Episode Transcript
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0:00
Hey everyone, if you've got a business, an
0:02
amazing place to grow it is on LinkedIn.
0:04
And today we are joined by
0:06
one of the top LinkedIn influencers.
0:08
Her name's Hollah Hollah, and she
0:10
has this incredible, and I mean
0:12
incredible, best I have seen, four-step
0:15
formula for going viral on LinkedIn.
0:17
And she is not only gonna
0:19
break down that formula for us,
0:21
but she's gonna give us all
0:23
the kind of behind the scenes,
0:25
packs, and tips, that. Most people
0:27
don't ever talk about. We're talking
0:29
DM strategy, engagement strategies, how you
0:31
actually bucket time in your day
0:33
to make your posts on LinkedIn
0:35
go viral. And of course, because it's
0:37
our show, she's gonna cover AI and
0:39
how to use AI to do all
0:41
of this. Let's get into today's episode.
0:45
We'll be back to the pod in just
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1:55
Hey kept super excited for
1:57
this conversation as well. We're gonna
1:59
talk all. things LinkedIn today because you
2:01
are somebody who has built an amazing
2:04
following on LinkedIn. You've built your business
2:06
from an amazing amount of success that
2:08
you've had on LinkedIn and LinkedIn is
2:10
a remarkable channel that I think most
2:13
people under rate and under appreciate. You
2:15
know, give us a little bit of
2:17
background here for everybody. How do you
2:20
look at LinkedIn? How did you decide
2:22
to go all in on that platform?
2:24
And how does that work for you?
2:26
And then we're going to kind of
2:29
get into the nuts and bolts of
2:31
how we can help everybody do it
2:33
themselves. Yeah. LinkedIn is an amazing underrated
2:35
platform. LinkedIn is so amazing for people
2:38
who want to grow personal brands, who
2:40
are entrepreneurs, who are professionals who want
2:42
to advance in their careers. And the
2:44
thing that makes LinkedIn different from other
2:47
social media platforms is for business, number
2:49
one, people are primed to be in
2:51
sales mode. on LinkedIn. So when they're
2:53
on LinkedIn, they're trying to figure out
2:56
how to solve their problems. They want
2:58
to educate themselves. They're looking up sales
3:00
reps that they might be speaking to.
3:03
They are in the mode of wanting
3:05
to figure out the solution to their
3:07
problem, and so they're more responsive if
3:09
you damn them, if you connect with
3:12
them, and you want to talk business,
3:14
and you want to be... like salesy,
3:16
they're more receptive to that on LinkedIn.
3:18
You've got to do it in a
3:21
way that, you know, shows that you
3:23
have common ground and there's some ways
3:25
that you can do it without being
3:27
spammy, but you can sell really effectively
3:30
on LinkedIn because people are really in
3:32
the mode to learn how to solve
3:34
their problems on LinkedIn. So that's number
3:37
one. Number two is that it is
3:39
really a platform that has low competition
3:41
in general. So for example, I'm an
3:43
influencer on LinkedIn. I have over 260,000
3:46
followers. And on Instagram, I have about
3:48
150,000 followers. But the people that I'm
3:50
competing with on LinkedIn are completely different
3:52
than Instagram. So I'm getting as much
3:55
visibility. as Gary V and Damon John
3:57
and Alex Romose on LinkedIn. I'm literally
3:59
competing with the people that are at
4:01
the top, top, top of my field
4:04
on LinkedIn because there's just less competition
4:06
overall on the platform, right? Where on
4:08
Instagram, I have a decent following, but
4:11
I'm nowhere near competing, you know, the
4:13
top influencers on Instagram, for example. It's
4:15
just so much more competition, okay? The
4:17
other thing is that it's completely, in
4:20
my opinion, a hackable algorithm to a
4:22
point. It's an algorithm that still has
4:24
a lot of organic reach, that if
4:26
you understand how the algorithm works, you
4:29
can go viral. And it's basically a
4:31
formula that you need to learn. You
4:33
just need to learn the rules, and
4:35
you'll do really well on LinkedIn. So
4:38
for these reasons, I really focused on
4:40
LinkedIn. When I first started my personal
4:42
brand and my podcast and my company,
4:45
I didn't worry about any other platforms.
4:47
I knew that young professionals, my podcast
4:49
is young and profiting, would be on
4:51
LinkedIn, and I just focused there. you
4:54
just gave everybody a master class and
4:56
the importance of focus too. I see
4:58
so many people who try to be
5:00
on every platform and just do a
5:03
little bit everywhere and you took the
5:05
exact opposite strategy which is the right
5:07
one which is like hey I'm gonna
5:09
go all in on one particular platform
5:12
and be really successful there. But I
5:14
know everybody watching is just like wait
5:16
wait wait a second she just said
5:18
that she has a viral content formula
5:21
I like formulas I want to know
5:23
how to make my content better. explain
5:25
to everybody the LinkedIn algorithm rules the
5:28
road and then how you use that
5:30
to actually have a formula to be
5:32
successful on LinkedIn. Sure. So really it's
5:34
a four-step algorithm and I learned about
5:37
this algorithm through my own posting. I've
5:39
been posting on LinkedIn for seven years.
5:41
I also run like over 20 influencer
5:43
accounts. I have the number one LinkedIn
5:46
marketing agency and we focus on CEOs
5:48
and influencers and celebrities and I have
5:50
a LinkedIn master class course where I'm
5:52
constantly getting feedback from my students and
5:55
I've had hundreds of students that have
5:57
gone through the course. Now the thing
5:59
that you need to. understand about the
6:02
algorithm is that it does not change
6:04
fast. Okay? So it is a version
6:06
of the algorithm that I was using
6:08
seven years ago and it changes over
6:11
time. And LinkedIn is like
6:13
any other social media platform
6:15
like Instagram and so on.
6:17
There's people that are actually
6:19
on LinkedIn looking for content.
6:22
I say this specifically because a lot of
6:24
people feel like LinkedIn is a platform
6:26
just to get a job, but people
6:28
are scrolling and looking at content. There's
6:30
135 million daily active users on LinkedIn
6:32
who are looking at content. And LinkedIn
6:34
has an algorithm like every other social
6:37
media algorithm, but the thing you need
6:39
to realize with LinkedIn is that they
6:41
have two different business models in the
6:43
ways that they make money. So number
6:45
one is through advertising. So they want
6:47
to keep people on LinkedIn for as
6:49
long as possible. And number two. they
6:52
have a job functionality similar to
6:54
a different recruiter and indeed. So
6:56
they're trying to help people get
6:58
jobs. So those are their two
7:00
key priorities in terms of making
7:02
money. And so they've designed their
7:05
algorithm around that. Okay. So
7:07
there's a four-step algorithm. Number one
7:09
is the spam filter stage. So
7:11
essentially when you first put up
7:13
some content, LinkedIn, tools. their machine
7:16
learning, their algorithm is scanning your
7:18
post, and it's making sure that
7:20
you don't have things that are
7:22
considered spammy in their eyes. So
7:24
what that includes is profanity, nudity,
7:27
things that might be offensive, like
7:29
keywords that are flagged as like
7:31
offensive, if you put your phone
7:33
number, if you put your email,
7:35
then there's some less obvious things
7:38
like tagging more than five people
7:40
using more than five hashtags, putting
7:43
multiple links in your post. Okay,
7:45
in addition to this, there
7:47
are other spam filters where
7:49
basically LinkedIn has different
7:52
categories of spam filters.
7:54
So there's low, high, and
7:57
like medium, right? So it's low
7:59
quality. high quality and like medium
8:01
quality, right? In terms of how they're
8:03
rating your content initially during the spam
8:06
filter phase. So if you have nudity,
8:08
profanity, whatever, it's just like low quality.
8:10
You're going to get very low visibility.
8:13
If you are in the medium quality,
8:15
it's things like the overtagging, the too
8:17
many links, and things like big, chunky
8:20
paragraphs. So that's why on LinkedIn you
8:22
see this line by line style that
8:24
a lot of the influencers use because
8:26
you actually don't want to have big
8:29
chunky paragraphs. LinkedIn knows that people are
8:31
scanning their content. They want to be
8:33
entertained when they're on social media. They
8:36
don't want to be lectured. So if
8:38
you have big chunky content paragraphs that
8:40
people don't want to read and on
8:43
social media, one or two sentences is
8:45
a paragraph. Right? So you just want
8:47
to have line by line. So that's
8:50
a spam filter, right? You get basically
8:52
qualified as low quality, medium quality, high
8:54
quality. So if you're in the medium
8:57
to high, you move on to the
8:59
next stage, which is the user flagging
9:01
stage. And essentially, this is just ensuring
9:04
that LinkedIn didn't catch anything that like
9:06
through their AI and their machines that
9:08
they didn't miss something. And so this
9:11
is an opportunity for like 30 to
9:13
90 minutes where LinkedIn is basically testing
9:15
your post. How many people are engaging?
9:17
Are people reporting it? Are people flagging
9:20
it? Is it getting fast engagement? Right.
9:22
LinkedIn. And at this stage, it's really
9:24
important to get a lot of engagement.
9:27
So you want to get as many
9:29
people who are first connections who are
9:31
liking and commenting on your post at
9:34
this stage. Okay? Got it. So that's
9:36
why engagement pods still work on LinkedIn.
9:38
So I know I'm talking a lot.
9:41
But hold on engagement pods is a
9:43
cool concept. Explain for engagement pods and
9:45
how you get that engagement in that
9:48
first 90 minutes before we go on
9:50
to the next two steps. Yeah. Yeah,
9:52
and sorry I'm talking a lot, it's
9:55
just like a complex algorithm, so I'm
9:57
just trying to get there. Okay, so
9:59
engagement pause. essentially is any sort of
10:01
platform off LinkedIn. Here's the key. It
10:04
has to be off LinkedIn for it
10:06
to be considered an engagement pot. It's
10:08
actually against terms of service to do
10:11
this on LinkedIn through like a group
10:13
chat or something like this. So it
10:15
has to be on like WhatsApp or
10:18
Facebook group or Slack, right? And it's
10:20
another platform that is not LinkedIn where
10:22
you're sharing links with other users. And
10:25
you guys are basically using the law
10:27
of reciprocity. I put my link, you
10:29
like in climate, you put your length,
10:32
I like in common, right? Now, a
10:34
lot of people feel like this is
10:36
cheating, but it's not. No. It is
10:39
not against terms of service and in
10:41
fact I've created amazing communities using engagement
10:43
pods and the key is you want
10:46
to make sure that there's a reason
10:48
why you guys are following each other
10:50
that you guys have similar audiences that
10:52
you're in the same niche in the
10:55
same field you guys actually are going
10:57
to support you're not using AI tools
10:59
it's real humans as long as that's
11:02
the case you guys are first connections
11:04
it is not against terms of service
11:06
and LinkedIn actually likes it because they
11:09
want to bring people from Facebook onto
11:11
LinkedIn from slash onto LinkedIn from what's
11:13
up they want to bring more users
11:16
to their platform their goal is to
11:18
keep as many users on their platform
11:20
for as long as possible so not
11:23
against terms of service and very encouraged
11:25
so for example talking about podcasts on
11:27
LinkedIn. Why don't I invite them into
11:30
a WhatsApp group and start an engagement
11:32
pot? And so we did that. We
11:34
all started liking and commenting on each
11:36
other's links. And then we started hosting
11:39
clubhouse rooms together, going to conferences together,
11:41
becoming friends, sharing notes, and helped us
11:43
in multiple ways starting this community. So
11:46
engagement pods are great. You just have
11:48
to know how to do them right.
11:50
Okay, love that. So to break it
11:53
down to start for the first two
11:55
parts of this, you want high quality
11:57
non-spammy content, short paragraphs, well formatted, not
12:00
too many hashtags. you want to get
12:02
engagement in that first 90 minutes, an
12:04
engagement pod, and that could be a
12:07
what's app, a text thread, a slack
12:09
group, anything to kind of get people
12:11
engaging on your content early on. Like
12:14
if you're doing those things, you're probably
12:16
already ahead of 95% of the people
12:19
on LinkedIn are better, right? Yes,
12:21
100%. Something else that you want
12:23
to consider in these two stages
12:25
is also keywords. Okay, now so
12:27
this is something new that has
12:30
been developed with the algorithm over
12:32
the last two, three years, right?
12:34
So all the social media platforms
12:37
are really moving towards this interest-based
12:39
algorithms. Okay, where every user basically
12:41
has an interest cloud. So I'll
12:43
give myself, for example, they have...
12:46
keywords associated with my account like
12:48
these are the things that hala
12:50
talks about these are the things
12:52
that hala engages with and I've
12:54
got keywords associated with my account
12:56
and that allows LinkedIn to know
12:58
what post to serve me okay
13:00
so based on what I engage
13:02
with based on what I talk
13:05
about it also allows them to
13:07
define me as an expert or
13:09
not which is a key factor in the
13:11
algorithm when they're serving content
13:13
to other users. Okay, so if
13:16
I talk about entrepreneurship all the
13:18
time and I've got entrepreneurship all
13:20
over my profile that keyword and
13:22
I talk about Social media and
13:24
marketing all the time and those
13:26
keywords are also infused on my
13:28
profile There in my title and
13:30
my bio in my job descriptions
13:32
LinkedIn will deem me as an
13:34
expert on a topic, but now
13:36
if I suddenly start talking about
13:38
painting And I have no keywords and I've
13:40
never talked about it. LinkedIn's going to deprioritize
13:43
serving that post to other users who want
13:45
to see stuff about painting because they don't
13:47
think that I'm an expert. So there's little
13:49
things like this with the algorithm that I
13:52
can go more deep on as well and
13:54
kind of give you guys some more insight,
13:56
but that also are a factor in these
13:58
first two stages, okay? you kind of own
14:01
your niche. Yes. Not only are you
14:03
focused on LinkedIn, you're focused on one
14:05
or a small group of topics that
14:07
you're going to really own, not just.
14:09
what your content's on, but who you're
14:11
connecting with, the keywords on your profile,
14:14
all, everything is going to be around
14:16
that, right? Yeah, and you want everything
14:18
to connect, you want congruency, you want
14:20
the keywords that you put in your
14:22
posts to also be on your profile,
14:24
and like you said, it doesn't have
14:26
to be one specific topic, but it
14:29
could be like just a couple different
14:31
topics that you've trained the algorithm and
14:33
your audience that this is what I
14:35
talk about. Okay, love it. Okay, so
14:37
the next stage is the really exciting
14:39
stage. So the third stage of the
14:42
algorithm is content scoring. Okay, so essentially
14:44
this is when your post is doing
14:46
really well, you got engagement in the
14:48
first 90 minutes, you didn't get flagged,
14:50
you went through the spam filter, and
14:52
now LinkedIn is really trying to see
14:54
like, do I want this post to
14:57
go viral? And you are getting judged
14:59
based on the amount of engagement that
15:01
you're getting on your post. Now, here
15:03
was a big aha moment for me,
15:05
is that I realized that every single
15:07
engagement on your LinkedIn post is weighted
15:10
differently. And every single engagement has a
15:12
weight associated with it. Every click. So
15:14
if people click read more, that has
15:16
an engagement metric tied to it. If
15:18
people click the like button, that's counted
15:20
as one point at yat media. A
15:22
comment is two points. A long comment
15:25
is two and a half points. A
15:27
share is four points. A share with
15:29
caption is four and a half points.
15:31
So all these different engagements have different
15:33
weights. And basically the higher the weight,
15:35
the more that LinkedIn will push your
15:38
content in the feed. Okay? So your
15:40
goal on LinkedIn, the highest viral action
15:42
is actually to get a share with
15:44
a caption. And then the second highest
15:46
is a share. So your goal as
15:48
a content creator is to get as
15:50
much shares as possible. If you want
15:53
to go viral and you tell people
15:55
to comment, you're not going to go
15:57
viral because that's actually a... pretty low
15:59
kind of action. It's just a couple
16:01
points to get a comment, but shares
16:03
are worth so much more. And also,
16:06
LinkedIn is still like an organic platform
16:08
where LinkedIn actually shares content with users
16:10
based on their interests and based on
16:12
their connections, kind of like how Facebook
16:14
was back in the day. So if
16:16
somebody likes or comments or shares your
16:18
post, their first connections might get a
16:21
notification like, hey, Mary liked Hollis Post.
16:23
They're more likely to see that if
16:25
the user shared it because LinkedIn has
16:27
deemed that a higher viral action. So
16:29
if you share something, they're like 80%
16:31
more likely for your first connections to
16:34
see that you shared that post. And
16:36
that's why shares go viral. Okay? Got
16:38
it. So your goal in this stage
16:40
is to just get as many high
16:42
viral actions as possible. So to be
16:44
successful on this stage, this means that
16:46
you're following has to take viral action,
16:49
has to be interested in what you're
16:51
doing. And you've got to also understand
16:53
DM strategy at this stage, because by
16:55
far, on the post, the highest viral
16:57
action is a share. But on LinkedIn
16:59
itself, the highest viral action is a
17:02
DM. Okay, so if you DM somebody
17:04
and the DM back, they're 85% more
17:06
likely to see your content the next
17:08
time they log on. Okay? That's huge.
17:10
That's huge. I don't think most people
17:12
know that. No. So like that's like
17:14
the secret sauce that you app media
17:17
is that we do DM funnels. For
17:19
example, on LinkedIn, we're doing DM Funnels
17:21
24-7 on my account. I literally have
17:23
people 24 hours a day, virtual assistants,
17:25
who are in my account, who are
17:27
doing DMs 24-7, driving people to my
17:30
podcast, to my webinars, whatever we have
17:32
going on, and same thing for my
17:34
clients. So DM's... There's a lot to
17:36
go through that so we can table
17:38
that after we go through the algorithm,
17:40
but that's also important in this stage.
17:42
If you want to go super viral
17:45
consistently, you've got to have some sort
17:47
of DM strategy going on. Okay, or
17:49
at least help you. You can go
17:51
viral without it, but it can help
17:53
you, okay? Yeah, I mean, with that
17:55
type of content surfacing rate, it's just
17:58
going to be a huge. boost. It's
18:00
just going to make it much easier
18:02
to happen, right? Yeah. There's also some
18:04
things at the stage, like basically like
18:06
engagement hacks that you should be aware
18:08
of, right? So for example, you don't
18:11
want to over comment on your post.
18:13
LinkedIn will consider that spam me. So
18:15
if somebody is commenting on your stuff,
18:17
you actually want to leave the new
18:19
comments unanswered and you want to just
18:22
start with the old comments and always
18:24
have like at least 30 to 20%
18:26
of the comments unanswered. Okay? Also psychologically
18:28
when people go on your page and
18:30
they see all the comments have replies
18:33
back to them, they think the conversation
18:35
is over. So if you want to
18:37
make it look like the conversation is
18:39
not over, you don't want to answer
18:41
the new comments. Okay? All right. So
18:43
that is content scoring. Basically your
18:45
goal is to get as much
18:47
engagement and the highest viral actions
18:49
as possible. All right. The
18:52
last stage is the stage
18:54
where LinkedIn's editors are actually
18:56
reviewing the top content of
18:59
the day. All right? Now you
19:01
can basically hack LinkedIn to
19:03
a point where you're getting
19:05
2,000 to 3,000 likes on
19:07
every post. And this is like
19:10
something that you have control over
19:12
using all these publishing engagement hacks,
19:14
understanding the algorithm. You've got control
19:16
to basically get every post to
19:18
go from 1,000 to 3,000 likes,
19:21
maybe 300 or so comments. You've
19:23
got the control to do that.
19:25
You're saying literally everybody with the
19:27
first three steps you shared could
19:29
make that happen. Everybody can do that.
19:32
Like my students do that. Okay?
19:34
Yep. Now the last stage of this
19:36
algorithm. is that you need to align
19:38
to LinkedIn's editorial agenda. So LinkedIn
19:40
is actually the one that pours
19:42
gasoline on all the super massively
19:44
viral posts like at 30,000 likes,
19:47
50,000 likes, 100,000 likes. And usually
19:49
they have to do with hiring, recruitment,
19:51
promotions, internships, graduation, anything that
19:53
aligns with their editorial agenda
19:56
of being a top job
19:58
site that competes with. indeed
20:00
and zip recruiter and so on. And
20:02
so strategically you want to think about
20:04
what are the keywords that intersect with
20:06
what you want to talk about and
20:08
LinkedIn's editorial agenda, recruitment hiring and so
20:10
on. The other things that can be
20:12
in their editorial agenda sometimes might be
20:14
like news stories, especially if they're positive
20:17
and not controversial. Women's history month, black
20:19
history month, sometimes they're prioritizing mental health,
20:21
right? So like certain topics might be
20:23
pushed by LinkedIn because that's what they
20:25
want to be known for. But really,
20:27
the only way that you can go
20:29
super massively viral at this point on
20:31
LinkedIn is by aligning with their editorial
20:33
agenda and they literally will like turn
20:35
the gasoline on your post and your
20:37
post will go viral for weeks because
20:39
they've decided that's the post that they
20:42
want the most visibility that they want
20:44
the most visibility with. So you're saying
20:46
you can do really well, but if
20:48
you want to be. Like a total
20:50
game changer and get millions of views
20:52
on a post you've got to Understand
20:54
that the LinkedIn humans are trying to
20:56
surface a very specific set of content
20:58
that reinforce the LinkedIn core business model
21:00
Exactly, and every post has a purpose,
21:02
right? Some posts are made for sales,
21:05
and you want to just get comments,
21:07
and you want to engage your first
21:09
connections. Some posts are made to go
21:11
viral, and you want to get a
21:13
lot of second and third connections, looking
21:15
at your post, you want new eyeballs
21:17
on your post. Those are the ones
21:19
that you might want to think about.
21:21
Okay, how do I leverage the algorithm?
21:23
The four steps that Hala just talked
21:25
about, how do I talk about recruitment
21:27
and hiring and careers and entrepreneurship so
21:30
that my post is more likely to
21:32
get picked to get picked to get
21:34
picked up? Right, so every post has
21:36
a purpose. I wouldn't do that for
21:38
every post because you still want to
21:40
have something that you talk about, you
21:42
need to sell, but every post has
21:44
a purpose. I love that. And if
21:46
you're watching or listening to the show,
21:48
you know, we talk about AI a
21:50
ton on the podcast. One of the
21:52
things I would just say based off
21:55
of what you said, it's very easy
21:57
to go on the LinkedIn. editorial staff,
21:59
you could add those to Claude or
22:01
ChatGPT and basically build a little greater
22:03
and say, hey, I'm about to publish
22:05
this post. Do you think based on
22:07
everything that all the context I've given
22:09
you, it would be interesting to the
22:11
editors on LinkedIn? And if that gives
22:13
you a good grade, then you know
22:15
you've got a better chance, right? And
22:17
if it doesn't, then you could kind
22:20
of reassess and ask it questions as
22:22
to like, is the topic off, is
22:24
I'm framing the topic off, things that
22:26
you might want to do to adjust
22:28
that. But I know folks who watch
22:30
our show are used to using AI,
22:32
and that's like a quick way you
22:34
could use AI to do one of
22:36
the core steps in your content formula.
22:44
Okay, so you just shared that amazing, incredible
22:46
four-step content formula of how you go via
22:48
LinkedIn, and you shared like a bunch of
22:51
hacks along the way, which was really awesome.
22:53
And one of those was the DEM strategy,
22:55
and I wanna go more into DEMs, because
22:58
I think when people think of LinkedIn DEMs,
23:00
they think of like, oh man, somebody's just
23:02
trying to sell me something, and I'm just
23:04
getting a bunch of spam on my LinkedIn
23:07
inbox, I never look at that thing. And
23:09
I think you're here to tell us. that's
23:11
actually not the case and it's a much
23:13
more valuable tool than most people realize. Yeah,
23:16
dams are amazing on LinkedIn and we use
23:18
them every single day to drive all of
23:20
our different initiatives and you have to do
23:22
it in a way that's going to get
23:25
the user to be receptive to what you're
23:27
saying, right? Right. And so there's a couple
23:29
things that you need to think about. You
23:31
need to establish common ground. And usually you
23:34
do that by the way that you found
23:36
them. So if let's say I'm looking to
23:38
target people to listen to my podcast, my
23:40
podcast is an entrepreneurship podcast, let's say I
23:43
just interviewed Alex from Mosie, I might go
23:45
on his page and see who liked and
23:47
commented on his recent posts. Those are people
23:50
who are interested in entrepreneurship. They also take
23:52
viral action. So they're the perfect people to
23:54
invite to my network. So I'll send them
23:56
a note. Hey, I noticed that you follow
23:59
Alex from Mosie. amazing. I just interviewed him
24:01
on my podcast. I think you'll love the
24:03
episode. I'd love to connect to provide value
24:05
on your feet. Then they can respond
24:08
back. Oh my gosh, you're gonna
24:10
read Alex, that's so cool. I
24:12
love him. I'd love to get
24:14
a link to your episode here.
24:16
Thank you. Here's the link. Then
24:18
they might say, oh my gosh,
24:21
your episode was awesome. I learned
24:23
so much. Great. Can you copy
24:25
and paste this as an Apple
24:27
podcast review? Right. So you can
24:29
start these little drip campaigns for
24:32
all of your DM. You know,
24:34
and I mean, I brought this
24:36
person into my ecosystem. And the way
24:38
that I found them is how I establish
24:40
common ground. I noticed you like Alex R.
24:43
Mosie, I found them from Alex R. Mosie's
24:45
page. Another example is, like, let's say I'm
24:47
looking to sell a social media course. And
24:49
I just go on LinkedIn, and I search
24:52
titles social media manager. And it's somebody in
24:54
the US. I just, I'm targeting social media
24:56
managers in the US. Hey, I noticed that
24:58
you're in the social media space like me.
25:01
You look like a really like-minded individual. I'd
25:03
love to give you access to a free
25:05
webinar I have coming in. I'm giving
25:07
them something of value, giving them something
25:09
for free, I'm establishing common ground with
25:11
both in the social media space, I
25:13
might give them a compliment. Right? So
25:16
you're doing things to kind of warm
25:18
them up using the laws of likeability
25:20
I call them. So some of those
25:22
laws include people like other people with
25:24
shared interests that are part of the
25:26
same communities that speak the same language
25:28
that have the same like identifiers, right?
25:30
They like compliments. So you want to
25:32
use all those different types of strategies
25:34
to kind of warm people up and
25:36
establish common ground. I love that and
25:38
you talked before like that you have
25:41
people helping you manage the DEMs because
25:43
the last question I'll ask on the
25:45
DEMs people are like well how the
25:47
heck do you do this like I could
25:49
spend literally 20 hours a day doing
25:51
just that. Yeah so DEMs is a big part
25:54
of it and it does take a lot of
25:56
bandwidth it just depends on you know if you
25:58
have a team if you don't. have a
26:00
team now technically it is against LinkedIn's
26:02
terms of service to have anybody in
26:04
your account but yourself so I do
26:06
want to say that off the bat
26:08
you do not want to use automation
26:10
tools you'll get your account flagged just
26:12
stay away from automation tools unfortunately I
26:14
hope there's a day where it's allowed
26:16
but it's not allowed right now But
26:18
essentially LinkedIn understands that a lot of
26:20
people are busy and they're going to
26:22
have assistance, right? So the key is
26:24
that the person has to be logged
26:26
in from your city or state. So
26:28
long as that's true, you can have
26:30
somebody access your account and manage your
26:32
dams. So it could be an intern
26:34
that you have locally, it could be
26:37
an assistant that works at your office,
26:39
or it could be somebody international who's
26:41
using a residential VPN. So long as
26:43
those things are true and you don't
26:45
have sessions opened up in different cities
26:47
and states. LinkedIn is going to be
26:49
fine. And if you ever get flagged,
26:51
you just explain, I have an assistant,
26:53
I'm running a business, and I need
26:55
somebody managing my messages. As if it's
26:57
not automation, you're not going to really
26:59
get in trouble. Yeah. One last follow-up.
27:01
Let's say that somebody's just getting started.
27:03
They don't have an assistant or even
27:05
the ability to have an intern. What
27:07
would you advise them in terms of
27:09
like, let's say they're all in, they're
27:11
focused on LinkedIn, they're focused on LinkedIn,
27:13
of their weekly schedule would they spend
27:15
focused on dams versus like, you know,
27:17
writing the posts and maybe creating a
27:19
pod for engagement, like a couple of
27:21
the other parts of the formula, whatever.
27:23
I will give you an example of
27:25
what I did when I was working
27:27
a full-time corporate job. I used to
27:29
work at Disney streaming services and Hewitt
27:31
Packard when I first started my LinkedIn
27:33
profile and I had a podcast and
27:35
a full-time job. So I was a
27:37
very busy girl, right? I was going
27:39
to post every single morning. on the
27:41
train. Okay, so I had a 30
27:43
minute commute to Disney every morning from
27:45
Brooklyn to New York. And I said,
27:47
okay, on this train ride, and I
27:49
would batch beforehand in terms of, this
27:51
is something we didn't talk about yet
27:53
that we should, in terms of the
27:55
asset I was posting. So I'd have
27:57
like pictures banked, I've had quotes banked.
27:59
I'd have videos banked so that when
28:01
I was on the train I could
28:04
just focus on the caption and what
28:06
I was going to write. Okay, so
28:08
my job was to put up
28:10
that post on the train ride
28:12
every single morning. The times that
28:14
you want to post are anywhere
28:16
from your local time if your
28:18
audience is mostly in your area
28:20
from 8am to 10am. is the
28:22
sweet spot to post. You want
28:24
to post in the morning typically.
28:26
And you don't want to overpost
28:28
on LinkedIn. So just once a
28:30
day, Max, right? It actually hurts you
28:33
to overpost. So once a day in
28:35
the morning. So my job on the
28:37
commute at 8am was to get
28:39
my post up before 9am in
28:42
the morning, was to get my
28:44
post up before 9am in the
28:46
morning. And that was to get
28:48
my post rock and not do
28:50
comments. and I'd respond back to
28:52
my comments. I would, if I
28:54
was in any engagement pods, this
28:56
is something that I didn't mention.
28:58
At the time I didn't have
29:01
engagement pods, but now that I
29:03
have engagement pods, as soon as
29:05
you post, you don't want to
29:07
post in ghost. So as soon as
29:09
you post, you don't want to
29:11
post in ghost. So as soon as
29:14
you post, you actually want to go
29:16
engage on other people's stuff. Okay? Okay,
29:18
this is why you don't want to
29:20
actually use like a hoot suite or
29:22
something to like auto post your stuff.
29:25
Yeah, media, we hand post everything because
29:27
we want LinkedIn to know that we
29:29
have author stickiness. Okay, there's so much.
29:31
I have like a whole like two
29:34
day masterclass on this. You know, people
29:36
obviously can track you down and take
29:38
the course and everything if they want
29:40
the deep dive. But if you're just
29:42
trying to get a handle of where to
29:44
get started. This is a master class on
29:46
where to get started. you drop your link
29:49
in your engagement pod if you have it
29:51
if you don't have an engagement pod you
29:53
go on like all the people who you
29:55
believe have similar audiences like look-alike profile as
29:57
I call them and you drop comments on
29:59
their stuff. So for me I'd be
30:02
like going on Gary V stuff and
30:04
Layla Hermose and Cody Sanchez and I'd
30:06
be dropping comments on their posts and
30:08
getting some engagement community and just being
30:10
part of the community essentially. Okay? Makes
30:12
sense. Then during lunch time I would
30:15
just spend like 10 minutes responding to
30:17
some of my comments not all of
30:19
them but just like juicing up my
30:21
post. So author comments are basically worth
30:23
some points as well. So right, every
30:25
time you engage on your poster, like
30:28
juicing it back up, okay? And you
30:30
want to just do this every couple
30:32
hours. So it's like every couple hours
30:34
if I had like a break, I
30:36
just go try to juice up my
30:38
post, right? And just keep doing that.
30:41
Now, another little hack is that if
30:43
you like and comment on your shares,
30:45
you like turbocharge your post. So another
30:47
thing that I'd be doing at this
30:49
point would be going on my shares
30:51
and liking and commenting on my shares
30:54
to try to turbocharge my stuff. I
30:56
want to repeat this in a way
30:58
that I want to make sure everybody
31:00
gets, if somebody re-shares your original post
31:02
with or without a comment, you're taking
31:04
a little bit of your time to
31:07
go and make sure that you're liking
31:09
comment on their re-share to give that
31:11
more gasoline to spread further. Exactly. because
31:13
I'm an influencer so the bigger you
31:15
are is an influencer the more that
31:17
your stuff is weighted as well so
31:20
if I like on somebody's post it's
31:22
like weighted more heavily than somebody who
31:24
just started on LinkedIn for example especially
31:26
if I like something that's like entrepreneurship
31:28
based or social media based that I
31:30
have expertise in okay yeah so there's
31:33
so many little factors that go into
31:35
it then on the way home from
31:37
my commute from my commute I would
31:39
do all my dams and I'd respond
31:41
to my dams and I'd re-target people
31:43
in the dam. So something that we
31:46
didn't talk about that's important to mention
31:48
related to the dams is that, you
31:50
know, when you're really advanced on LinkedIn
31:52
and when you're taking it really seriously,
31:54
every post basically should have a re-target
31:56
message. So literally every single post that
31:58
I have on LinkedIn has... some sort
32:01
of retarget message that we DM people,
32:03
especially if they're new, right? If they're
32:05
like a first connection that has like
32:07
not engaged in a while, or they're
32:09
second and third connection, we send them
32:11
an invite with a new DM, and
32:14
we send them a message. So if
32:16
it's about my podcast, we're sending them
32:18
a link to like a free webinar
32:20
to then convert them to the course.
32:22
So every single post has a DEM
32:24
message associated with it that you can
32:27
retarget somebody with. I love that. We only
32:29
have a few minutes left so I want
32:31
a couple other topics I want to make
32:33
sure we cover. One is I want to talk
32:35
video for a second because I'm seeing
32:37
short form video all over LinkedIn. It's
32:39
clear that they care a lot more
32:41
about video than they used to. And
32:43
tell me where video fits into this. Yeah.
32:45
So video is something that LinkedIn is
32:48
definitely prioritizing. I've got some insider
32:50
information. I have a podcast network
32:52
and they are sponsoring our network
32:54
for this like LinkedIn video push.
32:56
Right? So they're definitely investing in
32:58
it. And basically you need to
33:00
train LinkedIn that you're a video
33:02
creator. So for example, on my
33:04
account, videos still aren't doing that
33:06
great. For me, the highest performing
33:08
asset is a photograph, right? A
33:10
vertical photograph of me performs much
33:12
better still than a video. But
33:14
there's other creators that are only
33:16
posting video and training LinkedIn's algorithm
33:18
and their audience that their video
33:20
creators. And I believe that LinkedIn
33:22
is doing something similar to the
33:24
last stage of the algorithm where
33:26
they're reviewing the posts and they're
33:28
trying to find really great video
33:30
creators to kind of push, right?
33:32
So that LinkedIn can be positioned.
33:34
as a video platform. So I
33:36
think that if you have really
33:38
great video content and the key
33:40
is to stand out in the
33:42
feed, so that means don't just
33:44
do like talking head, podcast videos,
33:46
but if you do something unique
33:49
like day in the life videos
33:51
or something that's like really meaningful
33:53
and really helpful. Good visual effects like
33:55
it's got to like pop is what
33:57
you're saying, right? Yeah. Okay. Exactly.
34:00
would say you want to stand out on
34:02
the feed and LinkedIn is pushing certain
34:04
creators. So I don't think it's going to
34:06
just pop off for everyone, but I
34:08
do think that if you train LinkedIn's algorithm
34:10
you can be pushed as a video
34:12
creator. Do you think there is any type
34:14
of video hooks that work better on
34:16
LinkedIn than maybe like YouTube or TikTok or
34:18
if somebody's thinking about those videos what's
34:21
the hook? Yeah, so I think actually thumbnail
34:23
covers matter a lot on LinkedIn. So
34:25
on LinkedIn there's actually a static image that
34:27
it goes on your video. And I've
34:29
noticed that like the better that looks for
34:31
us having it be like a real
34:33
screenshot of what's in the video or that
34:35
it looks like really bright and welcoming
34:37
people are more receptive to that. Also, most
34:40
people on LinkedIn have a job they're
34:42
scrolling on LinkedIn without the sound on. And
34:44
so you want to make sure that
34:46
you have captions and things like that. But
34:48
nowadays, like I said, I think LinkedIn's
34:50
just like pushing certain video creators. So some
34:52
of these rules are kind of out
34:54
of the window so long as you have
34:56
like awesome content. I love that. So
34:58
just a few minutes ago we were talking
35:01
about when you got started on LinkedIn
35:03
and kind of your work that you would
35:05
do basically on the train to and
35:07
from work on some breaks. It looked to
35:09
me that it was basically you were
35:11
spending probably 90 minutes to two hours a
35:13
day on LinkedIn when you went all
35:15
in on LinkedIn. Is that fair? If somebody's
35:17
out there and they're looking to do
35:20
something similar but they want to do it
35:22
even better or faster now in the
35:24
world of AI. What AI tools do you
35:26
use now? Would you recommend to help
35:28
basically maybe do that faster than you had
35:30
to back in the day when we
35:32
were pre -AI? Yeah, AI is amazing. So
35:34
something that I would do is I'd go
35:36
look at all the people that have
35:38
look -alike profiles that are your look -alike profile.
35:41
So essentially it's people who aren't necessarily
35:43
your competitors but have an audience that you
35:45
want. So
35:47
you go to their page,
35:49
get a bunch of
35:51
their posts and use something
35:54
like ChatGBT to create
35:56
posts based on your expertise
35:58
that follow their similar
36:00
format. So you would need
36:02
to upload to ChatGBT
36:05
either. something like a story journal, which is something
36:07
that I create for all of my clients, for
36:09
example, which is like a chronological version of their
36:11
life with every single story that they tell in
36:13
every meaningful milestone that they have. We upload that
36:16
to ChatGBT. You upload some example posts and tell
36:18
ChatGBT. Leveraging the content from this story journal, create
36:20
10 posts using this framework. And the thing is
36:22
that AI is like a really good assistant. Yes.
36:24
So you want to take that content and actually.
36:27
perfect it because it's not going to be perfect,
36:29
but it will generate ideas and will help
36:31
you produce things like much, much faster.
36:33
Okay? Number two is right now the
36:36
high performing asset generally is a photograph.
36:38
So take a couple photo shoots, but
36:40
then now you can use AI and
36:42
use something like insta headshot or something
36:44
like that. It's called insta headshot, I
36:46
believe. And we use that and we
36:49
create like AI generated images that look
36:51
like real photos that are just And
36:53
now I've been doing way less photo
36:55
shoots because we're just using AI to
36:57
create more photos based on all the
36:59
different photos that I have. So you
37:02
want to batch your different photographs that
37:04
you have, and then you can use
37:06
AI to create more photos, which is
37:08
just really convenient if you're strapped for
37:10
time. In terms of videos, we love
37:13
to use OpusClip. So if you have
37:15
a podcast, long form content, if you
37:17
are documenting your journey, which so many
37:19
influencers like Gary V recommend and so
37:21
on, right. You can upload that long
37:23
form content on Opus clip, and then
37:26
Opus clip will actually find the most
37:28
exciting parts, and you'll be able to
37:30
search Opus clip for certain things, like find
37:32
where I laughed, find where I was sad,
37:34
find, you know, you can like basically have
37:36
it search all your different long form videos,
37:39
which is like super cool. And so we
37:41
use Opus clip as part of our video
37:43
development process. And yeah, those are just some
37:45
of the ways that we're using AI on
37:47
social media. Okay, so there's a couple
37:49
quick ways right there that with
37:52
those few tools you can probably
37:54
do a LinkedIn strategy in an hour a
37:57
day or so instead of the two hours
37:59
a day. of pre-Ai, but at the same
38:01
time, I think you're telling everybody that if
38:03
you want to be great on LinkedIn, it
38:05
does take a commitment. And you are probably
38:07
going to need to set aside an hour
38:09
a day for a while, for a year,
38:12
two, three years, because I'm sure it took
38:14
you a few years, so you really shot
38:16
off and got the distribution you were hoping
38:18
for when you started, right? I would say
38:20
one year of focus, you'll become an influencer
38:22
on LinkedIn. One year of focus, couple hours
38:24
a day, again to your point, the content
38:26
creation can be accelerated through AI, which is
38:29
awesome, but the actual posting and engagement still
38:31
needs to be you on LinkedIn. And it
38:33
will also help you understand what's working, what's
38:35
not working, so that you can improve your
38:37
strategy. So you being hands on, I think
38:39
is really important, especially when you're first starting.
38:41
And I loved how you outline how you
38:43
integrated it into your day and just kind
38:46
of made it a habit and I think
38:48
that's what we're advocating for advocating for everybody
38:50
here. Okay, we could obviously go on for
38:52
hours, but unfortunately we are out of time,
38:54
Hala. This has been so amazing. I feel
38:56
like there is so much I want to
38:58
go do on my own LinkedIn now. Now
39:00
I've learned so much from you. Thank you
39:03
so much for joining us at Market Against
39:05
the Green today. Thank you, Kim.
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