Robb Conlon
- Dec 21, 2020
- 41 min read

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

Updated: Dec 23, 2020

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

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

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

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

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