#177 LinkedIn: A Hidden Gem

Gina Onativia: Kate. Welcome to the show, excited to talk about all things, LinkedIn.

 

Gina Onativia: Thank you. I love talking about LinkedIn, so you won’t be able to shut me up. Okay? Oh, I can’t wait, all right. First and foremost I talked about you a little bit in the intro, and I did your bio up and things like that. But why go all in on LinkedIn?

 

Kate Merryweather: Well, there’s people with money on LinkedIn for a start. So your audience, who are course, creators, and you’re looking to fill your course. And you made that pipeline of people constantly coming through. Then LinkedIn is a great place to build that pipeline. And what I love about LinkedIn, that I don’t see on other platforms as much is the chance to really search for your ideal audience. So, if you’re a dog train. You’re looking for dog owners, I mean, that’s not the best example. But if you’re looking for lawyers. You can find people by job title. You can look for personal trainers, you can find people, and even with the dog trainer example you can think well, who are the kinds of people who own dogs? And maybe look at some groups and things like that. And who else would they be following? And there’s a lot of people on LinkedIn, who aren’t sharing content. So just to share a small amount of content, you really standing out from the crowd.

Gina Onativia: Yeah, I love that. And I see I’m one of your posts. That is this true? 13 to 18 min per day the daily user stays on LinkedIn. Or did I get that right, Kate,

 

Kate Merryweather:  It’s not daily. It’s monthly,

 

Gina Onativia:  Oh, monthly, my bad, that’s well. Okay. But meaning, I think your point was post more often in terms of is that right?

 

Kate Merryweather: Yes, which no one wants to hear right? Because we’re all too busy and blasting like is more content. Are you kidding me?

 

Gina Onativia: Yeah. But what’s the perfect amount, or I know there’s no perfect amount. But what do you suggest in terms of how often we should be posting on LinkedIn?

 

Kate Merryweather:  I think you post more often than you want to be posting. First stop. So if you think once a week is good, then try and do twice a week.

 

Gina Onativia: Yeah, just augment. Yeah.

 

Kate Merryweather: Yeah. Unfortunately. The more you post, the more chances you’ll get those people in that brief time that they are on LinkedIn. And if you’re just posting once a week, say. And yeah, as we know, people are on LinkedIn very much. Obviously, that varies greatly. And there is a huge amount of people who are on LinkedIn way more often than 13 min a month. The more you pass the more chances you get of them seeing your stuff. So, the other thing is to have a good strategy and just recycle stuff. I don’t like repurposing, because that’s too much hard work, but what I do is literally take something that I posted 6 months ago and post it again.

 

Gina Onativia: Really?

 

Kate Merryweather: So, the video that Jean and I were talking about before we started recording, Jean was saying. She like one of my videos. That is an old video.

 

Gina Onativia:  I had no idea

 

Kate Merryweather:  And you can, you can tell because I had a fringe then. And now I’m throwing my fringe out. So, some of my videos are old, and that’s what I love about LinkedIn. You can just post something again. If you’re if you’re posting good stuff which you are then just posted again.

 

Gina Onativia:  Okay, so hold on. Wait. Are you doing different copy, or you literally. No, I like, I wanna use this strategy. So are you using the same copy like just once and repeat

 

Kate Merryweather:  Yup, I call it blazing LinkedIn, because we’ve all we’re all too busy. But so this is all you could do. What I find is, firstly, your audience don’t notice if you leave a decent amount of time in between posts. Or your audience didn’t see it last time. We’ve got a new audience who just went on LinkedIn. At that time when you posted it. Or it’s good stuff, so they’re quite happy to watch it again. I still watch reruns of friends, even though I’ve seen the episode before, because I enjoy it. If you’re posting good stuff and you’ve gone to the effort of creating something useful, then whip it out there again. I do it all the time.

Gina Onativia: I love it. Lazy, lugged in.

Kate Merryweather: That makes the challenge of posting frequently on LinkedIn much easier, because you do not have to come up with content every day. So, you can hit your target. Say 3 times a week, for example, because you’re just posting something fresh, and then something from 3 months ago and you alternate what you’re doing. And the other good thing about LinkedIn talking about cocktail is short and snappy is for the win. So you can write something. The post that I’ve just written that I’m going to share later today is like, this is what you need to do let me know if you need help. That’s it. Like, it’s about 4 lines. And that really works on LinkedIn, because we’re all scrolling up. Read an essay or watch a 20 min log. I see some of my friends on LinkedIn posting lives, and I say the time and I love them. I think I would love to watch these. I’ll definitely watch this later. Do I ever watch it later? No. So, you can put a short post. Another post I’ve scheduled that I’ll post later on few days from now is a question a client asking question us I got asked. Here’s what I said again. It’s a super short post, so that can be something. If you’re willing to not overthink yourself and not spend hours and hours making it perfect. If you’re willing to sacrifice that perfectionism and just put something out there. Then you really can be successful. Guide a following and still be lazy.

Gina Onativia: I, freaking love this. Let me unpack this a little bit, because I’m the person who like over, think like I saw the video you did about Mantra. You didn’t say it that way. You said it in a cooler way. But you said, What’s your model, mantra? Is that right? Did I say right? What did you? So you said, what is that one mantra that you use? And it was like a really short clip, and I was like, Oh, my gosh! I have so many mantras. I could do this right. And it was. It was just this quick tidbit, and to me I’d be like, Oh, I need 3 steps to this because it needs to be this like full thing. But I just love the brevity of your post, and how quick they are. So we need to get on board, cause that’s way easier. And so maybe instead of 3 steps, I could break that into 3 different videos, right? And by the way, videos versus photos versus like, what really, what do we get rewarded for on LinkedIn?

 

Kate Merryweather: I have firm opinions. I’m a huge fan of video on LinkedIn. Because a lot of people are frightened to do videos. So if you can just be 10% braver than everyone else, you can really stand out. So, I think that’s an opportunity to be a little bit disruptive on LinkedIn, because I don’t see a lot of video. So, again, short, brief, like my videos, usually one to 2 min. Are you worried about these? Here’s what I think. Da da da, da, because again

Gina Onativia:  I see the traffic you’re getting. I see the likes. And you’re getting flex

Kate Merryweather: People get to know they feel like they know you on video. If you’re wanting any kind of personal brand. And if you’re in any kind of space where you’re asking people to trust you, if you’re a divorce coach, if you’re nutritionist and you’re asking people to open up, be personal with their finances, with their love life, with anything like that. They really need to feel like they trust you. If you’re if you’re in any kind of personal business where you’re really helping people with deep and juicy things.

Kate Merryweather: They do need to feel that connection to you. It’s just human nature. So video can really help with that reach on video and and impact on video is less than a written post. But the purpose is more bottom of funnel, like the people who are following you. And then they say, II see, I see how you talk. I feel like we’re friends because you’re and in in my videos, I always speak to. If you want to do this, and I talk to the camera. And I talk the way I naturally talk so when people work with me, they already know what I’m like and like me. Well, the people who might watch my videos and think she’s an idiot, and that’s fine. They never worked with me. So, that’s that’s fine. So it really just attracts the people who like your vibe and feel like you’re a friend, giving them helpful advice and that is so powerful if you’re not a chicken.

 

Gina Onativia: Well, I and I love how you use humor like you just posted a picture of like your cat was on your keyboard, and and it was funny it was cute. And again, I think that’s brave, like I feel like II like to think I’m funny sometimes. But but then I’m not brave enough like to to post something of Churro, my dog right like, I thought. And and people like that right? Kate, like, that’s that’s personable. Right? That’s letting you into their lives. And it’s just like a quick hit.

 

Kate Merryweather: Yeah. and given, having that frequency in mind every so often like, how easy is that for me to post a picture of my cat sleeping on my table. I can’t work today. Ha! Ha! You don’t want to go too overboard with that, because you want to be seen as an expert. You want to be sharing helpful stuff like it’s not your personal diary, but the occasional post like that people get to again. People get to know you. And in this world of AI-generated content. Yeah, every second post is like in this digital age thought about, you know, that’s clearly written by Chat GPT. It’s really important to show up as you’re weird. Oh, I say, you’re weird, good self, like the what the boys in High School tease you about is what you should be celebrating about yourself. Because we want it. We don’t want to feel cheated. We don’t want to feel like I’ve read this article, and it’s written by AI, feel a bit jute.

 

Kate Merryweather: So you want to show that personality, show yourself as a real human being. so that yeah will feel a connection with you.

 

Gina Onativia:  Okay, this is great cause I was gonna ask you about some mistakes that you commonly see on LinkedIn. So I think like, that’s stiff kind of writing like the AI driven writing is probably one big mistake that you’re saying. What else are you seeing the faux pas on LinkedIn right now?

Kate Merryweather: You think, not not using LinkedIn to its full capacity. I think one of the mistakes is not curating your audience. So, I was talking with a client yesterday, and she said. Oh, they’re all people who want to work with me that follow me like she’s in the digital space. And she’s got all these overseas digital strategists who are following her wanting to. but then offshore to them. So her audience isn’t full of the her ideal clients, because she hasn’t proactively gone out and built an audience. So I’m a big fan of sending requests strategically to the people that you would love to work with. That’s what I did. I’ve gotten mute. 9,000 followers now, but in the first 3 is really a lot of them are people that I went down and sent connection requests to

 

Gina Onativia: Ok. Based on. Sorry you broke up a little bit, Kate. You reached out to people that you knew were part of the criteria of a great a prospective client for you. Is that right?

 

Kate Merryweather: Okay, exactly. So. I curated my profile to be attractive to those people. And then when I, when they look at my profile. It’s appealing to them.

Gina Onativia: Okay, let’s I loved. This is great because. I think there’s an art and a science to this because, I’ve talked on this podcast before that I get pinged a lot, I get DM’d a lot, not a lot. I’m not that fancy, but fancy enough that I get DM’d occasionally on LinkedIn and people offering their services like, I got one yesterday, last night about my Podcast and if you wanna do your Podcast in a super professional way, like, Hello, I’m doing it like I was kind of caught off guard by that like. That’s not a great way to sell me.

 

Gina Onativia: So I feel like people don’t do that right, Kate, like, what’s the right way to do that? Because either they don’t do the research or it’s like a hard sell up front, and I denied a request.

 

Kate Merryweather: Yes

 

Gina Onativia: What’s the right way to do it?

 

Kate Merryweather: In my view, the right way to do it is to not do it and build an audience who fought and come to you. However, I used to be completely against it. Now I would say, if you are going to do it, don’t just span everyone like, really again, target people. Listen to the podcast before you DM, someone saying, the broadcast needs better production values and prove it. So yeah, I would say. And then some people, some LinkedIn coaches say, I’ll build a connection first and then pick them up. I think that’s worse, like. You know they go. How are you going? How are you? And I go? And then they go. What have you been up to. And I’m like working. They say, do you have any problems? And I’m like telling you my problems like, I’m they’re hoping and praying that you are. Gonna say, yes, my problem is XYZ. And that all of a sudden they gonna be oh, well, I that’s what I do like. That is just a huge waste of time. Especially for those small business owners that I work with. Yeah. So what I would say is, if you really have someone that you want to hit up and just say, Hey, I’m going to shoot my shot, but you and you send it to them and them alone. And you make it clear that this is not a message that has been sent to 10 others, but 20 others, or a thousand others like we’ve all got that, hey? Do you want 15 new appointments a week, and I’m an appointment setter, and I’m going to get you. I don’t want 15 appointments a week.

 

Gina Onativia: I know. What do I? What I do with that? That’s a lot. But I’m too busy. If they wrote me a note that was like, I listen to your post at exercise. I loved how you broke down. Xy, like just even a little bit. Listen. An episode right? Taking interest.

 

Kate Merryweather: Yeah. So 90% of the time, I would say. The best thing you can do is put excellent content on your on your post. It goes to everybody. Just one person, and then in your post to say, Hey, Ps, I help people with these. Semi DM. If you need help, and let them come to you when they’re ready. Some people DM, me, after following me for 2 weeks, and some people DM me, after following me for 2 years. And that is none of my business. It’s just when they’re ready, and then they feel trusted. You’re not spamming people saying, Hey, do you want to buy this? I think that’s a bit desperate.

 

Gina Onativia: Yeah, I love it.

 

Kate Merryweather:  And culturally in different cultures, it can be a little bit more, except like in Australia. It’s not really. It’s very acceptable at all. But I think in other countries where you know, you can be a bit more bold and salesy. Potentially, there could be opportunities to do that, but do a bit. Do it well, do it better than everyone else does. And just I would rather someone say, Hey, I really love you. I’m going to shoot my shot. You’re my dream client, and this is why platter them and say I’m not going to bother you again. But I just want you to know I exist, or something really genuine and heartfelt. I would love that. I had that once from a photographer. She just said I would love to work with you, I’d love to be your photographer. This is why I’ve been following you, etc. That was a good pitch.

 

Gina Onativia:  That’s great. Yeah, yeah, I love that. So I’m curious, Kate, because I was on my research before the show. You have other social profiles, right? They’re not as built out as LinkedIn, right?

 

Kate Merryweather: Terrible. They’re terrible.

 

Gina Onativia: But why do you have them? Is my question like, so why like you do have an Instagram you do have. What’s the what’s the strategy behind that?

 

Kate Merryweather: There is no strategy. My leads from LinkedIn, but II do have a goal. So please, listeners, don’t look at my Instagram, it’s it’s dire.

 

Gina Onativia: We won’t link to it.

 

Kate Merryweather: And like people really want to search for, they can find it and have a laugh. So I can’t recommend any strategies that I do, because I don’t. But I feel like there is an audience in my space. I want. I’d love to work with people who are very new to LinkedIn, and they’re not necessarily on LinkedIn, so I have an opportunity to find them on Instagram. But I haven’t pursued that channel yet.

Gina Onativia:  Yeah, which is fine. I say, like, Hey, double down, like, if you’re gonna do, LinkedIn, do Link be the best at LinkedIn. Yeah, right?

 

Katy Merryweather: And then I work alone. I don’t have a design. I don’t have team. so I don’t. And I have 3 daughters. So I’m mum taxi a lot of the time. So I have to be very strategic about what my my time and energy into.

 

Gina Onativia:  I love that. I love that.

 

Katy Merryweather:  What’s even about laziness? There’s a lot of my comments are all about. Just do as little as possible.

 

Gina Onativia:   No, I think I think we need to figure that out, though, and figure out where to focus cause a lot of times. I get clients and students are like, I’m trying to do a million things, and none of them really move the needle. I’d rather they spend serious time on LinkedIn right, and figure out what’s working for them. So okay, tell us, what should we really be focusing on? So like, don’t worry about newsletters. Don’t worry about groups, like, if we’re just posting like. What?

 

Gina Onativia: What’s the one strategy like we should take away from this, Kate.

 

Kate Merryweather: I would say, at the very least, make your profile very strong, so that if anyone lands on you that your profile is up to date, appealing strong messaging that can ideally get people off linked in and straight onto your lead Magnet onto your list, checking out your course. Because when if someone’s maybe heard of your heard of you and Googled, your name, your LinkedIn profile is very often what appears first. So it’s a real missed opportunity for people who have got their old LinkedIn profile that they wrote a few years ago. That’s written like a resume and turn that into. write it like a sales page. And I would say to people, Look at Via LinkedIn and copy it basically like have have some really strong messaging on there, and have it really accurate as to what you are doing now, and promote that course that you you have created and tell people how to learn about it. And at least then it just it can sit there. If nothing else, then that can be a good source of traffic for anybody. And it’s a set and forget strategy that you can do that and then just leave it, which is great.

 

 

 

 

Gina Onativia: That’s awesome. Okay? Done. Optimize your profile. Mention your chorus, mention whatever you’re selling. I love it, Kate. Okay, well, link to obviously your profile because we’re going to model hours after it as well as where can we learn more about you? What other places should we go to check you out?

 

Kate Merryweather:  So I have a website, katemerryweather.com.au so you can check out my LinkedIn services there.

 

Gina Onativia: Alright. Well, thanks for popping by. I’m gonna go work on my LinkedIn. And and we’ve been posting. I know we need to post more. So this is great like, sometimes I bring guests on. I’m like, Okay, this is gonna be a little something for me, too. So thanks for coming by Kate.

 

Kate Merryweather: My pleasure, I love talking about LinkedIn.