In this solo presentation, a Firestarter Marketing representative outlines the current challenges and opportunities for small businesses on LinkedIn. The speaker notes that organic reach is declining as LinkedIn pushes paid advertising, making it harder to be discovered without investment. To counter this, they advocate a strategy of strategic engagement: spending 30‑45 minutes daily commenting on others’ posts, initiating DMs with new engagers, and prioritizing meaningful interaction over sheer content volume. The talk repeatedly references three core pillars—consistency over virality, engagement over impressions, and substance over fluff—as the foundation for building an audience. The presenter shares a practical AI‑enhanced workflow: write a blog post, use AI to generate a video script, import the script into Prezi for a presentation, then record a short video, enabling rapid content production. Finally, the speaker explains how to convert LinkedIn engagement into business opportunities through offline consultations, lead magnets, gated content, LinkedIn Events, and newsletters, emphasizing authenticity, generosity, and consistent presence as ways to establish expertise and trust.
Chapters
Hey, Firestarters! I wanted to share some information with you today around LinkedIn and what's going on. I really— I recently read a report on LinkedIn trends. It was great analysis, very detailed information. I want to share that with you and then talk about what we can do to kind of overcome some of the changes that are going on in these trends today. So first, let's talk a little bit about what's going on at LinkedIn. Number 1, your organic reach is declining. You might have felt it, you might have seen it, but it's becoming more and more difficult to get yourself out there. Part of that is LinkedIn is shifting, as they should, to their— shifting to their paid advertising. So that is going to make it harder for you to get the organic reach. But we'll talk about some ways that we can get over that. Engagement does still matter out there. So taking yourself, putting yourself out there and engaging with not just your content and the comments within your content, but getting out there and giving LinkedIn answers and also engaging with other people's content is still an effective medium to build an audience. Within that environment. So as that shift goes, you can always, if you have the money, go ahead and move into paid advertising. It's great. You can target really, really well. Again, if you have the money, it's a good, it's a good medium to go. If you don't, there's other things that we can do to kind of keep going off of this. So number 1, let's start talking about building strategic engagement. So, um, with organic reach declining, that means that you engaging more meaningfully over time is going to be pretty important within that environment. So comment more than you post if you can. Set time aside, about a half hour, 45 minutes a day, to go through and consume other people's content and then engage with it. And then anybody that engages with you that you don't know, reach out and DM and move that way, right? That'll help you really get things going with them and get things out there. Again, the three pillars are always there: consistency over viral, engagement over impressions, substance over fluff. Right? The more that you can be consistent, authentic, and generous with your information, the more you're going to get back within that environment. Set some time aside to build the content, schedule it ahead of time. I usually set Monday mornings aside to build content, and then I schedule it for the week. That helped me build an audience of over 4,000 people. That then helped me get me, get me more consulting effort when I was doing the consulting side of things. There's ways to go and improve that today as well, where we, we can actually improve our content generation through AI, right? A lot of people are using AI today, but you got to be careful about how you do it, right? You can let AI write for you, and you can have AI write in your voice, but let's make sure that you're using your own topics to make that happen. Don't, don't get lazy with it. There are great places for AI, and I'll talk about that in a minute, how I use AI in my strategy to drive that forward. It helps not only streamline content creation, but you can help monitor engagement and all that kind of stuff through AI and bring that forward. So here's how I do it. Number 1, I write the blog, but I do use AI to, to come up with ideas and content that I should be writing for you guys. Then I take that blog and I have AI write me a script, and that script then I take into Prezi and I build the presentation. From the finished blog post to the presentation takes me about 2 to 3 minutes to happen. That I practice a little bit and record, and I still always screw up all the time, but trying to be authentic with what's going on out there. And I've put this out on LinkedIn and on, um, and on YouTube as much as I can so you guys can bring that forward. So, you know, of course after we get this, we have to convert this information to to business, right? Engagement's always awesome, but the real goal is turning this into actual opportunity for you. So don't be afraid to move these conversations offline. Try and see if they want a free consult— consultation, or get yourself into that conversation where you have the chance to sell yourself within that environment. Don't forget to create lead magnets, right? Some people don't want to have a conversation, but they'll want to download and read more. Do a lot of their own research out there. So bring them back to your website, let them download information. You can gate that information, capture their email address, and get them into a conversation then. Also use LinkedIn events and newsletters. They can be very effective reach for you and take that forward for that environment. And then participate, right? Get them to— encourage them to to make comments on what you're doing, get into conversations with people and take that forward. As I said, the 3 pillars always exist in something like this. Be consistent, be authentic, and be generous with your information. That establishes you as the expert. It allows you to go ahead and get your voice out there and be heard. And as people begin to hear that, they'll trust you more. And we can start to build a relationship with them. So we're Firestarter Marketing. We're here to help small businesses really reach their dreams. If you want to learn more about us, come to our website. Please interact with us. Let me know what I missed here. Tell me more about what you were doing to make something happen. Let's get in a conversation and make each other better.
