ramble. Sometimes it's referred to as Boatry where it's that short, punchy, easy use of space, but easy to consume for the reader. And then from there, you are going to have a CTA. So don't assume that people know what to do. You actually need to give them specific instructions that are going to drive the metrics that you're looking for. And quick tip here, questions can drive comments, comments, can drive reach. So let's take a look at a quick example. And this is a post by our hiring expert Jan or Jane, excuse me. And starting off the post, I used to be terrible at sales. I lost five deals in a row and almost quit. So this is the the body here is then I changed one thing about my pitch. Instead of talking, I started listening. Instead of pitching, I started solving. The result, my clothes rate tripled in 30 days. And then for the CTA, what's the number one sales lesson you've learned this year? So that's a question. Let me know in the comments below. And so, yeah, a lot of that's to drive likes, engagement, comments, and really overall get people to actually drive a metric, respond, comment, get some interest within this post. So again, to write an engaging post, you can have a hook that stops the attention, gets people ready to read on. The body is where you want to use the space very well, and then the CTA. Don't just assume they're going to comment. Don't assume that they're going to engage. This is where you spell it out as to what they need to do next within the process. So that right there is how you can write engaging post. 23. Storytelling: As for storytelling on LinkedIn. So facts tell stories sell. And there really is a three x structure of a viral post. Time and time again, you're going to see stuff that looks similar, and the reason is because there's actually a structure to it. And first and foremost, you want to start with the struggle. Again, this is the hook. This is where you're starting with vulnerability, a failure, a rejection or a hard truth. This is going to create the immediate emotional connection that you want with your audience. And second, you're going to do the shift, so the turn, the aha moment. This is what changed your perspective. What specific action did you take to make that pivot? And then third is the lesson or the value that everyone can pull from the story. So translate your personal story into an actionable advice for the reader, make it about them. In mind anyone that's reading anything that you write, they are not thinking about you, your interests, they're thinking about what's in it for me. And so taking a quick look at this hypothetical example, the hook or the struggle. I was rejected by ten companies in a row. I thought my portfolio wasn't good enough. And then the shift. Then I realized I was selling my duties, not my results. I rewrote my entire case study to focus on ROI. The next week I got three offers. Here are the three changes I made to my portfolio. And again, this is the value, so led with problem statement, two quantified the impact. Three showed the messy metal, not just the final UI, hashtag career advice, hashtag design, hash tag job search. So again, on LinkedIn, take your time, know that facts are great, but stories are actually what's going to sell, what you're looking to sell. And there's always a general structure to this. So that's the hook, the turn, the value. Obviously, you can expand upon this. Obviously, you want to make it related to what you're doing, what you're looking for. But these are good guidelines as you're looking to do more storytelling within your LinkedIn post. 24. Using Visuals: All right. And then there is using visuals effectively. So visuals are the hook. Text is the sinker. So yeah, On LinkedIn, as much as it is very text heavy, you can actually very effectively use visuals or pictures and videos as well. And so a couple things you want to have. You want to have the personal touch. You want to have the value carousel and the data viz. The personal touch, these are selfies and candid office shots oftentimes get three times more engagement. They really humanize your brand and build trust faster than stock photos. So yeah, you want this to be about you. At the end of the day, people want to see you, your team, humans behind all of this. Who's the actual people that are behind these posts? And then the value carousel. So you can use PDF documents that make it really swipe through friendly and mentioned dwell time before, but this is basically people being able to spend time and energy with you, with your brand. Oftentimes, this is really used for that step by step tutorials. So if you have a one through ten or one through five visual, this is where you can take people through that journey. Oftentimes, it creates that experience of step one, step two, step three, step four, step five. So by the time they've finished that, they've been a journey with you, and they're much more engaged than just continuing to scroll. It's actually a great way to stop them in their tracks to take set time directly with you and your information. And then you can also utilize simple charts or graphs. They prove that you have the insights, the authority, and data, takes time to consume that. It takes time to absorb what you're providing, and so it can literally stop that scroll, whether people are on their phone or the computer. Again, it's a great way to actually take time and energy for the user. And so there's a variety of tools. Use whatever you want, whatever works best for you. Some of the top programs are Canva, Figma and Unsplash. So just a couple of the many. But go out there, really utilize that personal touch. Carousels are a great way, and then utilizing data. But at the end of the day, a lot of text is on LinkedIn, so you can separate yourself with having these visuals that stop people in their tracks, attract people more to you and get more engagement than ever before. 25. Video Content Strategy: And then there is a video content strategy. Again, a great way to stop the scroll is having that motion. And so here are some of the general rules that will really help you be most successful as you're utilizing video. So first is going native. You don't necessarily want to just post YouTube blinks or links from other video platforms. LinkedIn wants people to be within LinkedIn and LinkedIn wants the views, the time spent. So if you post a YouTube video, oftentimes they're worried that they're going to send people to Google. You're going to send people over to YouTube. So that's where if you go ahead, you actually upload an MP four file directly. Oftentimes, you'll get a lot more reach. And LinkedIn rewards that. LinkedIn wants, that energy, and they want their users on their platform. And then also design your videos, assuming that people have the sound off. So 80% of users watch on mute. You can put in the captions. If they can't read, they can scroll past it. But, yeah, captions, there's times where whether people are at night, maybe they're going to bed, maybe they're in somewhere where sound is not permitted. But these captions can provide the whole experience, whether they have sound or not. Even a lot of people that have the sound on are still liking to utilize the captions. And then within videos, you really want that three second hook on the front end, you want to start speaking or moving immediately, really have about 3 seconds to attract their attention or earn their attention. Feel like this keeps shrinking and shrinking year after year. But yeah, and then from there, the good sweet spot for a lot of these LinkedIn videos is right 30-90 seconds. You can add value, but it's short enough where they actually complete your video. And so a couple recommended tools here is cap cut, great way for mobile editing the script is a great way to throw in your captions. And then you have v dot IO, which is an online editor. Obviously, there's a ton of tools out there. This is going to give you a good head start as to what you can do that will have the most impact. So again, upload your video directly to the platform, make sure you have your captions. Do make sure you capture that attention in the three second hook. And then general rule of thumb, a sweet spot for length of your video is going to be 30 to 90 seconds. So yeah, video should be a great part of what you do, how you attract attention, engagement, sales, further your career. But these simple guidelines will help guide the way as you take on video. 26. Articles Vs. Posts: I want to take a moment to talk quickly about LinkedIn articles versus LinkedIn posts and really figuring out what will be the very best format for you and for your message. We'll start out here with the post. Post are typically what we referred to as the sprint and really the lifespan on most posts are roughly about 24 to 48 hours. So fairly quick lived, fairly straightforward. As you're making these posts, Yeah, the lifespan just isn't entirely as long as you might think it would be. Goal here oftentimes is awareness, it's engagement, it's virality. And the max length that you can do is 3,000 characters. So if you need something longer, that's oftentimes where an article is going to be a better fit for you. And then really vice versa, and that's where you're figuring out which format. So this would be your quick tips, opinions, news, personal stories, really a great way to kind of capture attention and get yourself promoted. Then we articles, oftentimes referred to as the marathon. So articles are typically designed to be a little bit longer. If you are going shorter, typically doing a post. But yeah, articles are really longer lifespan. This is where they actually get indexed by Google. The goal here is really more towards authority, it's more towards depth, it's more towards search traffic. Length obviously exceptionally longer. You can do up to 100,000 characters to unlimited. And again, this is best for deep diving something. This is best for a case study, if you have a complex guide. But as you can see, these are clearly different avenues, different formats for different things that you're trying to accomplish. So you want to use short post to drive traffic to your long form articles, that can be a great strategy. So it's not necessarily always one or the other. You can actually use them in combination where it would flow from a post to an article, typically not article to a post, but at the end of the day, different formats, use one or the other, or in certain circumstances, you can use them together to compliment each other. 27. Hashtage Strategy: And then there are hash tag strategies. It's harder and harder to tell if this is something that's as used. Sometimes it seems like it's what everyone uses, sometimes it seems outdated. But throughout LinkedIn, hash tags are a great way to really stay organized, really categorize your content, and it's definitely not something you want to use to just spam. And so looking at it here a little bit further, like hash tag marketing, this is a broad tag. This is more towards high volume, very generic. This is to really cast a wide net, but has lower intents. Not as many people are going to know exactly what you're talking about as this keeps it more broad in general. And then getting a little bit more narrowly focused, you could do something like hash tag copy tips. So this is really more towards a medium audience. It's going to target more of a narrow focus, maybe ten to 100,000. Again, these are rough guidelines, but it's more relevant to your specific topic. And then you can use an even more narrowly focused, like hash tag Dave writes. This is unique to you. This is building your personal community, and it helps archive it. So you can come up with something that's personal. You don't want it to be generic enough where other people are using it. So as Dave, as you're continuing to do different posts, this could be your kind of official, your own personal hashtag that every time that you're doing that, it really categorizes, really organizes everything into hash tag Dave writes. And then here's some general rules of thumb, but you want to typically limit to about three to five tags. You don't have to go crazy. You don't have to do dozens of tags. At a certain point. It's a little bit of overkill. You do want to place these at the bottom. Don't do inline. Again, it's a good way to keep your posts and information organize and also not just flood your posts or spam your own post, but you can keep these towards the bottom to help keep you categorize or organize. And then you typically want to avoid generic tags. Sometimes I think people try and go widespread or generic, and it really just doesn't help the reader. It might attract people that want nothing to do with what you're actually talking about. Yeah. So you can stay very broad. You can get a little more niche, or you can do something that's absolutely personalized to yourself. So there's a couple of different strategies at the end of the day. But hash tags can be a way to really help you out, really help you stand out, and even get some more visibility and at different levels of focus. 28. Posting Timing And Frequency: Here's a question that a ton of users have all about posting, timing, and frequency, and here are some good general guidelines. So consistency can beat intensity. You really want to train the algorithm to expect you. I think this is true for most of social media, but on LinkedIn, it's much better to stay consistent, much better to continually have posts, continually be utilizing the platform. And I think sometimes people focus way too heavily on this has to be the best piece of content, taking weeks, months, a lot of time and energy on a single post, whereas if you're just more consistent on a daily basis, that's actually going to be a better overall strategy. And then timing, this is going to change. This is something that might be different to your audience. So this is a very basic overview. But if you post during Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, if you get that morning session, typically, this can be a great time of day, great time for the most visibility. And so you obviously want to adjust it to what time zone you're in. So that will play a part into this. But general guidelines like morning time, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, can get a little bit better attention, a little bit better attraction for readers. And then as far as frequency strategy, again, very light guidelines. It's one of those. You don't want to have bad quality, but if you have good quality, feel free to do even more. This would be more towards, Hey, this is at least what you want to do. Maintenance mode, you're posting at least once or twice per week, keeps you alive, but you won't see a ton of growth. So if you're busy or finding it hard to post, I mean, at least once or twice a week is really going to benefit you. And then as you ramp up activity, it only gets you more and more attention, more authority, more engagement. But growth mode, if you're posting about three to four times per week, that actually will help to start build that momentum. Hopefully it's not overkill, hopefully it's not burning you out, hopefully it's that sweet spot where you can stay consistent, stay after it. Then really authority mode, like five times or more per week. This is where you're going to get the most reach. This is typically where people need a system in place and even a team in place. I know it's not easy on a very consistent basis to do this, but feel free to go above and beyond. But at a certain point, you really need a consistent schedule, and then even a team is going to be incredibly helpful. So just a quick word of advice, avoid posting twice within 4 hours. The second post will cannibalize the reach of the first. And at the end of the day, this is pretty easy to abide by. But yeah, you just don't want to if you have a lot of content, spreading it out, scheduling it out can be a great way to not just It can be a great way to maximize everything that you're doing. So again, these will change from time to time. These are general guidelines. I would say sometimes more is more without letting your quality slip. So if you are if quality's feeling a little bit lower, maybe go more into maintenance mode and make sure these one or two posts are good quality. And so, yeah, you want to be consistent, be frequent, post as much as you can is really a good rule of thumb, but make sure that you're not just spamming and make sure that you're not just putting out content for the sake of putting out content. 29. Common Mistakes To Avoid: I want to talk about some common mistakes that you do want to avoid. And these are just easy ways to not let unforced error sabotage your growth. And I talked about it a little bit earlier, but the pitch slap. So this is sending generic sales pitch messages right after you've connected. This almost guarantees that someone's going to ignore you, block you, or be irritated by you. And it might sound like a good numbers game at first. Hey, if I just hit enough people and pitch enough people, if I pitch 100, ten people are okay, a couple of people respond. But what you don't realize is that the other 95 plus people are definitely not looking to help you or further your career. And actually, I'd probably say it's like 99 to 100% of the people just aren't going to, like, being pitched to right after you've connected. Easier way, better and more effective way is to first and foremost, build that rapport, and then you want to give value before you're asking for anything at all. Also, the wall of text. So posting huge dense paragraphs, mobile users are 60% of the traffic, and they're going to scroll right past it. LinkedIn, you do want to be very short use short sentences, use bullets, use white space, and you want to be as effective as possible. Longer posts, aren't that bad, but just a novel or feeling like you're going to have someone consume a whole book is definitely not how LinkedIn is built. Really use the space. Use those sentences, use those bullets. You can get across the same points, but you really want to organize it, not into just a blob of texts that once people see that, they're really inclined to just scroll on by it. And then there's the ghost. So you want to avoid just posting, say you post five times in one week, and then you disappear for a month, and then you post again, and then you disappear for another nine months. So a way to really fix this is to have more of a schedule set. So instead of that inconsistency, instead of posting once every six months, get something set where you're going to be posting, for example, two times per week. And set it to a schedule, even if it is once a week or once a month, or ideally, it's a little bit more, but you just don't want to be in and out of the platform as LinkedIn in sees that you're good for a post once every three to ten months, they're definitely not going to reward you for that. And then another thing that you want to avoid is the humble brag. And then this is really it's pretty self driven. Yeah, it feels very self serving, very inauthentic. It's just not a great way to present value. It's not a great way. People see through it. People see that. You're just simply self serving. People are in it for value and it for what's in it for them and for you to just be LinkedIn, promoting yourself shamelessly. That's not the best way to go about it. And so one of the quick and easy ways to fix that is that you can share the struggle, the lesson, and not just the win. So, you probably see a lot of times with good marketers, good posts or just really building a reason to connect, to resonate with the struggle, really have those lessons in place. And then it's a lot easier for people to engaged, feel like it was valuable and still can cheer for you, still can be self serving, but it's not just self serving. It's not turning people off to what you're posting. So there's many things you want to avoid, but these are the top four that you can easily steer clear of and just a great way to not sabotage your growth and your engagement as you continue to use LinkedIn. 30. Measuring Success: And then here are some really good metrics that you can help measure your success. So here's three. Obviously, there's more, but these are three really good metrics that can help you with knowing whether you're being successful or not. And so first is visibility. This is talking about profile views. A really good monthly goal is about 20% growth. So this means you're attracting the right people. It means that headline and comments are working. And it's a good kind of rule of thumb. At times, as you grow and grow, this can get a little bit harder just based on sheer numbers. But seeing continual growth from now into the future is just really one good thing to measure. And then you can also look at resonance, basically average comments. So as you're posting, if no one's commenting on your posts at all, I can let you know that maybe you don't have the best conversations. You're not really sparking interest. If you're getting ten plus comments, this typically goes to show that your post is engaging, that people are enjoying it, that people want to join in. Typically, you have a good formula in place with the hook, the body, the call to action, and yeah, not like a sure fire way. As you see posts that get dozens if not hundreds of comments, you can really know that post is something that caught the attention of the readers. But, yeah, anything north of about ten plus comments is really a post that hey, it resonated with some of the crowd that is seeing that post. And then another measurement of success is opportunity. So this is the inbound leads, and this is something that you hope for that is on a consistent basis. So really, this is talking opportunity. This is talking about inbound leads, like three to five qualified inbound leads really starts to go that you have that authority. I really shows that you have that thought leadership and a lot of your time and energy. People find you valuable enough that they're reaching out to you, and instead of a whole bunch of outbound, you want to get more and more to where you're attracting the right people and the right leads coming your way. And then just a quick thought is that you really don't you don't want to obsess over likes and you don't want to obsess over conversations. You can waste a lot of time and energy with these metrics. At the end of the day, likes will fluctuate a little bit. I guess, if things are very low, you want to essentially evaluate and recalibrate what you're doing. And then if things are consistent, that's great. But it's not like you have to absolutely get flooded with likes on absolutely everything that you're doing. And yeah, these are a couple good ways, three good ways to measure it. So from profile views to average comments to inbound leads, always to see if what you're doing is really providing value in helping others out and furthering your career as well. 31. 90 Day Action Plan: And so here is a 90 day action plan. This is going from invisible to irresistible in 12 weeks. So we've covered a lot, but this is a fun way to put things in action. This is a fun way to be able to move forward and really thrive as you take on LinkedIn more and more. And again, if you're a beginner, you've been at for a little while or you've been at for a long while, sometimes this is a nice way to kind of reset and look forward to the next, three, four months ahead. And month one, Go ahead, make sure you have your foundation. So this is focused really on optimizing everything. If you want to watch prior videos, we go through all of this on how to optimize, but you really want to optimize your profile. That includes your banner, your headline, your about section. You want to be sending 20 connection requests per day. You don't have to overdo it, but if you can stay consistent, that's going to grow your network in a hurry. You can comment on five industry leaders post daily, and then posting once per week. And great kind of foundation, great way to get after it, get going. And then as you move on to month two, it's always fun, always easy to get started with month one. But as you're moving on to month two, this really is about you being more consistent. So this is where you can turn up what you're doing, the amount of activity, obviously the quantity, and then hopefully this leads to the quality following, as well. But this is where you can go ahead and increase your posting frequency to three times per week. This is where you can launch that newsletter. Even if you're doing it twice a month or biweekly, this is starting to build that authority that you're looking for. Go ahead and engage for 30 minutes a day, really Tuesday, Wedneday, Thursday is a great window to stay engaged, stay active, and then you can start tagging your peers or others within your post because at this point, you'll have a little bit more authority, which actually with month three, that's where you're going to lean into becoming more and more the authority. So this is where you're trying to scale things up. You're trying to get more towards Legion, whether that's promoting your products, services or even within your career. But this is where you can turn up the quantity even more. So posting five times per week, likely going to need a schedule or a team that's helping you. This is where you can host your first event. You can really start to have more of an outbound direct message strategy. And then at this point, you should really be analyzing everything you're doing so that you continue to have improvement. And so here, yeah, a fun and easy, 90 day plan, very straightforward. It actually builds upon itself. So it's not like Month one is overwhelming. But as time goes on, it allows you to get comfortable, allows you to build that foundation, continue to be more consistent, and then really build more of an overall authority as you take on LinkedIn for months, even years to come. And a fun little quote. So success is sequential. You don't have to host an event, Week one, build that foundation first, and then as time builds on, this will become easier and easier, but you'll also be able to do more than ever and really take on LinkedIn. So I hope all this really helps you out. You can follow this really step by step, get started yesterday or today and really look to make a ton of progress in the next three months.