Making LinkedIn manageable

LinkedIn, enjoyable and manageable all on one page. It’s probably not something you put together. But I’m going to I’m going to try I’m going to try and make LinkedIn a little bit more manageable for us as busy freelancers and dare I say it, enjoyable. Marmite, as I said, it was the first slide. LinkedIn is one of those channels, isn’t it?

Like, I think Instagram, people say they love it. You say something oh Instagram, they go, yeah, I love it. Say Facebook their like um no I hate it. LinkedIn. It’s like some people absolutely love it, some people hate it. So quick show of hands around the room if you will. Who is a lover? oh nice, okay, okay. And hater? Okay. Well that’s good.

Doors there, no I’m joking. No. That’s good. And it’s interesting, actually. It’s interesting. It’s interesting that you’re more of a creative, should we say. And the photography side (just never).

Never.

(Never had a use for it). No, no. That’s fair, that’s fair. As a freelancer, the majority of us, whether LinkedIn will always be on our to do list, it seems to be, if you’ve got more than enough work on it will be at the bottom of your list. And if you’re panicking, and you need more work, it’ll be right at the top of your list.

But it’ll always be somewhere on that list. So what words come to mind when I say LinkedIn? Now, I ask people this question most workshops I do, most talks I do, and the words tend to be the same. But I’d be interested. What word comes to mind when I say LinkedIn to you?

Corporate fine, yeah. Chat, yeah. Just shout out any words. Anybody? Networking. Yeah. Yeah, nice. So this is what I tend to get. Corporate was the first one and that one’s first one I wrote down. Suit and tie, salesy, briefcase, professional, boring. That sends me what I hear, and I totally get it.

But for me, LinkedIn is. And it’s probably largely due to aligned with a coworker sort of mentality is that it’s all about friends, all about community, and all about opportunity. LinkedIn is more than just a social media network. And I think that’s really, really important to, to to say it’s a 24/7 networking event and most importantly, the best bit and LinkedIn luxuries.

And I’ll come say a few of these is you can go in and out as you please and as freelancers, that’s so important to us, right? Because we can fit it in around our other commitments. And as freelancers, probably freedom is one of our biggest drivers. I know it is for me and I assume the same is for some of you as well, so you can fit LinkedIn and business networking around your other commitments in work and in life.

Another good bit about LinkedIn, another luxury, LinkedIn compared to other platforms, it’s a bit of a bold statement, but everyone I believe, is open to discussing opportunities, whether that’s giving someone an opportunity or receiving an opportunity. But the biggest mistake people make, and it’s one of the icky things about LinkedIn, is salespeople, like people trying to sell.

It’s not about selling. Everyone is open to discussing opportunities, but you’ve got to go about it the right way.

Essentially, LinkedIn is about becoming known, liked, and trusted, much like networking is. If we want to simplify that, it’s about making friends. And that’s where that word comes. It’s just about making friends, I believe. So when someone needs you or your service or profession, they’ll think of you as their friend. Or, you know, that business friend, shall we say.

But we go on to LinkedIn. You know, we try and sell and we just forget how to be normal social human beings. I find it so interesting and that’s all I try to do. Everything that you do on LinkedIn, although it may seem icky and uncomfortable, it is just a normal human social behavior, if you mirror how you do it in person.

So think of LinkedIn more like an in-person networking event. And I’m not saying it’s any more comfortable in person because some of us are nervous. We’ve shared that today. But if you were to get involved in group conversations in person, all that is on LinkedIn is chatting in comment sections. That’s the equivalent. It’s exactly the same. If you’re introducing yourself to new people in person, that’s just connecting with relevant people on LinkedIn. If you’re having a coffee chat with someone, so a very casual chat over a coffee in here maybe, that’s just chatting to somebody in a direct message on LinkedIn. And then if you’re lucky, fortunate enough to have an audience like I have today speaking to you guys, that’s LinkedIn posting.

That’s the equivalent.

And you know, you need to do this stuff as a business owner, but you don’t value LinkedIn on the same level as business networking. So we all say, I always give myself a massive on the back when I go to an in-person event. It’s such a, I know I need to do it as a business owner and I value it so highly. But then when I’m on LinkedIn, I don’t think, oh well done Ryan, you’ve connected with two people today, you know, but you really should because that is business development and you’re growing your business through LinkedIn, a social media platform. There’s so much more than a social media platform. So there’s a doing part coming next.

But I did just want to chat quickly about things we like about LinkedIn, things we don’t necessarily like, just to talk openly, about it. If you don’t mind. So does anybody want to say a good experience they’ve had on LinkedIn for starters?

So that’s incredible right, like so powerful, and you did that in the palm of your hand, which is amazing. Anybody else want to share any. And obviously we we’ve connected haven’t we John. We know each other. Yeah. So we haven’t had chance chat today but you know I saw you walk and was like oh that’s John. When Joe walked in, I saw Joe walk in, we’ve never met but I see Joe through LinkedIn.

And many faces here I think that’s so so powerful. But I think we sort of overlook it sometimes. So going to do some actions now, what we can take forward today, what we can do. And hopefully, as I say, make it feel a bit less like LinkedIn and a bit more manageable, natural, enjoyable. Then the things I’ve done, as a business owner and still do since I was, since January 2023.

So I worked in house, at a law firm, I was a social media manager, and I was made redundant in October of that year. But because I’d been posting on LinkedIn since the January I was able to leave the job, setup my own business, and I had enough opportunities to pay the bills, and keep, keep the lights on basically at home.

So that’s what I, this is what I do and what I advise people to do. Now, the first thing I’m really annoyed at myself, I didn’t bring my post-it notes. I had post-it notes for everybody. I’m so frustrated. But there you are. That’s life. So when you go home with post-it notes.

There’s three post-it notes. And that creates your simple, simple strategy for LinkedIn. A simple plan to say, I don’t know the word strategy, just a plan, just some direction and some purpose for you, on your first post-it note just write what you’re trying to achieve. And that doesn’t have to be new business. That really doesn’t. It could be a new event to go to. Find a new event to go to, connect with the founder of that event and have a chat with them.

That’s success, that could be that post-it note. So if it is new business, think more specifically. I’d like to get a retained business on this service that I offer before December or something like that, you know, but be more wide than just new business, opportunity is the one we want to focus on. And then who do you need to speak to on the second post-it note, you could think location. You could think industry, you could think job title, things like that.

But just know who you’re trying to speak to. You’re not really trying to speak to the whole of LinkedIn. I think something like 45% of the UK adult population is on LinkedIn. You don’t need to speak to them all.

You just need to speak to the ones who will help you achieve what you’re actually trying to achieve. So yeah, close that net in and understand who you need to speak to. And then thirdly, how do you want them to think of you? Now we obviously create perceptions on social media. I like to try and be as sort of raw as possible.

But, we do shape ourselves to be thought of in a certain way so that we thought of when somebody needs us. So on the third post-it note, I’d like you to sort of craft how you want to be thought about. This is mine as an example, a good guy who knows his onions on social media.
LinkedIn wants your business to be a success, because that’s what I’m here for is to make you successful. And the type person you want to work with and also have a pint with. That’s what I try and present, as that is me. That’s not me putting on a facade or anything like that, that is genuinely me. And that’s what I try and do through LinkedIn.

So there are three post-it notes and that can create a simple plan, for your LinkedIn presence. And once you’ve done that, stick those three post-it notes anywhere in your office where you can see them every day, every like, every scroll, every comment, every connection should be aimed at showing you how you want to be perceived, speaking to the people you need to speak to, and helping you achieve what you’re there to achieve.

The actions within that, there’s four of them and they’re not all essential. You could just connect with people and chat with somebody in DMs and have success, achieve what you need to achieve. You don’t necessarily need to post, but these are the actions, the four actions that will help you achieve what you’re trying to achieve.

And the first one is posting. There’s no right way to post. Essentially for me, as long as it’s your stories, your opinions, your expertise, your thoughts, your experiences, it’s you. That’s a valid post. It’s up to you how you go about it. Now you can strategise how you come up with those ideas, however it works for you.

I opt for three pots essentially, because it helps people to, I feel it helps people to get to know me, trust me, and then work with me. You don’t have to do it this way. This is just the way I do it. Do whatever works for you. But the first one is get to know me. Like I want people to get to know me.

Because you’re working with me. I’m not a big agency. Just a solo freelancer. And you will work directly with me. So it’s important that people get to know me. And to make that easier, just pick three things that you want people to know about you. So, just as an example here, it could be family, exercise, mental health, things like that, things that you really care about, things that are important to you and let people get to know you through that.

And what you’ll find is, this happened to me numerous times. I’ve had people say it to me before, is you’ll go to an event like this, or you’ll go to a client meeting and they are the first things people talk to you about. They won’t talk to you about social media. They won’t talk to you about anything else. They’ll talk to you about how’s your dog, how’s your family?
So, you went on a run last week. They’re the things we want to speak about right, and they’re the things we speak about to our friends. So why wouldn’t you speak about them in the workplace. Only share things that you are comfortable talking to clients about, that’s what I’d say. But pick three things and go from there. The second one is about developing trust in you.

Like why should somebody trust you and work with you? So for this, the simplest way I find it is, and I do this actually through online LinkedIn Cowork Crew sessions. The start of the session Penni asks everyone on there, what’s your biggest challenge on LinkedIn? And that literally fuels my LinkedIn content. So, I believe the best way to go about it is, is to write for your sort of target audience should we say is, found out their biggest problems, challenges.

Speak to them, ask them what their challenges are, and literally help solve them challenges through your content, and that really does make posting targeted posting should we say quite easy. And then work with you. Now this is the salesy element of LinkedIn is obviously the icky part, should we say the most uncomfortable part. But essentially you need to tell people what you do.

Jo, we’ve got a great example from this week I did not know Jo designed on Canva. Meanwhile, I was sat at home when I saw the post that you listed what was it, eight things you love to do. One of them was like, go on Canva and design on Canva and work with, you know, people like me to, to help them with Canva.

I was sat at home pulling my hair out.

Trying to design a deck for a workshop, and, I was just like, no, I’m just gonna ask Jo to do it for me. But I didn’t know she did that until she posted about it. So post about what you do. There are creative ways you can do that. Tell stories how Jo did it. Say things you love to do.

Here are eight things I love to do. Or you could say, Mel Barfield always does a good one. She always says three things I like to do or three things I do do and three things I don’t do. I like that one as well. So creative ways to tell people what you do, how you do it and how good you are at it essentially, without saying, buy this now.

And as I said, the perfect post does not exist. Do not spend hours, days, months, weeks writing a post over and over again. If you get it to a spot where it’s about 50% you’re happy with, I can assure you it’s perfect, it’s brilliant, and it’s ready for LinkedIn. So don’t feel like every post needs to be a novel.

It doesn’t need to be perfect. In fact, if it’s got mistakes, spelling errors, we know it’s not been written by AI. So listen, I’ve heard that before and I’m on board with it. It’s human and it’s you.

I’ve got a little present for you.

It’s a content planner. So I’ve used this content planner. I hope the QR code works because I’ve only just launched this today. I’ve used this content planner since January ‘23 on Notion, and I’ve finally this week built it for everyone else to use. So if you scan that QR code that’ll take you hopefully straight to my web page where you can add your email and download a content planner, to make your life easier when it comes to posting on LinkedIn, so you can plan your posts out, write your post, copy, add an image, then when the date comes, copy paste that onto LinkedIn, hit complete on there and what it also has is a box that says reuse. Click the reuse button. If it’s a post that you think you can reuse again in six weeks time, a month’s time, whatever it may be, and that will go into a pot that’s reusable. So it makes your life a lot easier when it comes to posting so you can stay organised, stay on top, stay consistent.

Action two. So we’ve got the post in. We need to grow our networks right. We need to grow. We need to become more known to more people. LinkedIn luxury number three is, you don’t have to wait for people to come to you, you know, on an Instagram or another channel, you need to wait for people to follow you, on LinkedIn, you can actually follow, connect with somebody and that becomes a mutual follow. They’ll follow you. You follow them. That’s really, really powerful. So there’s nothing holding you back from going to connect with that person you really, really want to get to know and speak to.

And the LinkedIn search function, it’s going to be mentioned twice, and this is the first one. The LinkedIn search function is so under used but it’s so powerful. It’s just the little box at the top of LinkedIn, top left on desktop, straight above on that phone, and it’s your new best friend. And we’re going to find people who would be that on that post-it note to who you should connect with.

Now, I did a search just for screenshot purposes of second degree, so filter only by people, second degree connection. So that’s people I have a mutual connection with, in the Northampton area, because that’s where I’m based. Initially I chose professional services then title I put in was director. Feel free if you want to take a photo of that.

That’s the search I put in. It’s fairly, fairly straightforward, you know, 5, 6 clicks of a button. And it gave me 81 pages, 10 people per page of directors in the professional services industry in Northampton. If I wanted to work in the professional service industry, and they were the decision makers LinkedIn search has found me them people within 30 seconds, which is really, really powerful and all I’d suggest doing is scrolling through there.

Anyone catches your eye, and don’t forget the post-it note to who you’re trying to speak to. Connect with them, send them a connection request. Because you can do that on LinkedIn. This is just an example, a very loose example. But if you sent 50 connection requests and 25 accepted your request and you message those people, and I’ll talk about messaging in a little bit, but you message 25 of those people, let’s say half, just under half reply, so 12 replied, that’s 12 conversations with directors in the Northampton area in professional services.

Now, if you went to an in-person event and had 12 conversations and got 12 new directors, or 25 new directors in your network and you spoke to 12 of them, you’d be thrilled. Yet if you did that on LinkedIn you’re probably like, that’s all right. But that’s incredible. That’s amazing. So yeah, that’s the power. And you did it all from the palm of your hand in between the work, the life, everything else that you’re juggling.

Action three. So you’ve got the, we’ve got the posting, we’ve got the growing and there’s the socialising bit and this is really important on LinkedIn because it’s not all about posting. You need to be socialising, but I don’t have the time to engage, as I said, with the whole of LinkedIn. So we’re going to use the search function again, your besties back because you can actually create your own bespoke feed on LinkedIn away from the main feed.

So if you just wanted to speak to, say I just want to create a feed of you guys because I want to engage with you guys following up today, I can absolutely do that. You can use LinkedIn search function for focus socialising. So simply go to the search box again click enter to do a blank search, go to the right-hand side where it says all filters.

And we’ll sort this time by posts, latest posts in the past month. And Joe, I actually included you on this. Didn’t even know who’s going to be here but you’re on there, six of my favorite freelancers or self-employed people or people in this sphere, should we say. And Penni Jo, Mel’s on there, Dave’s on there. A few others and click show results and bang, you’ve got a feed of just those people, that’s worked out really well.

You’ve got a feed of just those people. Yeah. No, no other people are in that feed, just them people. So I can just engage with the people that really, really matter to me. You can bookmark that results page so you revisit it, and if you add any more people to it, you just need to re bookmark it again.

And there’s a limit of 28 people. So if you’ve got 28 people on that list, create a new list and do another 28 people elsewhere. So you’re focused socialising. And these are the lists I create. So freelancer friends, I’ve got a list of them, clients, current potential, I’ve got a list of them, peers, leading voices and then just people I genuinely enjoy to see on LinkedIn, because you can’t forget that you’ve got enjoy it, if you’re seeing people that you don’t really want to see or don’t like, it’s not going to help with going back to LinkedIn. So yeah, people you enjoy as well, don’t discount them. They’re the lists I create. Feel free to create your own. I can send you a link to a video of me showing you how to do that. Create that list. I can put it in the the Cambridge Slack, so you can go and do that in your own time.

And finally, action for direct messaging. I’m not going to call it direct messaging because direct messaging gives people the creeps like, oh no, someone’s going to message me, I get it. So we’re just going to call it friendly 1 to 1 chats because that’s what it is. That’s what it is. If it was in person, we’re going to probably have one to one chats today and it’s just going to be the same thing.

A DM does not have to start or end with a sale, breaking news. You do not have to sell in the first line or the last line. It’s just to get to know people a bit better. It’s social media after all, right. And I’m just going to give an example, two examples actually. One is Lance.
So Lance is a web designer who connected with me about a month ago. And I literally just messaged him saying, hiya Lance, thanks for connecting. How are you? And he just. Yeah. You know. We had a chat and he saw that he’d worked with somebody I was working with, and he saw that I hosted a LinkedIn session.

So I just promoted it to him, said if you wanna come along, feel free. And he came to the LinkedIn session last week, and I just have a new friend, you know, a freelance friend. That’s great. Without, there’s no agenda there either. I literally was just trying to have a chat with him. No agenda for a sale.

Just getting to know somebody a bit better. This is one I use quite a lot. So it’s Paul. Paul messaged me, as you can see in 2023. So I didn’t know I was being made redundant at this point. But Paul actually viewed my profile but never connect with me. He just looked at my profile, and at the time I was looking at people who were viewing my profile.

And I saw Paul was a director of a local company near me. So I connected with him and I messaged him just saying hello, you know, hadn’t heard of his business for despite being local. And he just said something on my profile caught his eye and that we should catch up soon. I didn’t actually message him back until I was made redundant.

And then I just met him back saying, hi Paul, do you fancy that chat. You know, I’m at a loose end. I’ve been working with Paul for the last two years. Seeing him this week. We get along really well. His family are fantastic, really lovely business and they’ve been a massive part of supporting me and my business over the last two years, and, that’s people I, you know, hold in really high regard, and it all came from a DM on LinkedIn and a connection request, because he actually didn’t send the connection request to me. So connect, send them DMs and get to know people. Who should you DM? Again, you don’t have to DM everyone. As a starter why not just DM new connections who connect with you, just say hello. How are you? Thanks for connecting. People who view your profile as I did with Paul, and then people who engage with your posts. I often will see people, it’s on my list for today actually, see people who engage with my posts frequently, and I do message them to say thank you because if they didn’t do that, then you know I wouldn’t be able to grow and create opportunities for myself.

So I’m very, very keen to message people who engage with my content just to say thanks, appreciate the support and if there’s anything I can help you with, do let me know. So yeah, as a starter, try direct messaging those people and then grow from there. As I say, it doesn’t have to start and end with a sale.

It can just be a hello every day conversation like you would have in person at Cowork Crew. So bringing all of that together wouldn’t be fun without a little challenge would it. So a little manageable, that’s really important. A manageable challenge. Now you don’t have to post, you know, hundreds of times, but if you do this for the rest, do this every week for the rest of the year.

So, you know, minimal stuff. Publish one post a week for the rest of the year. Start two new direct message conversations with some potential people of interest. Send three new connection requests and have four conversations in comment sections. If you’re starting from very little to no activity on LinkedIn, I think it’s healthy to set these sorts of like quotas for yourself just because it gets you in the rhythm, it gets you like nothing’s going to change if you’re not doing anything.

So at least give yourself a target to aim for. And I actually set this challenge on LinkedIn about six weeks ago and I had about 25 people reply to me saying, Ryan, please hold me to account on that. So I’ve got this little mailing list that I message these people and say, are you doing it this week? And that’s for free.

I’m not charging them for that that’s literally just to stay accountable. And if you do that every week, you’ll end the year with, so starting next week, 21 published posts, which is amazing, 20 posts. 42 new ones to one conversations. Obviously this is at best if they reply, you can have a conversation. 63 new connections if they accept, and 84 conversations in comment sections, you have 84 new conversations with people.

And I think that’s really powerful and it’s all through the palm of your hand. So if you do want a challenge to take away from this, its to try this, this activity every week until the end of the year, and you could end up with this. And that ultimately could create a new opportunity. And for me, if it doesn’t create even the tiniest bit of value for your business, I will eat my laptop because I guarantee, even it’s just one freelance friend, like that is value of your business or you as a person.

So if you do that every week for the rest of the year and you don’t get the tiniest bit of value, drop me a message on the 31st of December and that laptop is my New Year’s dinner. I didn’t actually introduce myself at the start, but this is me. I’m a Social Media Manager Consultant, I exist to make other people and their businesses successful on social media.
Now this line actually, as Penni and Jo said, I was the second ever presenter at Cowork Crew in Northampton, and it was my first speaking gig as a freelancer, and I didn’t really have clarity on what my business was. I was like, I’m a Social Media Manager. I’ve managed social media channels for 10 or 11 years it was at the time, in-house.

But I didn’t really know what my business was. It wasn’t a social media manager, really. And it was that. And that first talk was what gave me the clarity. I’d been ignoring freelancers, not ignoring, but discounting freelancers who had been asking me for advice and I was like, no like, my business isn’t social media management, my business is to make you guys and other people successful on social media. So, and I do all these things in various, different guises, but I just want to thank Penni and Jo for giving me that first shot, because without that shot, I wouldn’t have had that clarity. And I think this is what Cowork Crew does. You’re saying about Lifter Uppers is all of us, and it is, but it comes from you two,
so props to you. Thank you very, very much. Honestly like, the lifting up starts with you. You guys gave me my first shot and that’s really given me clarity on where I’m going as a business so I appreciate it, and thank you everyone. That is the talk.