Show Notes Episode 32 - LinkedIn Crash-course -Ft. Chelsea Berg

Episode 32: LinkedIn Crash Course.

Robb dives into the biggest listener requested topic of 2020, "How the heck do I make LinkedIn start to work for ME?!" With his guest, who is coming back to the LinkedIn Scene, they dive into the strategies that ANYONE can do to start building their network on LinkedIn... and the best part is, they're all FREE. Ft. Chelsea Berg - @ChelseaWandering

Connect with Chelsea

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chelseawandering/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chelsea-berg-575b885a/

Timestamps:

0:00 Intro

4:00 LinkedIn isn't a static platform

8:00 The 50 Cent Strategy

10:00 The heck is an Algorithm?

10:40 Creating your own post for your passion

14:00 Making your own posts

18:00 Marketing Yourself

21:20 Creating a LinkedIn post that draws attention

27:40 LinkedIn growth from Zero

31:05 Vulnerability Sample

34:20 What Story are you telling?

36:30 When to be Vulnerable?

39:20 Bucket Showers

42:30 Seed Comments

44:30 Starting Invites for your page

49:00 Look for People, not Opportunities

53:00 Closing

Transcript (Auto generated):

today on recruiting hell

one of the most requested topics on this

show from our listeners

is how does linkedin work linkedin is an

incredibly powerful tool

for your networking and for your job

search and thankfully

doesn't take nearly as much time as some

of the other content platforms out there

today we're going to dive into basic

linkedin strategies

that anyone can do with only a small

amount of time and effort involved

using these strategies from some of the

biggest names in social media

we're going to look at what you can do

when you're starting your network from

next to zero

[Music]

hello and welcome to recruiting how i'm

your host Robb Conlon

today's episode is something that has

been requested rather frequently over

the past month or two

and in the interest of making sure that

we always listen to listener feedback

i thought it was appropriate to not only

do this episode as quickly as was

feasible but also to sort of pair it

with the time of year

as it has a lot in common with what you

do on linkedin

giving and the holiday season now past

episodes

have told us about networking for the

give being generous with your time

and helping you realize that value needs

to be given

to your potential network connections

before you actually make any asks of

them

the same goes for linkedin and whether

you have zero connections

400 connections or 4 000 connections you

can use the strategies in this episode

to help grow your reach and connect with

some pretty amazing new people

the concept ties directly into marketing

yourself

that is discussed in episodes 12 and 26

of this series

crafting your linkedin brand not only

takes time and effort

but you also need to have some direction

in where you're headed

so if you need additional ideas on how

to market yourself go listen to those

back catalog

episodes today's format is a slight

change from the normal

in that we have a guest but the guest is

here as the learner and to drive the

conversation

chelsea berg is a recent connection of

mine that was made through another guest

on this show

we were introduced and with her need for

a position it made a lot of sense to

connect with her myself

and give her some of the resources here

at recruiting health including being on

the show

chelsea welcome to the program it's

great to have you here

hello hello now in this episode we're

going to take a slightly different

format than normal as i said

we're going to take a look at how to

leverage posting when you're just

starting on linkedin and this is

something i know that you

just began a few days ago this is one of

these kind of easy to execute strategies

that both you and other listeners can

pretty much do right off the bat

when you stop listening to this program

today so before we start that

let's hear a little bit about you

chelsea and your professional and

personal journey so far

hello everyone and thank you rob for

having me on the show

as you said my name is chelsea berg i

recently got married so

sometimes it feels weird to say my full

name still

um so my husband and i actually just

moved back

to the midwest the milwaukee area

we spent the last two years traveling

and

living kind of all over the place so we

spent 14 months abroad

traveling and also volunteering around

the entire world

very animal conservation based we did

some ocean conservation volunteer

and then we landed after that in san

diego for a mere

11 months leading right up until

when kova began so a perfect storm of

situations happened to bring us back

to the midwest for my husband's job um

and that kind of explains

um you know the fact that i'm a need for

a position and also why

um i spent a good deal of time on

linkedin looking for work

got it well it's quite the ride you

shared a lot of really interesting and

exhilarating things with your travel i

know you've been

all over the place and that kind of

brings me to my first point you've done

a lot of

moving in your career if you will and

you've probably gained a much more

worldly view

than a lot of people and this is a huge

advantage for you because it allows you

to connect into some of those

communities

that you once visited and you can do

that via linkedin these days which is

awesome

so you have connections in countries

that i don't even have listeners in yet

now we're

we're in 22 countries which is awesome

but that gives you something of a

handhold

in these areas that people like myself

or other folks who haven't traveled the

world

they might not have that yet so chelsea

if i asked you

today if you looked at the linkedin

connections you have

who are you connected to on linkedin

yeah so i would say my main linkedin

connections you know they started off

with like high school friends

or just friends from college and things

like that you know when everyone first

gets their linkedin and

they just add people they know and then

throughout my travels and everything all

the companies that we volunteered for

and even just learned about or made

connections with we

i connected with them on linkedin as

well um

obviously i did on instagram and

facebook and things like that as well

but

learning about their company profile and

page on

linkedin was important to me as well so

i would

say you know you can find a lot of um

ocean conservation companies

companies uh that we worked for and

volunteered for

and then also companies i had worked for

in the past like i'm connected to

you know disney on linkedin and things

like that so

a broad range of you know companies and

also just people

that i know gotcha okay so again that's

the

kind of the the souvenir i would think

from those those trips and travels that

you kind of

put your your feelers out and grabbed

that onto those companies and maybe

those people too as well is that correct

you know the specific people from those

companies

gotcha yeah definitely good deal so then

my question for you is you mentioned

initially that you know you're

the folks you started with on linkedin

were you know people in high school you

made your

your profile and you kind of added some

people and things like that

what were your initial thoughts about

the linkedin platform uh the other day

you shared a few thoughts with me about

how you first kind of started it and i

wanted one to get those out for the rest

of the listener base

yeah to be totally honest my first

initial thoughts on linkedin were just

this is a job posting

platform this is how i find jobs this is

how i scroll for who's hiring

and you know i'm a creative at heart so

i always thought instagram like these

beautiful pictures and stories i could

really use

my creativity and then facebook you know

there was a way to

have more informal connections all over

the world and i never

thought of linkedin as something that i

could have

um you know creative

energy with per se right and that's

that's a really big leap for a lot of

folks myself included i was one of those

people too who was like

this is a job board this is a uh

method for me to find new employment

not something that i can actually create

on and i think that that

that statement you made that it's

doesn't quite feel like

instagram or some of the other platforms

i think that's a real big thing and i

think that

listener if you're you're following this

here

that misconception that linkedin is just

a job board or something like that is a

really big

thing so a lot of things and another

misconception that comes

along with this is that linkedin is a

set it and forget it kind of thing

that helps you land a job if you're

lucky and of course as we've been

talking about chelsea

it's that's a wrong assumption because

linkedin is a platform that is alive

it lives and it breathes a lot like the

other platforms

twitter instagram tick tock and speaking

of those

uh listeners follow the show there if

you haven't already but the real magic

of linkedin

is that it's an effort multiplier and

while it takes a while for it to start

to

charge up and pay dividends once it does

it can almost start to self-sustain and

sell fuel

so chelsea in our first call i gave you

a strategy to try with linkedin and it's

a tidbit that gary vaynerchuk dropped on

one of his videos probably a couple

years ago now

and i've seen this work for me i picked

this up and i've been teaching it to

other folks

we mentioned it before on the show and

while it's not 100 new to everyone here

this is the first time we've actually

put it into application with somebody

and we're going to drill into it a bit

further so chelsea would you be able to

explain the concept of the 50 cent

linkedin strategy

yeah definitely so how i understood it

best was

like you had mentioned the set it and

forget it you can't use linkedin

as that if you want to build a personal

brand build a community and things like

that so how i understood

the 50 cent strategy is you know at

first you might

make some posts and four people see it

or you might

make some you know worthwhile comments

on brands that you're interested in or

companies that you follow um and

you know over time the more you do that

you know on a daily weekly basis that's

going to build

your personal brand and it's not

something that you can just do

you know once a month or once every

couple months which i

was very much guilty of before

and that's okay and i think the

understanding of how

social media really works is is

something that's not necessarily always

made apparent to

everybody uh a lot of times the

the marketing world kind of keeps that

under under wraps so they can use it to

make money and things like that so

that's a really great way to kind of

explain the 50 cent strategy is the it's

the

commenting or reacting with 25 posts a

day

giving your two cents of course so 25

times two is the 50 cent strategy so

going into that a little bit deeper the

reason that we want to interact with the

others on the social media platform

which

chelsea you said is the the crux the

pivotal point

though it's the way that social media

works and many of us have probably heard

about what's called

the algorithm and whether it comes from

facebook

or youtube all of these companies and

platforms

are notorious for keeping their

algorithms kind of foggy or changing the

things all the time

so basically to explain to everybody the

algorithm is a platform

set of rules and the formulas that

determine what gets shown

on a social media platform when and to

whom

and if you can consistently tap into or

heaven forbid

crack the algorithm then you're in for

some crazy success

so with you chelsea you know you just

started

back on this route this route here of

posting you had a

fabulous post uh just last night that i

saw and i was like man

uh does she is she going to teach them

the master class here when she comes on

the show or she's coming as a learner

because it was

it was tell us a little bit about that

post uh and we can talk a little bit

more about like the

the algorithm and the best practices go

ahead

definitely so as i mentioned with my

travels is very focused on

animal conservation and ocean

conservation and one thing

that really really impacted me was we

did a lot of beach cleanups all over the

world and cleaned up

tons and tons of trash just on all these

beautiful beaches and so i made a post

just in time for

you know we're a week to christmas now

um

about how the holiday season produces so

much trash

um among all of us and we might not

realize because season of giving and

it's a very important time of year and i

love like christmas is my absolute

favorite time of year

um but i really wanted to dive into and

also let people know that there are ways

to go about it in a little more

earth you know eco-conscious way so i

made a post

allowing people to click on an article

that's you know five ways to

um be a little bit more earth conscious

this christmas

and i even learned myself so

and that's that's a great thing and

linkedin can be a platform for

learning as well as kind of advertising

and saying hey i need a job

so when you posted that the algorithm of

the site

took that and said hey i should show

this to people who chelsea's connected

with

so the algorithm basically is described

as the preferred best practices that the

company wants you to follow

to be the participant in their service

and when you adhere to the rules closely

by making a great post like you did that

had uh hashtags that had an article

and that had a decent amount of content

body

they start to reward you with reach and

putting that on other people's

feeds to get more eyes on your content

and post now an algorithm of course

isn't the only thing that dominates what

people see on a platform

no siree the other aspect for linkedin

or

at least for making content or posts

that is uh are innovative

and clever and thought-provoking you

have to kind of use that marketing style

we really saw that

in your post chelsea it was it grabbed

me because i was a i was surprised to

see it like wow she really put something

out so fast

and b the the copy that you put on there

it did suck me right in which was just

outstanding so

we have to kind of use those marketing

style techniques to engage with people

with what we put out so we talked about

that post

uh chelsea do you know how many people

that reached by chance

well not gonna lie the first time i

looked to see who liked it it was like

my mom and my husband

which you know typically happens on you

know you always have to have your number

one fans

um but then i saw you saw it and then a

couple other people as well so i think

it kind of

you know reached a couple of people who

like it's not like my mom or husband

have been following my linkedin a lot

because i don't post

often until i met you and had a nice

wonderful conversation about that

so i would say it still has a lower

reach just because i am just getting

back into the swing of things but

um like i said i did just post it last

night so you never know who could see it

right and the other thing too is it's

not just the likes and reactions and

things like that that you're wanting to

take a look at for your post

on linkedin in the left-hand sidebar

if you take a look at uh it's usually

under your portrait you can look lower

in that menu and you can find a

little stat it'll say views of your post

for example for me i had one

uh yesterday i believe that is at like

394

which for me is pretty darn good usually

i run

mid uh mid hundreds or low you know

1200s or things like that

which is great so i'm happy when

anything you know gets four or 500

people of reach so you've had some eyes

on your on your post and i love that you

said

you know it's your mom it's your dad

it's your husband it's

it's the guy who's having you on the

podcast that's seeing this there are a

whole lot more people out there

who have likely seen scrolled and didn't

interact with it which is a great thing

but you still have the impression

in their uh social feed which is super

important so

let's pretend for a moment you got six

interactions or something like that you

know two comments

four likes and reactions but you may

have had your post delivered

to 60 80 100 people

so that's a hundred pairs of eyes in

your post so the question to ask here

is how do we get more people to look at

what we're seeing what we're doing

and so part of the algorithm that we're

looking to tap into with the 50 cent

strategy

is the interaction with others portions

so think about you know right

how that works right so did you actually

make any comments

uh back to folks who had maybe said

anything or

anything like that so when i originally

was

um looking for the article i had found a

couple that were similar but i wanted to

find something that you know looks good

for posting strategies and also just you

know

spoke to spoke to me and things like

that so as i was looking in the you know

hashtag sustainable holiday

uh i made a few comments there but i

definitely need to get better at

you know when i'm not posting

interacting with others and

you know companies that i'm just you

know really fond of or

have experience with you know it doesn't

hurt and everybody loves

interaction nowadays too especially it's

like we don't get to see each other or

you know have these community events so

you know a little comment goes a long

way it does

and that's a great little phrase because

even on your

own post a little comment goes a long

way you'll often find

that folks like myself will make a post

and then once we do

we come into the actual comment section

with either like a

an add-on or something that we didn't

actually post in the thing like the link

to the

article or whatever it might be that's

something that's part of the strategy

two

is to get more eyes on that you can post

on yourself

occasionally with the 50 cent strategy

don't let it rely on it of course

it's usually for others but one of those

you know maybe five cent or

darn five cents doesn't divide and

evenly into two

uh six cents a day maybe on your own

posts which is a great thing

so i always wondered why celebrities did

that they would post something and then

like

make a comment on their own post you

know a funny phrase

or something like that well and that's

kind of them

gaming that that algorithm because if

you make a comment on someone with a bit

of a followings post

it shows up it gives them an alert so

when folks make a comment on

on my linkedin on my phone i get

notifications every single time and the

other part is is if i make a comment on

somebody i follows post

they also send me notifications when

other people comment on that post so

it'll say

rob you're you're following john smith

other

you know 48 other people have posted on

john smith's post

so it's a great way to build that

interaction and that's kind of what the

50 cent strategy is all about it's about

getting

you in front of more eyes every day on

other posts as well as your own and so

by doing this you're guaranteeing every

day you get at least 25 new people

to see what you have to say or how you

feel about their content and keep in

mind

you may get more mileage out of this for

actual comments of course

than just you know thumbs up and things

like that but i would say for best

results we pair the two right

right good deal so my next question for

you chelsea is dealing with the next

part of linkedin we talked about it just

a moment ago

uh marketing yourself a little bit and

i'm curious

i don't know much about your marketing

background i know you've done some

social media i know you've done a lot of

things like that

to you what is the phrase write good

copy mean

yeah so to me write good copy is like

you had mentioned you saw my post

and you know everything about it you

liked that there was an article attached

you liked that there were hashtags

and i think writing good copy to me

means you know getting someone's

attention with what you have to say

you know if you're writing something

boring or something that's not authentic

or um just looks like a robot type that

people aren't going to be as interested

so write good copy um you know kind of

speaks for itself and

you have to write something good to get

people's attention which will

eventually help you with you know your

connection

absolutely and then there's another

phrase that i'm curious and i'm not sure

if you know this one but this is one of

my one of my favorite phrases

it's above the fold are you familiar

with that phrase

yeah i was a journalism major so i had

to learn about that

good deal so enlighten us please what

does above the fold mean

yeah so above the fold especially you

know in marketing terms nowadays with

everybody you know being online and

everything happening on the internet is

it's

getting somebody's attention whether

it's to buy something or

to read something or to click more or to

keep reading the article you want to get

their attention in the first upper half

of you know the fold per se so in that

first

you know couple of paragraphs you want

to make sure it's going to

allow them to know

you know what your company is or what

you have to say or what your mission

statement is

to be able to have them read more buy

more something like that

right exactly it's that old old

marketing term that basically says if

you're sending someone a marketing

letter

you need to capture their attention

before they reach the first tri-fold

in the actual letter uh you need to have

like two sentences sometimes because you

have

you know the address dear sir dear madam

and then

yeah blah blah blah and you have just a

handful of sentences if

if that maybe even a handful of words to

capture attention so that that is

perfect i'm really glad that

uh you get a great explanation on that

you know with you know eve in modern

day i would say maybe above the scroll

if you will above

the flick um in that case so that should

be your goal

with linkedin post and i saw that with

what you posted

yesterday i i was like again kind of

blown away going like oh man i

she said she does she said she needs to

learn but i don't know

how much she needs to learn but it's and

it's great it's good to see somebody who

is brand new to the platform have a

successful post right off the bat

and success is variable

on linkedin and the goal of what people

post on linkedin should be

to get people to click that you know

little read more thing at the side

yeah we can together then take a look it

kind of makes

what makes a successful post we talked

about yours a moment ago

i want to bring in an example about how

to

uh leverage this that really got some

traction for me so i'm gonna

kind of take the reins here a little bit

more than i normally would just because

i want to read this out for folks

uh a couple days ago i posted the

following

uh post on linkedin it went bananas

and so it says so many folks want to

know how to leverage linkedin

and it's one of the most requested

topics for recruiting hell

coincidentally it's why we're doing this

episode of the show

here's what i've done i'm used to

reaching

50 to 100 people a post and this was six

months ago and six months later while

i'm not solidly in four digits yet i'm

seeing 300

1200 views a post the three things i try

to do to make this go further are

a consistency of posting b upping my

copy skills and finding what resonates

with my listeners

and audience c networking my ass off to

find new folks who i can help

and who can help me now my question to

you is chelsea

in listening to that where did i put the

break where was my above the fold

portion

to have people click read more

definitely so where i thought or what

captured me

is when you said here's what i've done

and kind of did a dot dot dot

where it allows people to want to learn

more and want to

keep reading right and that's actually

precisely where it was it was that that

break there

and there's a rule that i follow on this

show i will never withhold

any information from somebody's job hunt

but you might have to click a button

that's all in that case so you're

correct right after the ellipses it

gives that prompt

to people to find out what i actually

did as a strategy

and it kind of pokes that little

curiosity

button in our brains so the first part

about making a linkedin post that starts

to go somewhere

is taking advantage of that curiosity in

human beings and the idea that there is

value in that read more section the fear

of missing out on that value

fomo so in that case there are three

tips that can help

people who are starting out on linkedin

you know the consistency

the copy and then the networking with

other folks and again the 50 cent

strategy

is part of that so now that we've given

a great example of a post that generates

interest these can be pretty much easily

done on any topic as you showed with

your conservation post

that's something that while i believe in

you know saving the planet and things

like that it's not as near and dear to

my heart as it is to yours which is

excellent

so it's important for somebody who's

posting on linkedin

to find those things that really tap in

to what their experience

is in the world for me it's

it's this job hunt thing you know i have

i'm kind of on a bit of a crusade for

this because i've seen that people

have been really impacted by what the

world is like and for you that's an

environmental issue and

we are all stronger when we have our

causes together and we we

pursue those cause so what other kind of

post do you think

would resonate with your connections

from what you what you're passionate

about chelsea

yeah definitely so the reason i spoke

about

you know the conservation and things

like that is with the holidays

you know like i said christmas is a week

away i thought it would really capture

people's attention because

everybody's buying gifts right now

everybody is wrapping presents

so it's also important to do you know

make posts within the season or within

what's going on in the world um i think

for me

i mean something that i've been told by

a lot of people and it's just

the type of person i am is i i'm a light

they say i'm like the sun

um so you're not gonna find like

negative articles or

bad news that's going on that's just not

who i am that's not

authentic to me so you might find like

something good that happened

perhaps at a covid or something a good

news story of people coming together

you know in quarantine and all the good

things you know that with people driving

less

you know how it's impacting the earth

and things like that so that's the kind

of

articles that i'm passionate about um

and not just articles but just you know

posts in general um i recently rescued a

puppy

named moose tracks so dog related

um you know anything dog related or

maybe

something i learned about the pet

industry i could share about um

those are the types of things travel uh

that i definitely will share excellent

and you

you have a wide variety of things that

are very popular with people there

pets you know we know that half the

internet's devoted to cat photos we know

that

uh the travel you know people like to

see where other people go

that a lot of these things whether

they're in your life or not

are really great topics you know things

like that and you have to find again

what you're passionate about you've

rattled off a number of things that work

perfectly for you chelsea and the other

part of that is

for the other listeners these might not

be things that are you know

as you're as on fire about as chelsea is

the

thing that you might be on fire about is

i want to give him a shout

here because he's just a great great guy

um i know a gentleman named ted carew

and ted is a career

uh on the job safety uh

instructor director kind of like not an

osha inspector but the guy who like

interfaces with the osh inspector

and make sure people don't get there

okay hands cut off ted is

wild about safety and while safety is

like not my

my thing you know and it's not my

passion watching him post

on something that is to most people

maybe a little bit

something they don't think about every

day is it's really he is just on fire

for this and so

if you're a listener out there saying ah

my stuff

isn't interesting on linkedin there is

an audience for pretty much everything

when it comes to professional interests

and even some of the personal interests

which is great

good deal so there's one thought i want

to close with on the 50 cent strategy

here

chelsea and this is partially for you

but this is also for the

rest of listeners on linkedin remember

that people like you

for you and if they're connected to you

they've already kind of indicated that

they want to play the linkedin game with

you

and if you bring good content to them oh

yeah they're gonna they're gonna share

it

so we've covered this strategy and we've

kind of seen how these small efforts

of interacting with just 25 posts a day

can start to pay some dividends and i

certainly hope that you're going to keep

that consistency up

uh in the coming days here even over the

holidays uh to work to give you some

ideas for

not only your own content but other

folks out there as well who may connect

with you

so the next piece of linkedin growth is

from

[Music]

kind of an interesting perspective and

i'm going to call this linkedin growth

from

zero and that okay that part is

bringing yourself from zero to somewhere

else you know some other number that's

higher than zero

another thing is vulnerability and

you and i talked the other day about

vulnerability and authenticity and give

us a bit of an overview about what we

kind of spoke about there

yeah definitely so like you had just

mentioned

you know me being passionate about the

environment and dogs and

christmas and things like that doesn't

mean other people have to

but i'm not going to post about things

just because they're popular if it's

something that i'm really passionate

about because people will be able to

tell

in your posts and i learned this a lot

from other social media platforms like

instagram like facebook where people

love hearing about you know how you're

really feeling and things that you're

really passionate about because they can

smell it from a mile away so when i

would post about

things you know that people know you

know my fans per se

know that i'm passionate about they

interact more and they're more

interested in the content that i have so

on linkedin

if you're posting something you know

that

someone could tell that it's not coming

from your true authentic self

they might just keep scrolling they

might not have interest in that and

they'll just be able to tell

and really be able to read you know that

you're being vulnerable and true to

yourself

um and people love that kind of stuff

especially you know now in 2020 a lot of

feelings and emotions are happening

through you know

with everybody so people want to know

about that and people want to

um you know learn about that and see

that

in your content right and i think

perhaps we're substituting the actual

like physical and you know

interpersonal emotions with these ones

that are kind of filtered through

a a computer medium which is interesting

so

you you touched on everything that i i

wanted to to kind of hear about that

chelsea which is which is great and that

wasn't

thankfully it was prompting for me and

one of the biggest mistakes i think that

people who make who are new to linkedin

is that they hold

so tightly to that professional feel of

the platform

right and that doesn't mean we should

fill it with you know conspiracy

theories and

bad memes with minions and other other

garbage like you see on facebook

that's that's not what we should do

right that platform i

it has just gone just downhill not dog

bees

well there's some there's something to

things like that you can be

light in your linkedin presence you can

it's actually something that i advise

folks when i actually advise them about

building brands

humanizing your brand is posting a meme

every once in a while it really is

and but a lot of folks grip onto

especially with linkedin

that it's got to be a professional

platform that is so far from true

it because it walks a very unique line

between the professional and the

personal and if we let those blend

we can really start to see things kind

of gel so one of my most popular posts

of all time was from a few months ago

and it spread further than anything i

really could have ever imagined it was

outside of my network

it had you know tons of reactions and i

went back

the other day and i when i was writing

this episode and i looked at what made

that post work

i'm going to read that and we're going

to kind of pick that apart together here

real quick

so it said six months ago

i made up my mind i was going to start

something for myself

i knew it wasn't going to be easy and

that because it was my own

it'd be simple to hang it up if it

wasn't performing making money or got

too challenging

i made myself a promise if you're going

to do one

you're going to do a hundred this

attitude forced me to look at my new

creation as a long-term project and i'm

glad it did

because honestly i don't want to stop

what i'm doing i love being a content

creator

even if there are days that i don't make

the best content in the world it's mine

and it does resonate with people

which makes all the difference in the

world so then chelsea what aspects do

you sort of see it here in that post

that might make people connect with it

yeah i really think you know when you

made that post or when you were speaking

at that time frame you know six months

ago we were

all kind of in a similar position so i

think it really

allows people to connect with that time

frame of oh my gosh

like everything's closing down you know

people are out of work

you have to get creative and you know

start

maybe maybe it's not starting a you know

podcast like you did but you're starting

something new or

following that like gut feeling or

following your heart you know

i really think it's important too people

can connect to that part of time

with covet and everything being shut

down where

you have to kind of think on your feet

and pivot

um and like you did you tried something

new you

followed a gut feeling you followed your

heart and did something that

um you know you had thought about before

and i think

people can really relate to that in that

time frame and how we were all feeling

definitely and i think that's probably

the biggest

i i want to say heartstring i do want to

say heartstring that that is pulled

which is great and the other part of

that too was kind of the way this was

structured and

obviously you and i aren't looking at

this this post together right now but

one of the biggest things was not only

the

above the fold portion which was you

know two little sentences six months ago

i decided to start something for myself

dot dot dot

that spacing again that prompt for

people to say oh what did you start rob

let's hear about it

that was really really outstanding but

you're absolutely right

the shared experience of covid of

having more free time in the world than

you know what to do with

is really a a driver there

the other thing that i think is really a

important aspect that i want to make

sure that our listeners

get out of this too is

the vulnerability linkedin eats up

vulnerability like no other and like you

said people can smell when things aren't

right

they can spell it a mile away right you

have to be

authentically vulnerable and you can't

beat this drama king or drama queen

real vulnerability plays exceptionally

well with the audience

and talking about facing adversity

without being a fiend for attention and

adoration

is a very real strategy that folks

should consider so i talk about this

with the show a lot

i talk about this with my business i

talk about things that are important to

me just like you do chelsea

the challenges i face but there's always

as you said you're a light

there's always a lining of positivity to

it even it's me talking about failure

so when folks are posting to linkedin

you need to consider the the tory the

story that you're telling

is it one of these following things is

it a redemption arc

is it a me versus whatever is it a

before and after is the lesson you've

learned and all of these things can be

used to not only drive

my content your content but content for

anybody out there who's listening

to engage with people who have connected

with them and who are following them

so i'm going to keep going here for just

a second because there is also

one other aspect from this post and

that's the inclusion of

others and that post is talking about

my content but it's also humble enough

and

and maybe aware enough to know that i'm

not

i'm not yet a top tier podcaster i can

create all the content in the world

but i can still you know have people

consume that

and i'm so thankful with for that it

doesn't matter though if i am not humble

if i am not including other people in it

i come across as a pompous jerk and the

professional atmosphere

of linkedin knows to celebrate worthy

achievements like promotions new jobs

and things like that

but they also very much dive into the

humbleness aspect

that a lot of people display which is

just a great angle as well so for those

of you listening

let's make sure that we we're always

humble we're always very real

with our linkedin so chelsea i'll put it

to you any questions about vulnerability

authenticity or anything you'd like to

add

oh boy um i think you nailed it on the

head there with

you know that whole post had everything

you know all encompassing that we

discussed it had an above the fold

you know wanting people to keep reading

it had vulnerability it had

authenticity um and i guess my question

would be

like how do you um like for your

listeners and for

people listening how do you um know

when to post like when is the right time

to post something authentic or

vulnerable

on top of you know an interesting

article or like you said a funny

you know dog or cat meme how many posts

are you posting that are more vulnerable

than um just on a regular basis

good question to put that in perspective

for like what i do

i try to post on linkedin daily so i do

one post a day maybe two

sometimes i do some that are off the

cuff on my phone that aren't scheduled

i use a social media tool for it so i

can plan them out in advance because i

want to

you know i can share the show i can find

articles you know it helps me

with the running of this whole endeavor

but that doesn't mean that i'm not

actually on my phone a few times a day

going through and going oh wow that's

really cool comment

new post whatever it might be the

other part of that is you don't always

it's a it's a bit of an art it really is

you don't always have to be putting out

these

these drama stories you know oh and

today i face this challenge and things

like that like

people are going to get sick of that

real fast if you will

so you need to to mix it into this

strategy that you have and i usually try

to do one post

that's reflective a week in that case

maybe maybe i'll creep up to two

but what i try to do keep the focus on

is here's what i'm doing

here's the successes i'm having here's

how i can help people here's what

challenged me this week and that might

be that that might be the post that is

the

the vulnerable one the one that sit that

says gosh you know

i was really having a hard time with

this episode

and my guest was somebody i had never

met before and i was really nervous

about

about talking to them or whatever it

might be and that's not in reference to

this episode i promise you

but it's having that common experience

we as human beings look into that common

experience and say

i've felt that way before and that tends

to get people to dig on it which is just

outstanding so

again authentic vulnerability you can't

just make up

uh crying wolf stories every week it has

to be real

it has to be authentic cool well i can

relate to that

in the sense while we were traveling you

know i we were feeling all the emotions

we were far away from home we were

living you know there was a point where

we lived in a village in kenya for three

weeks and

you know showered out of a bucket um so

instead of just posting

like you know lions and elephants and

the stuff that people also like to see

i would post and you know we're having a

hard time like i miss my comfy bed i

miss clean sheets i miss

you know coffee shops like so people

enjoyed seeing

that vulnerability like you had

mentioned instead of just

you know pretty pictures of sunsets and

lions tigers and bears right and then

having you know i looked at your

instagram and things like that some of

your photography

physique is just excellent it really is

so there's a lot to be oh yeah

there's a lot to be said about you know

what there's

there's a beautiful savannah sunset or

things like that but also

here's a picture of the bucket that is

my cleaning apparatus for today like

yeah

kind of yeah that gear shift really

works sometimes for creating content on

linkedin of

welp you had a nice warm shower this

morning i had a

lukewarm bucket of river water yeah yeah

and people can

relate to that more as well or you know

that's at least what i think is you see

these beautiful photos and it kind of

makes you like oh i wish i was there

instead of you know seeing something

where it's like oh i felt that way

before kind of like you mentioned with

your linkedin post

right and the other part of that too is

you know oh i wish i was there in the

beautiful savannah

and then you see the picture of this

this bucket that is your shower for the

day it's like

do you do you really can you maybe not

i don't want to come across as like a

princess or anything but like showering

out of a bucket that's kind of like a

i don't know if that's a if that's an

appealing thing for me

to to go on the trip you know now

chelsea you mentioned earlier in our

conversations before setting up this

show

the title of this episode was initially

giving on linkedin or networking for the

give on linkedin and you said where's

the give

in all of this and you're absolutely

right we haven't talked about that yet

the give is in the vulnerability and

oftentimes on platforms like linkedin we

sort of hide our imperfections and

whether others come out with what's

uh what theirs are you know that that

against showering in a bucket thing it

gives us this environment sort of air

some of our own shortcomings as well

and it's a bit therapeutic yep

especially in this environment like you

mentioned

coven 19 put us in a really weird

position worldwide

and i can't tell you how many times i've

seen somebody post a failing

a shortfall a defeat and people start to

come out of the woodwork to not only

support them

but they also share the setbacks they're

dealing with and it's a little bit weird

but

it's kind of crazy at the same time it's

it's a strange phenomenon

yeah and i i don't know if you've seen

that by chance

um i definitely have seen that just in

like i said the social media platforms

and the articles i read

and things like that where it talks

about

you know i felt that way too or that

definitely happened to me too and

for once you know in a long time we're

all in the same boat you know

for pre-kova 19 i feel like people were

going about their day you know they

could relate on some things

of course but now it's kind of like you

know me too

you know we all have that same you know

just your usps package is taking forever

and your christmas gifts probably won't

deliver on time

me too like we're all in the same

you know and obviously you can take that

to a business standpoint as well where

people are

out of work or if they're out of work

maybe their businesses aren't doing as

well or maybe they're thriving because

you're in you know the pet

industry and there's always people out

there that have that same

connection definitely and

that's that connection part is really

what gives linkedin's kind of its power

and that connection also continues with

what you do

after you post and we talked about this

a little earlier in the episode

and with this best practices i want to

really share with people because

this is not only based on my personal

experience and but it's also the

research that i've done

that how you look to interact with

people on your post should be as heavy

as possible

for the first hour after it's up so when

people are will

are maybe scrolling linkedin at nine in

the morning because they're a little bit

bored at work

you should be looking to grab to throw a

post out there that maybe

catches their eye but also like we said

make that first comment that's called a

seed comment in

in my term and it's a short snippet you

place it in the comments section to

stimulate discussion

and it'd be simple as something right it

can be as simple as

the question that i asked recently in

the update i made about having a

conversation with a recent connection on

linkedin which i think was you

i asked hey connections who should folks

connect with out there that has given

you amazing value on linkedin this year

and this little seed comment spawned

like three or four different comment

chains

that drove engagement it not only

granted visibility to the people that

had been linked

but it also opened them up to my own

network and after a couple exchanges i

actually

gained like six or seven new connections

from just this one comment so it's a

network for the gift so i was like

putting that out there to people saying

hey who else

is doing well this year let's you know

kind of name

name and not shame but name and and

honor in this case

and it turned into something that for me

paid off big time with some folks that

are

uh in networks that i wasn't wasn't a

part of which is outstanding so

we see that you know interacting with

your posts heavily not only the

reactions but the comments

kind of gives back to the networking

efforts of others and

showing them that you actually hear

their words because you said this

earlier chelsea that

the engagement on posts is what makes

people continue to do so and it's not

just fluff on your

you know linkedin wall if you were back

in the that's kind of a

throwback to old school facebook i think

so chelsea we have covered a lot of

ground today and i've had a couple of

pretty big stretches of talking in the

show

uh i don't want to i want to make sure

we balance that out a little bit

uh one of the questions that you think

that i didn't ask or explain about this

topic so i would say

you know from my standpoint coming from

a creative who loves photography

and instagram and facebook like we had

discussed and i have a ton of experience

there

you know instagram stories and um i've

even built

you know two business platforms on

instagram

what would you say for someone back into

linkedin per se

um in terms of someone who wants to

market themselves or even

someone who maybe started a business and

wants to make sure they have all social

media platforms

covered how would you um advise them you

know to get started on linkedin

um to you know start connecting with

people and start building that personal

brand like you have mentioned

sure and that's a that's a really great

question because i can actually speak to

that with the recruiting help page on

linkedin so there's my personal page

there's you know rob conlon who is

you know content creator things like

that you see my picture but there's also

the actual company page and that's what

i that's the first thing i'd recommend

anybody

if you have a small endeavor get your

company page on linkedin lockdown

it's not only a matter of grabbing you

know kind of the handle

or the name but also you post to that

just in the same way that you post to

your personal

account um with my social media tool

that i used again

it's just for simplicity for me you

don't have to have a social media tool

this is just with time saver i'm able to

post to

my regular profile my

business profile my other business

profile for the actual production

company that makes this

uh this program as well as my twitter my

instagram all sorts of things with a

couple clicks of a button but

the goal is is that i have to produce

content that is relevant to my audience

that follows

the actual show page versus

maybe what my personal pages or the

other social media platforms so

that's number one is to get that page

dialed in get your logo on it get a

background photo things like that

uh fill in the description you know the

who we are what we do get your website

linked up on that

that's all pretty much set up and

self-explanatory you can you can do that

through the linkedin platform

the other part about that though is that

there is the

invite button on linkedin and

you you will have some connections you

want to invite them to like and follow

your page

and what i did initially was i strung

that out over time so you maybe you have

100 followers on linkedin or 100

connections on linkedin

you will want to ask them drip by drip

basically

if they want to follow your your

business page in that case which is

going to be a great thing

i would string these out you get 100 a

month for free if i'm not mistaken

string these out over the course of

weeks i would just do 10

every single week invite 10 people you

know

moderately well or have connected with

recently to follow your business follow

your page

and that way you don't just blow it all

at once

you don't just have i have 150

connections and i invited 100 of them

today

and as soon as that refilled next month

i invited the next 50. well that doesn't

help you very much with kind of

the upward growth of your your platform

so

that would be the other thing is to

invite people i try to make sure that

they have a minimum

amount of familiarity with me you know

maybe i ran into them at a conference

five years ago they're not going to

remember who i am things like that

i try to go with the people i either

know personally the people i've recently

connected with

so i'm fresh in their memory or the

people who

i have been a part of my network and

interacted with me for a long time

okay good deal great question that's

actually something

that uh that we didn't cover and i

wasn't i guess expecting to cover in

this episode but

that's a that's a perfect thing

especially if somebody has a small

business

or a an effort or a passion that they

have

about that you know if you started a

like a conservation group of some sort

or whatever it might be right

that's a great strategy for that is to

kind of grow that slow grow it

but also make sure that you're posting

relevant content that goes to people who

are going to share

this thing with other people who might

like that content

all right good deal any other stuff yeah

yeah any others that i missed

um i would also be curious you know for

someone like me who's

you know looking for a job and is in the

market for a job

you know you mentioned something that i

really grasped my

attention when we first spoke on the

phone where you said look for people and

not opportunities

um and that's a mistake that i maybe

have been making because i'm in this

position where i'm like all right i'm

new i'm back you know in the midwest i

need to

you know just apply to jobs and that's

the only way to go about it and now

we're in this position where we can't

really meet for coffee and we can't

you know go to networking groups so

we're gonna have to

like you said look for people and uh

really connect with people how would you

advise someone

asking for a friend you know for someone

like me um who's looking for a job to

reach out on linkedin or even just

connect with you know companies i might

be interested in or

people who i know um maybe have you know

are within their network um with

companies that i'm passionate about are

interested in

good question and a lot of this involves

kind of being a little bit brave

that's one of the biggest things that i

think i can impart to people out there

about linkedin is sometimes you just

kind of have to jump into the

conversation

and that can be a little awkward at

first you're going to eventually kind of

learn how to just slide yourself in

to the the conversation adding that

relevant

thought process to conversations about

that

you know folks are showing like hey i'm

hiring for this

uh you know do you know anybody you may

see something like

you know somebody who has xyz computer

skills

you may you may not it might be you

and the biggest trick i guess is to

find out how to politely

slide onto that post and say hey you

know i see that you've got this that

you're hiring for this position or that

you're talking about this

is this something that's a challenge for

you we talked about in one of our

interview episodes a couple

a couple weeks ago solving a business

problem for somebody

that's the big thing that's what shows

them that you're thinking about

them and again that's a give so solving

a business problem for somebody let's

say they post something

like i am

oh i'm looking for a great i'm looking

for a piece of software that helps me do

x y and z and you see this post you go

i have some experience with evaluating

software maybe you do i i have some of

that

i'm looking for a great social media

piece of software and you say hey you

know jim

this is uh you know you and i don't know

each other yet

but in the past when i've had to deal

with managing multiple social media

accounts

i've used xyz it costs this a month

i have no relation to them but i had a

really great time

using their platform it was intuitive

and it might be worth you checking out

right and again that's a give the

finding people you're not necessarily

finding a job you're finding a person

who may have a job for you in the future

and right that's not going to happen

right away

that's i don't want to fool anybody by

thinking like if you do a 50 cent

strategy for

a week and if you comment on some

people's stuff a few times

people are going to say oh we should

hire that guy that's not going to happen

this is this is a long-term strategy

long game kind of thing like a diet plan

or an exercise plan you don't generally

see results on day one or even maybe day

100.

excellent well chelsea you and i uh i

don't think we have any more questions

to to share with folks today

i really want to thank you so much for

agreeing to do this and this was kind of

a last-minute episode it's definitely

been a shorter timetable for production

than i normally try to give a guest

and i want to thank you for stepping out

of your comfort zone and kind of being

on your first podcast here

i certainly hope it helps your

networking efforts if people wanted to

find out more

yeah if people wanted to find out more

about you who you are

what you do how you can add to their

networks or their ventures

or maybe some of the neat stuff you've

done in the past where would they find

you out on social media or the internet

yeah definitely so right now my personal

account my personal brand is where i do

the most posting

you can learn about my puppy name moose

tracks

and just kind of the things i do living

back in the beautiful midwest

back in pewaukee wisconsin here so my

instagram handle is

at chelsea wandering and the wandering

came from when we were doing all that

travel

obviously i'm more a little more put now

um

and yeah and then chelsea berg on

linkedin as well

perfect perfect and as somebody who is a

native of heartland wisconsin um

i feel a little bit of animosity when

you mention pewaukee for some reason

no neighboring towns neighboring towns

it's all good

all right well excellent and again folks

stop by her instagram

connect with her on linkedin if there

are opportunities that you know of

that might fit somebody who has uh some

pretty impressive social media skills

and built some brands herself

uh definitely connect out there and

network for the give uh yourself here

come uh these next few weeks well

chelsea thanks again for swinging by

and uh for being a part of our show this

week closing out for us here at

recruiting health

it is the holidays and i want to take

the time to do two quick things

the first it is my genuine hope that

your holidays are the brightest they can

be

and even though this year may be a

rather lonelier set of holidays than

usual for some folks

if you're in that situation i invite you

to reach out

check up on your people and make sure

people check up on you it's the most

wonderful time of the year and even

though we can't be as close as we want

to be this year

remember that there are people in this

world who love you

the second is to give you the gift of no

promotions at the end of this show

for one episode i want to put aside the

thought of growing the audience

or any other aspect of this show and

just appreciate what we have right now

because i am truly truly happy with all

of you who are listening to this

right at this moment thank you to every

single one of you

whether it's your first lesson today or

your 50th because you started listening

to things again

for coming to this show week in and week

out it has made my

2020 one of the best years it could

possibly be

given the circumstances and knowing that

there are people who listen to this show

decided it was worthwhile who got jobs

from it and can who continue

to generously support this show to this

very day

fills me with an incredible amount of

joy

recruiting hell is a production of

westport studios and is proudly made in

wisconsin and finally

as always a big thank you to purple

planet music for our themes and you the

listener

for tuning in i'm rob condom and until

we meet again

keep moving forward with your

self-betterment and your job hunt

it's a marathon not a sprint and

recruiting hell

will be here to help you keep pace happy

holidays

from my family to yours

[Music]

[Music]

~RH