#241: How to Make LinkedIn Your Champion Platform

Welcome back to another edition of the Course Creation Incubator podcast. I’m your host, Gina Onativia, here to get you excited about building your courses, your workshops, your memberships, your group coaching, whatever it is you’re cooking up. I’m here to help you market and sell in Boulder and more profitable ways. And here to take your offline message online in a bigger way.

Today, we’re talking about getting consistent and seeing the impact you can really have with LinkedIn, because to me, LinkedIn still has organic untapped potential. And I’ve been talking to a ton of clients about getting really consistent and making the algorithm work for them. We’re going to talk about it today, including why LinkedIn could possibly be your championship platform and how to get consistent in a way that rewards your efforts.

Now, before we dive in to things, this episode is brought to you by our marketing blueprint. If you’ve been wondering where you’re leaving some money on the table and how you can get a greater ROIC with your marketing book, a call with us to find out how we can help, you know, what’s possible in terms of your online marketing.

We’ll give you implementable ideas that you can use immediately. Go to course creation boutique dot com slash blueprint to learn more. The second thing I want to talk about before we dive in is scheduling your championship. Now, this is an expression that I’m definitely borrowing from both season mentor, former NFL player, eight time best seller, you name it, in-demand storyteller, just amazing all around guy.

I’ll link to his episode in the show notes and Bo talks about the importance of scheduling championships. Beau talks about not just practicing and rehearsing, but putting the rubber to the road and making sure that you have a championship, whatever is at the end of your practice. So I’ve talked about I have a half marathon that is going to be my big championship in a couple of months here, but I’ve been scheduling little championships along the way.

I just signed up for a ten miler, which is almost as scary as a half marathon. It’s the first time they’re doing this. We’ll see how it goes. But those are important because otherwise I can’t do the big championship right? Otherwise I can’t do the half marathon. So scheduling these races are going to make sure that I’m putting into practice that I’m competitive against what I’m trying to achieve here.

And Tristin, my 12 year old, is a tennis player and we’ve been scheduling championships for him in terms of these junior tournaments on Saturdays. And some of them go really great. Some of them are learning as Jalen hurts from the Eagle says, You either one or you learn. And it’s a way for us to put the practice into a competitive situation.

So I’m bringing this up to you because what is your championship? How are you scheduling? Whatever is next for you? So in terms of business, this could be a workshop that you’ve committed to that could be your championship. Okay. This could be a course that you know, you’re putting out or you’re going live. This could be a masterclass or a webinar where you’re going live.

I want to make sure you are scheduling your championships and not just practicing and not just rehearsing. I know it’s pressure and I know it’s putting us on the line, but that’s how we get better. That’s how we improve, right? Every day. So schedule your championship. Send me a message on LinkedIn or on Instagram about how you’re scheduling that championship.

 

I would love to know. Now it’s time for our LinkedIn workshop. And let’s start with why I think LinkedIn is still so powerful. Number one, to me, LinkedIn is no longer optional. Visibility, it’s kind of become the most powerful organic reach platform. Lastly, if I think about Insta, it’s pay to play tick tock volatile a little bit trend dependent.

However, LinkedIn still rewards showing up consistently and not just going viral. So the algorithm favors regular posting, people stopping to read you ongoing conversation and second reason is trust is built through repetition. Not just one great, awesome post. Like there’s a lot of pressure with that, right? Like, how do I go viral? People don’t hire, buy from or collaborate with someone they saw once on LinkedIn.

They act when they think, Hey, gosh, I see this person everywhere. And that consistency creates familiarity, authority, credibility. These are all characteristics we want, right? We want authority. We want people to see you as the expert. You have something to say. You have a unique approach. And even if someone doesn’t like or comment or DMU, they could be watching and there could be an opportunity that comes up.

Three LinkedIn is a long game platform, unlike these kind of short form platforms where content just disappears in a day. LinkedIn posts can live on, they resurface days later, they can be shared privately in DMS and they’re revisited for consistency trains, the algorithm and your audience. The algorithm learns who to show your content to, what topics you’re an expert in, and then your audience learns what to expect from you, what value you bring, and why they should pay attention to you.

And the fifth reason I love LinkedIn is AI layoffs and the economy and how it’s shifting have changed user behavior because people are rebuilding careers now. There are people are rebuilding careers now. They’re expanding their personal brands. They’re looking for leadership. And LinkedIn, a lot of times is where opportunity shows up first, especially for jobs, partnerships, speaking gigs consistently on LinkedIn isn’t about posting as much as just being top of mind when opportunity comes or when opportunity is looking.

Okay, let’s talk through some steps about how to be consistent on LinkedIn. And if you are consistent on LinkedIn, how can you up your game? Step one is optimizing your profile. Consider this your social homepage. Right? And this is an opportunity to assess wherever you are with LinkedIn. If you’ve been a star on it for years, maybe it’s time to check your profile.

Should answer one question. Why should I pay attention to you? Look at your headline. What is the outcome you create, not your title in your bio and what you’re about, who you help, the problem you solve, why you’re qualified to solve it. And of course, your profile photo should be confident and professional. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’ve been building up my LinkedIn connections and I see some not so professional photos.

That is low hanging fruit. Do not post a picture of you on your family vacation. You cropped out of that family photo. Get a professionally done. Get a iPhoto that still looks like you. Step to post once a week for 30 days. For those of you who haven’t been posting as consistently once a week, 30 days, same day, same time, every week, be committed to your posting.

Commit to it. What do you post? I just did a workshop on this last week. Personal. Make it personal. What are you seeing? What do you make it personal? Go back. Okay. Some of you’re asking what do I post? I get stuck. Gina, what do I do? Well, make it personal. People love to read personal pieces. Even on LinkedIn.

It’s not just business, right? I think. I think that old idea of LinkedIn is out the window. I think people have moved on from that. That is just business. But tie it back to your business content. But you could talk about a hike you went on this weekend and how you were thinking about content. I was thinking about this podcast actually on the treadmill today, so maybe I’m talking here.

I went and talked about my half marathon training. You talked about something on trend. Dr. Butt Walker is one of our amazing certification course clients. He has a fantastic certification called Physio Connects all link to it in the show notes and for chiropractors who want to go beyond the traditional model. So but is by nature contrarian, which I love and he was telling me that everyone’s trying to lose weight the beginning of the year, but it’s actually not the greatest time to try to lose weight because the days are shorter, our bodies don’t react as well, etc. And I said, You need to post on LinkedIn right away, create your videos, get that done.

This is a great piece of content. It’s timely, it’s relevant, it’s tied to something everyone is talking about right now. Another example we were talking about during this workshop is the new food chart just came down from the government and we have a lot of medical practitioners on the call. This is a great opportunity to give your take on the food pyramid.

Do you love it? Do you hate it? Why do you love it? Why do you hate it? How does it tie into your own content? Play off of content that’s in the news, Play off of what people are talking about right now? What’s on trend? Make sure you talk about your approach and how it ties into how you do business.

You can do case studies, borrow from your biggest fans. So I could do a LinkedIn. Megan Helmsley, owing to her in the show notes or her episode, Our Donkey Ferrier now has a new TV show called Donkey King, and I couldn’t be more proud of her. She’s really built up her empire. I could totally talk about that on LinkedIn.

There is so much content out there for you to share. Don’t be afraid to share it. Make sure you’re writing down your stories. You’re writing down your thought leadership, your journaling, you’re taking notes. What are the trends that people are talking about? Make sure you include it in your content. Step three As part of our workshop, I want you to make it real and get it on your calendar and make sure you have some kind of content calendar that you’re following the day.

The post, the creative asset, the copy, who you’re tagging so you can build up your audience. If you don’t know how to do this, ask for help. That’s step four higher help, so you can stay in your zone of genius, outsource somebody doing the content calendar for you, somebody being a sounding board, somebody editing your videos and adding captions, repurposing what you’re putting out there.

 

So I have an incredible team. David does our videos and our graphics and Ramon does our ah copy. So I’m a lucky girl in that I’ve got a great team behind my social. So build the team, get the leverage. Art hopefully this has been helpful for you in terms of one, optimizing your profile to posting once a week for 30 days.

Three making it real with a content calendar and then for hiring help so you can stay in your zone of genius. If this has made any kind of impact on you, I would love for you to leave me a review or tell a friend to check out the podcast. Thanks for listening. I’ll see you next time. Go create, be you and be brilliant and get it done.