Social Selling Tips n Tricks - Live Greenroom Broadcast 11 August 2021

Hello, welcome everyone to the Social Selling Tips and Tricks Green Room. Uh, we do this every Wednesday, 12 PM BST time, uh, probably different times to other people in the world, but we use BST as our benchmark, uh, time zone. Therefore, people can calculate what time that is in their time zone wherever they're listening. So welcome to everyone that's here live with us today on Green Room. Or listen to the podcast on the Social Selling Warrior podcast channel. I'm very happy today to have our regular co-host with me, Craig Langley, Mac Labouche, and we've got a special guest here with us today in Paul Spain. Paul's decided to join us, and those of you who know Paul will know he's a great contributor to the social audio app channels, whether it be Clubhouse. or green room and also, uh, very knowledgeable in a lot of his areas of expertise, which I'll let him talk about very, very soon. So let's go through, guys, do a bit of a brief intro, uh, starting what I see on my screen with Craig, then we go to Mac and then Paul. So Craig, tell us a bit about yourself, uh, what you do, and then we'll head off to Mac.

Hi everyone, this is, uh, this is Craig Langley. Uh, I'm, I'm in the UK based, uh, just 50 miles north of, of London. I have been in business development, global business development, since 1993, focusing on software and electronics. For the last 10 years, I've run my own business development agency focusing on the automotive market. Very, very keen on LinkedIn, daily user. And I've grown four companies by using LinkedIn since 2007. Thank you, Con. Great debate.

Hey there, my name is Mac Laubscher. I'm currently known as the the LinkedIn expert, which was a name that was deemed and put on me by one of my coaches purely. So that I could become a bit more specific. I've been working and using LinkedIn since a year after Craig in 2008. And I've been using it for multiple different corporations and companies to help network for me. I teach people how to leverage their networks. And those are the real networks that they have face-to-face, as well as those that they have through business and online. on how to leverage LinkedIn to be able to build relationships on a global scale. So, yeah, feel free to reach out and connect with me. I'm always interested in trying to learn more about LinkedIn. It's an evolving platform and has so much great things to offer. So, we're glad to be here. Thank you, Con.

No problem. And Paul, our special guest for tonight, tell us a bit about yourself, Paul. What do you specialize in and where people can find you?

Sure. Thanks very much for, uh, for having me on. Uh, Paul Spain here. I'm based in New Zealand. I'm a futurist and someone that likes to really, you know, utilize the very best of technology and help other business owners to do the same. So hence why you, you'll find me on, uh, on podcasts, uh, on radio, TV, and, uh, social audio, and, uh, in LinkedIn. So I can be tracked down in all of those places and at my website at paulspain.com. But yeah, great to be here and hope I can contribute something today.

Thank you very much, Paul. That's great. And I'm Con. Con Sotidis is my name. The hashtag is #SocialSellingWarrior. You can find me on LinkedIn most of the time. I virtually live on there most of the day. I'm a bit like Mac. I help people create powerful brands and profiles on LinkedIn in order to leverage those brands to create opportunities. And hopefully from those opportunities come sales. Not hopefully, they do it the right way, they will get sales. But I can't make people buy from them. It's up to each individual to be able to create that offer that is attractive to the particular prospect. But what I can do is coach you and teach you how to create the profile and the brand to get you exposure and connections and conversations. All right guys, today I thought we'd, um, we were looking at touching on a subject of, um, content creation because as we know, one of the, one of the pillars of, um, the Social Selling Index that LinkedIn provides for us, which we, we probably use as a reference point every now and again, is, um, educating with insights. And one of the things that I, um, I've come across, especially this week, been talking to a few clients, is So, Con, where do I start? How do I create that content that's going to give me some traction? How do I find it? How do I position it? How do I create it? So I thought we'd open that up for conversation so we can help some of our listeners in content creation. And more importantly, how do we create that content that's really going to hit the mark? Any tips, thoughts, tricks, and observations, um, we can share with our, with our audience? So I'll go to Craig first. Craig, any thoughts around content creation and how you utilize that particular mechanism to create a brand and some attraction to you?

Yeah, yeah, sure, Con. So, so my industry focus is automotive, so I find automotive content from various sources. I've got Google Alerts set up, I use a website called Feedly, And I use one that you recommended, Con, WriteRelevance. And you put your keywords. I track autonomous driving stories, electric vehicle stories, and what's called infotainment, which is the information and entertainment, so sound and vision in the car. I also do a lot of posts about LinkedIn. I make sort of how-to videos. Tips and tricks I share, and then I kind of post post about sort of personal stuff. You know, I love barbecues. I love movies. I love golf, and sort of day-to-day observations. You know, I see a lot of people getting getting huge traction from human interest stories. You know, LinkedIn has come a long way. It's no longer just the place to store your CV. And it started to move into the kind of stuff that you see on Facebook. And there's a lot of human interest stuff that gets huge traction on LinkedIn because I think, you know, humans are humans no matter what platform you're on. People are people, and they take a general interest in what's happening in people's life outside of work, Con. So this is Craig, back to you.

That's great, Craig, and that is some great tips there for our audience, you know, to discover some content. And I think you make a very good point, which I want to sort of pick up here. We can talk more about it soon. It's about also being personal on your posts. I know for you, James Bond movies and barbecuing have given you your followers and your connections an idea of who Craig is, so they get a better understanding. Because at the end of the day, we know that people buy from people, and when you get to know someone a bit more than just a business person, I think it adds to, to the aura of, of the brand you create, and therefore people feel more comfortable in connecting with you. You do a lot of work in content creation. I know you do a lot of coaching with your clients Around that, any thoughts on the way you can share with us around content creation and how you go about it?

Con, so, you know, you've hit the nail on the head with regards to that people buy from people. And unfortunately, that's something people often forget. And they, you know, even myself a few years ago where I ran my security company and was trying to, you know, do a lot of content posts and It was amazing how, you know, you can easily, even when you're teaching other people these things, you can make these mistakes yourself. And I was, you know, doing a lot of content on some of the security solutions that we had. And I was posting about, you know, these devices and how amazing they are and all the things that they do. And people really didn't give a damn about that until I started going back to my clients and saying, hey, what is it that you want to hear about? What is it that you want want to know about? And they were like, well, we want to know the success stories. We want to know the pain that we can avoid. We want to know, you know, why we should have it, not about the device or anything like that. And when I started, you know, doing more personal posts and telling stories and, you know, giving examples of where clients had a pain that they were trying to avoid, or, you know, there's 2 things to realize when it comes to content. People tend to move away from pain or towards pleasure. And if you can take those 2 things into context and realize that you have 2 different audiences there, you've got to try and appeal to both of those because, you know, some people want to avoid pain by doing certain things. So, some people, as an example, if you're in the insurance game, will want to avoid, you know, not being able to look after their family if they don't have a certain insurance. But other people want to be able to have that pleasure of knowing that they've protected their family. So there's two different approaches on on how you do that. But since COVID has happened, there's been a beautiful change on LinkedIn, as Craig has mentioned, where people have become a lot more authentic. And and what we found is people have come out behind those formal titles and photographs, and they've started showing a little bit more about the human. Human behind it. And the human-to-human interaction has become such a powerful part of LinkedIn and content. So one of the things that I tell a lot of my clients, or all my clients, is when you're writing, write as if you're writing it to one specific individual, as opposed to being very general. And I created a post recently, anybody can go onto my profile and go and have a look, where I pretty much put content tips of the day on there. And I've got about 50 or 60 different types of content that you can go and listen to on there. And things like, you know, having the top 20 questions your clients ask, answer those, you know, one at a time. You don't have to put them all in one post. Or, you know, industry trends, what's happening within your industry. And then, you know, personally, you know, why, why are you passionate about what you do? And what are the things that you find exciting about the industry that you're in, or some of the things that you find frustrating? And have discussions with other industry experts that are like you who can bring more value to your clients. And, you know, the simplest one to wrap up is just ask your clients what they want to hear more of and ask your target audience and just say, hey, what would you guys like to hear more of from me as well? That's me.

That's awesome, Craig. I'm sorry, Mac. And I was going to say, I was just saying Craig, but I was just going to say, Mac, I think people should go and look at that post. I saw that post. I thought it was amazing. It was great. And the best part about that post is, I suppose, way we see the good posts get traction. When you're offering people some practical advice, tips, hints, approaches, and I see posts like from John Aspirin, for example, posts that come through from Mick Adam and from Richard Vanderbloem, where they take a similar approach to what you've taken, where they give some tips and advice, they're the ones that get some traction because people always love to hear a practical approach to a certain problem or an issue they might have. So I think the listeners are listening to the podcast, track down Mac in your LinkedIn searches, find that particular post and start adopting some of the stuff that Mac's advocating there, and you will get much more traction and reach with your posts. Paul, I wanted to come to you. Being a futurist, what kind of approach do you take to your content creation and what strategies have worked for you?

Well, for me, I've tended to do a bit of a mix in terms of, uh, content. Probably the most, uh, most common content I would share is, uh, at the moment anyway, uh, podcasts that I'm doing, and we tend to livestream those, uh, with videos. So, you know, taking advantage of LinkedIn Live to, uh, to put that out in front of people, and it's just amazing the, uh, the reach you get, uh, with LinkedIn Live as a platform, uh, especially at the moment where you have to jump through a few hoops to get access to be able to, uh, livestream on LinkedIn. And so if you make an effort to be able to produce, uh, you know, reasonably good quality, uh, video, then, um, you know, and it's useful content, then people are going to take, uh, take notice of that. And Even though with podcasts, they tend to be sort of longer format and most folks aren't necessarily gonna sit there and watch an entire podcast if it's sort of, especially if it runs for half an hour or an hour. But what you do get is you just sort of remind people that you're there, that you remind people about your show, and you keep yourself front of mind also with your audience. Yeah, it's amazing the number of people that I bump into. Some of them I haven't met yet, but I've been connected on LinkedIn. And they tell me that they watch me on LinkedIn. Had somebody come into one of our podcast studios a little while ago. He was— he had a former New Zealand Prime Minister coming in to record a podcast together. So, I popped in and introduce myself. And he runs a business that's worth a few hundred million, so, you know, not, not just a random person but someone very successful. And yeah, he told me he'd been, he'd been watching my videos. He knew exactly who I was, so it was very easy to introduce myself in person. So yeah, well worth using, you know, using that video side. In the past, I've also done little short weekly videos. And the idea with those videos was really just thinking about what might be useful information, putting myself in the shoes of others and thinking, you know, what is it that I can share with them that's going to be helpful? And so, yeah, when I get a little bit more time, which probably never happens, but maybe when I get a little bit more focused and committed, I'll start doing those short weekly videos again. And of course, you don't need LinkedIn Live to do that. So anybody can publish a short video.

Thanks, Paul. That's some great insight there. Thank you very much. And yeah, I probably can't say I know the feeling of being recognized by someone who's got a multimillion-dollar business, but it's always great when someone says to you, I've seen you here, I've seen you there, just out of the blue. I recall I had a very similar incident years ago. I was on a plane and the plane was just taxiing to the gateway for us to disembark. And as we came to the gate and the pilot goes, okay, you can get up and get your luggage now. And as I was getting my luggage, some guy taps me on the shoulder and he says, hey, I know you. Now, this guy I've never met in my life. I've never seen him in my life, never met him in my life. And I said to him, oh yeah, where from? And he goes, I've seen you on LinkedIn. You do some great videos and some great posts. And I said, wow, okay. And that's when, for me, this is going back years ago, that's when I really realized and confirmed to me that LinkedIn does work. And a bit like some of you guys, I've been on since 2000, February 2008 was when I got on. And I've all, ever since, I've always been a firm believer that LinkedIn does work and people recognize you. They might not be connected with you, but they do watch what you do. what you say. And having said that, what I want to move now into is, Paul, you talked a bit about the video and LinkedIn Live, and I've heard a lot of good things about how that is getting a lot of traction. So we're starting to get now into the sort of the types of content we can create. So we've got the text-based posts. Mac does a bit of those, but also adds a bit of visuals to those. Craig does some really good visual type posts. And so forth. But we've got a range of type of posts we create. Based on your gentlemen's experience, what are some of the more popular ones? Would you find the video-based ones, the text with the picture, dare I say it, the polls, which we know are getting a lot of traction at the moment, carousels/docs? What are some of the posts that are getting the traction? Why do you think they're getting that? That attraction. So I'll go the other way around this time, but I'll start with you, Paul. What do you think is happening with LinkedIn and what kind of content and type of posts are getting the traction on the platform?

Look, I think it can be really any type of post that just delivers value or encourages some sort of engagement. It catches people's interest. So, you know, certainly the carousel type ones you talk about where, you know, maybe you're providing a document or some insights that are really helpful, that's great. Certainly the polls, if you put up a poll on a subject that catches people's interest and they want to vote, they want to see the results, that can go very well. Video, yeah, of course. And I mean, I think for video to get the best traction, then, yeah, look for something that's short and punchy. Sometimes, I'll cheat because I do a fair bit on TV. So, I'll take what's been broadcast on TV and drop that up into my LinkedIn feed. But yeah, really, certainly, text type posts, even with, without going links and so on. All of that stuff can go well, and I think that sometimes we maybe sort of underestimate the value of posting on LinkedIn. And it's, I mean, it's really worth taking the time to share good content on LinkedIn because it absolutely gets, uh, gets noticed. And just as you're example there, Con, about getting recognized on a flight. You know, you put that content up there, it keeps you front of mind with people if you're just putting up useful bits and pieces. And look, your content doesn't always have to get massive, you know, massive uptake, but as long as it's relevant to some of your audience and they get some value out of it, then, then it's worth doing. But, you know, from time to time, if you keep posting and you keep thinking about what's, what's going to be of interest and useful to people, you'll get those posts that just get, you know, massive reach. And, you know, it always, it always feels good when you see a, you know, a video or a post that's, you know, for me, you know, hit 10,000 views or more. But, you know, I never feel disappointed even if it's It's just got a much smaller number of views too, because that's keeping you out in front of—

Yeah, good point, Paul. That's true. Sometimes the numbers are not as important as the content you're sharing. And if it's made a difference to even one person who's read it and they've implemented it or gained something out of it, then I suppose it's really had an impact on someone. That's the most important thing we can take out of anything we do on a platform like LinkedIn. Mac, what about you? What kind of posts are you finding are trending for you as a content creator on the platform?

Well, let me preface that, Con, with I had an interesting discussion with somebody this week who they actually commented on one of my polls saying, oh God, not another poll. And I love their response because one of the things people don't realize is The more you engage with a certain type of content, the more you will see of that type of content. So LinkedIn will look at, you know, what you engage with and then show you more of that. That's typically how marketing and advertising now works on most platforms. So, you know, for any one of us, that experience is going to be different because it's going to depend, as Paul was saying now, You know, as long as the value is there, you know, that's really the important bits. And the vanity metrics, you know, I used to get caught up in that with wanting, you know, thousands and thousands of views. But I've now, you know, over the last year and a half shown that you can have a post that has 10,000 views but only 5 comments and vice versa, where you can have lots of engagement but hardly any views. And for me, the key thing, I mean, statistically polls and the carousels are doing well on LinkedIn since creator mode kicked in. But what I find is really making sure that you appeal to all the different audiences. For me, it's really important to mix that up because I'm a very visual person. So for me, video and images tend to grab my attention. Whereas if you've got a more analytical type person, your text-based posts or your carousel posts with more information will be more interesting to them, or potentially polls where if they're more statistical orientated and they want to kind of see more, you know, social proof of the question that you're asking and what the outcome is. So, you know, I've had posts where I've literally only had 400 or 500 views. And I thought, okay, well, that one bombed. But I've had 3 or 4 really good conversations that have led to, you know, off-platform conversations. So, that is the key thing for me is how many conversations am I having a week, as opposed to how many views am I having a week. So, from a content perspective, I mean, Paul mentioned the fact that you're trying to keep it short and sweet. People are time deprived. So, What I really like, you know, is 30, 60-second video bursts where you can get that message across, but you can also then put a link in the comments or even in the post to the long-form post as well if people want to go and look at that in a bit more detail. So yeah, that's my experience and just my advice on that, Con.

And that's a great strategy, Mac. I really like that where you can post a short video and say, look, for the rest of this, click on here to get to the YouTube channel, or whatever the case may be. And we know that LinkedIn wants to keep us on their platform, but if you post that in the comment or somewhere, then it gives people the opportunity to, to listen further if they've liked what you said in that first 30 or 60 seconds. So great tip there for our listeners. So I hope you remember that, that, um, what, MacA part of there, which is about Create a short video, but give people the opportunity to hear more or listen to you further if they desire by providing a link to a place where you store your videos— Vimeo, YouTube, or whatever else it may be. Craig, I'll come to you. What's something that's working for you in relation to content creation?

Yeah, well, first of all, I'd like to say some great inputs from Paul and Mac there. Totally agree, you know, try out different things, mix it up, you know. Don't just do video, don't just do text only. Um, you know, I mainly do text only and image and, and, um, and some video. Um, I've done a few polls which have been really, really successful. And, um, like Paul and Mac were saying, um, it's not about the metrics, it's not about the number of views, it's all about the direct messages. And, you know, I've I've had posts that, um, um, you know, I've generated 200+ comments and, you know, 28K views. And when I actually boil it down and look back, you know, it didn't actually produce anything. It was all just vanity metrics. Um, and then about other posts where, yep, you get, you know, 10, 15 likes, and that one killer message, uh, usually out of nowhere, um, very often from a, from a lurker um, that's been monitoring, um, your content for, for months if not years, that just reach out and say, I've been seeing your stuff for a long time, uh, I see what you do, you're well connected, let's have a conversation. And, uh, this happened to me, um, in May, um, where somebody literally I'd been connected to for years and years and years, never interacted just reached out saying, you know, I see your content, you've got a great network, let's have a conversation because I need some business development help. And that's all it takes really. As Paul said, you know, if you stay top of mind, you know, the watchers, as I like to call them, the observers, are very often the ones with the power. So yeah, it's not about views, it's about that one killer direct message. for a post to be successful. Con, back to you.

Thanks, Craig. That's really important to remember that it's not about the views. Again, I'll use the old, it's not about the quantity, it's the quality. And I think that's what most of us on LinkedIn, that is, most of us, one of us, most of us love to contribute and give back, focus on that quality and making sure that our content is having an impact. What I wanted to just pick up quickly is I noticed that not one of us, and me included, but now just come across my mind, didn't talk about articles or the old traditional blog. Are blogs dead? Is the article dead on LinkedIn? And I mean that sort of in a sort of sarcastic, facetious sort of mode. But why are people still encouraged, or should people still be encouraged to to write an article or blog. What's your guys' views on that? Mac, I'll start with you this time. Oh, sorry, Craig, but I'll start with Mac this time. What's your view on the old articles?

So I got asked this by a few clients recently, and the articles, I still believe there is definitely a place for articles for you to be able to show your knowledge and show your authority within your space. I believe, you know, 1 or 2 articles a month will, will help with that. And I've noticed with quite a few of my clients that are doing 1 or 2 articles a month, from an SSI score perspective, it's actually given them more reach because of the fact that they have that credibility. So when people go onto their profile, you know, having articles just adds authority and credibility to your profile. It's nice to be able to feature those as well on your on your featured section. But what I suggest for most of my clients is, you know, pick 1 or 2 bullet points from that article and then post about that with a link to the article so that those who want to go and read more can, but then focusing on 1 bullet point that you can create a discussion around. And that, that seems to work really, really well. So those are my thoughts. I don't think they totally dead in the water. I think they just What about others?

Craig? Paul?

Yeah, yeah, I was, I was gonna say what Mac just said, really. Articles are for credibility and also longevity. You know, articles can last for years and years and years. You know, you know, there's people who will look at your profile and like articles, and they'll come back and read them. that are 3 years old, you know, so they do have a lot of lifespan, and also they're indexed by Google. So, so that's the other power that, that articles have, Con.

Paul, do you write many articles, blogs?

I've got to say, not as many as I should actually, and I've got, I've got one in me at the moment that I've I've, uh, yeah, been, been meaning to write, haven't, uh, haven't finished. Um, you know, what I would say is that, you know, if you are willing to put that time in to write good content, it's well worth getting it out there as far and wide as you can. And you may find that, uh, by, you know, hitting up— not, not just putting it on your LinkedIn, in fact, you might hold back putting it on LinkedIn. I've found I've been able to get cut through with mainstream media outlets if you put something together on a topic that's relevant enough or topical or broad interest. Quite often you can get a media outlet to pick that up, some sort of opinion piece and so on. You know, put it up on your own website. So yeah, LinkedIn is an important part of the mix for sure. But I've probably made more effort to put my written pieces up in other locations. And one thing I recommend for everybody is you should have, you know, your own website. So I've got paulspain.com and I will put content up there and that helps, you know, with Google and with ranking and so on. And so I get a chunk of business through my own website that I don't put a huge amount of effort into, to be fair, but it ends up ranking for public speaking and other searches that people do, and I get business that way. So yeah, definitely put them up on LinkedIn, but see where else you can get that written content.

Good point there, Paul. I really, really like that. I mean, and maybe sometime in the future have a conversation about how to create or get some business from your profile, as in your website and all your postings and your articles. But what I was going to reflect on was I've been doing some tracking of my stats and using things like analytics.io and Shield, and I wrote a blog, and you guys have probably heard this story before, but I wrote a blog about a couple months ago now. It was the first one I'd written for a long, long time, and I always go back and check the stats on that blog, and it's still got some of the highest engagement. And then I heard, I think one of the, uh, Richard Vanderloos or one of those was saying that blogs— I was— or maybe Mick Adam, I don't remember who it was, but anyway, they're all great people to follow. So Mick Adam, Richard Vanderbloem were saying that blogs or articles have long— and I think Craig, you said it too— have longevity on the platform. And then they, they do tend to linger on, and LinkedIn tends to sort of maybe push them out again after a period of time. So it's great advice to write one. I think what Paul said too, why I would go about that, is definitely always post it on your website but maybe after a period of time, take some extracts from that blog, put them onto LinkedIn, and then put at the bottom a link saying, if you'd like to read this blog in full, please click here and access it on this particular website. That way it's on LinkedIn, it's getting some traction and some love on LinkedIn, it's also getting some traction, some love on your website, and they're both linking back to each other. Therefore, when it comes to Google, they both get some SEO love in relation to optimization. So I think there's some ways you can do it. I think Paul makes a good point about maintaining on your website and giving yourself a bit of a profile via your website. But also I think it's handy to repost or post extracts of that onto LinkedIn just to keep that sort of engagement going on your profile with those blogs having longevity on the platform. The one that I just want to close off, uh, been great talking to you guys today. One thing I've been looking at lately, it comes down to content creation. It's always about, um, how do you get attraction for your content? So how do we create a pull? Uh, because as we know, the first 3 lines is what LinkedIn shows on our post, and it's about how to craft those first 3 lines of our post in order for someone to click on the see more, to read further, to click on a link to watch a video. Or something. And something I've been looking at at the moment, and, uh, I've— I love the AppSumo lifetime offers. I've, um, I bought a, you know, whatever better word, a copyright AI piece of software. I've been playing around with it. I've been, I've been pretty impressed what it can create by just putting a phrase or two and creating some copywriting, um, phrases to use in order to create attraction. And they're, uh, SEO optimized and so forth. Have any of you played with any type of software to create what we call clickbaits, for want of a better word, headlines for people to be able to look further into your content? I hope that makes sense what I said anyway.

I've had a look at some of these sort of AI, artificial intelligence sort of based tools for writing content, uh, and, and, uh, you know, just being helpful on that front. Um, I haven't tried with, uh, um, the clickbait or, you know, trying to use AI to see whether, uh, whether that can help from a search engine optimization perspective or, yeah, coming up with a more, more enticing headline. So, uh, that definitely, you know, sounds, uh, interesting to understand these different uses for, uh, yeah, for these new AI Um, tools. Curious what, uh, what Craig might have on this.

Yeah, yeah, Paul, I think these, these, these tools, you know, that, that they're great. You know, the only, the only one I use is, um, is, uh, is Shield, you know, for, for tracking posts. And, and I, you know, I like that one. It's, it's quite technical. You have to do a bit of analysis into the, into the data. But, you know, I love a spreadsheet. And, um, you know, the other thing, um, we were saying about, you know, getting traction on posts, um, I think it's important to try and build a tribe, you know. Um, not everybody's gonna see your posts, you know. You put out a post and only about, you know, 5% of your network will see it initially. Um, and, and, you know, my feeling is, you know, once you connect to somebody, they, they kind of see your post for about 3 weeks, and then it's very easy for you to, to fall off the, the algorithm's, uh, radar. Um, so I spend a lot of time in, in direct messaging, um, keeping that connection live so the algorithm knows that, you know, you're interested in each other, and, um, trying to comment on, on other people's posts and, um, you know, keep that, keep that connection there so, so that your posts will, um, appear on the, on the homepage feed of of the people who are likely to comment and have some value to give to your post. So yeah, trying to train the algorithm as much as possible so your post gets as much a chance as possible, I think, is important.

You are the DM king, Craig. I've got to give you that much. I've seen you in action and I like the way you reach out to your connections on a regular basis. By using that sort of, um, who's active on LinkedIn at the moment. As soon as someone likes, uh, one of your posts, you're bang onto the DMs. And I think that is one of the best strategies people can use. As soon as someone likes a post or makes a comment on your post, a direct DM saying thank you very much, glad you liked it, is there anything further I can help you with? And, uh, guys, Craig does it very well. Yep, Craig?

Yeah, absolutely, Con. You know, if, if somebody likes my post and they're they're a new liker, you know, we've not interacted before, or they've not liked the post, I always reach out and say thanks ever so much for supporting my post. And people come back saying, do you do this for everybody? I said, yeah, whenever somebody's new that likes my post, I always reach out and thank them. And more often than not, that's triggered a conversation, Con, as you said.

Yeah, yeah, it's a great, great strategy, Craig. I really commend you on that because— and what gets me is the way people say, do you do this for everyone? I've had the same thing where people say Do you do all your own posting? I said, yeah, I do. Where do you find the time? I said, well, it's all about being authentic and genuine on the platform. And that's what I like about what you do, Craig. It's about being authentic and genuine. And sometimes when people ask that question, you think to yourself, well, yeah, I do do art for everyone else. Why wouldn't I do it for everyone else? Anyway, another conversation for another day. Have you used any particular AI type of software for content. Mac, you're going on mute, mate. Can you guys still hear me?

Yeah, yeah, I can hear you. Getting finger trouble, or he's, he's, uh, he's involved with something at the moment.

But maybe he's— yeah, okay. Oh, there he is.

Are we back?

Yes, we're back.

I, I lost you there for a few seconds, um, so I don't know how far we got there.

So do you got the gist of the question about— I was asking, have you used any AI type of software to create your headlines or posts of some sort?

Yep, excellent. So, so, well, there are actually a couple of things that, that I like, uh, using. One of them, I don't know if you've ever heard of a website called answerthepublic.com, but really, really useful if you want to look at some really strong headlines and you want to have a look at what type of things people are asking questions about. And then the beauty of using Answer the Public is they give you the most common questions or statements or suggestions based on just one or two words. So as an example, if you are talking about say LinkedIn as an example, just by putting the word LinkedIn in, it would then tell you all the common questions people asked about LinkedIn. You know, things like, how do I create a good profile? How to— how do I, you know, block somebody? How do I— all those kind of weird and wonderful questions, but the most popular questions, which not only means you're going to get really good suggestions, but they are the most commonly asked ones on Google, which means when you, when you go and use that as a headline on LinkedIn, more often than not, there is a really good interest in that specific subject. So the headline's already kind of chosen for you in a question format, if that makes sense. And then another contact, Mike Weiss on LinkedIn, he recently recommended something called CoSchedule.com. And it's something I'll share with each of you individually, but it effectively gives you like a ranking and gives you some feedback on your headline and suggestions on how to make that stronger as well. So that might also be useful for those who want to have a look at having something that gives you a little bit more recommendation on your headline.

That's good. I've heard about that, that later one there, Mac, the Coach Scheduler one. Um, the first one and Answer the Public, I think, uh, Craig, uh, introduced me to that a while back when we first, uh, became friends. He talked to me about Answer the Public, so I've used that as well. There's some of the stuff that I've been using is, um, sort of, uh, I've looked at something like Jarvis.ai and, uh, Copy.ai, and the one I bought the the license, which is a lifetime license, is one called, um, uh, more just pretty, uh, anyway, I can't forget. I'll put in the show notes if I can, but it's a, it's a really good one. It's, um, it's, uh, just sort of, I put a phrase in there, you just create some headlines for me and some words that I can use that are more, that, uh, that puts them in sort of the right way for me to be able to articulate the message that I want to convey. But anyway, it's all good stuff. This, uh, We're all playing with different platforms. As we close, I just wanted to give you all an opportunity to, um, because we've been talking a bit about some platforms and some software, I know it's putting you on the spot, but is there a particular tool or particular platform that you use that's— that you recommend to our listeners that they should consider? So, uh, I haven't given you much time to, uh, think about it, and we could probably leave it to next week. But, uh, as we close, I'll go around. Is there any particular tool or platform that you are using that you'd like to recommend So, Paul, any particular tool or platform you use that you recommend?

Yeah, you know, I mean, quite a few bits and pieces.

I like to use search engine optimization tracking technology. One of the ones that we use is seranking.com. So if you're creating those blog posts and you're putting effort into creating them, creating content and building up, whether it's your main business website or whether it's for your personal brand, it's actually quite encouraging to see that what you're doing is having an impact in sort of where you rank in searches. You know, and for me, I've chosen to target particular searches, and so as a tool, that helps me see how that, you know, how that plays out. And of course, you know, you're promoting, um, you know, through putting up good content, through maybe outgoing, uh, links that you might put on, you know, say LinkedIn posts or in comments and so on. And yeah, it's just, uh, it's good to see whether that works or, or doesn't work. Part of the way is obviously through your traffic, but, uh, yeah, SE Ranking is a great tool to actually, um, you know, track that progress and If you're getting into the top 10 and so on, on varying searches, or ideally into the number 1.

Magic. That's a good one. Craig, you have any particular tool or platform you'd like to recommend? We talked about Shield, which is a good analytics tool for LinkedIn. Anything else you've come across that you'd like to share with our audience?

Yeah, AnswerThePublic, as you said, is a great tool. Shield I use. Um, I also develop, um, you know, pivot tables from the LinkedIn data archive. So I, I track, um, messaging with, with people on LinkedIn, as you know, Con. So, so I track as we've exchanged and when was the last time we've, we've, we've been in touch. So, so I, I, I make sure I can find people easily and keep in touch with people easily, and, and that really, really works. Um, so, so yeah, I do a lot, I do a lot off LinkedIn with, um, spreadsheets with the, uh, with the, the LinkedIn Data Archive, which, um, can be, um, very powerful. You know, you can see every comment you've ever made, every post you've ever done, all your connections, and every message you've ever, uh, um, sent, sent, uh, or, um, or received.

So, um, you can really nerd out on the data, Con, and I love And that's something people can touch base with you, Craig, if they need help with their data. You're open to connections and to consult with people.

Yep, great. Just find me on LinkedIn, Craig Langley, or HJSAM is my company name. You can find me under that and more than happy to help.

And full confession here, guys that are listening, I've had the pleasure of having Craig look at my data and massage it, and it's awesome. And I'll say that he's awesome, what he can do with your data and the kind of insights he can provide to you with your LinkedIn data that you can get freely and is available to you free of charge from LinkedIn because it's your data. Mac, I'll come to you. Any tools or platforms you'd like to recommend to our listeners?

So I'm going to be a little bit different here today, and I'm actually going to recommend LinkedIn. And I'll tell you I'm going to tell you a specific thing on LinkedIn because one of my clients recently, I noticed, is very similar to myself where I can very easily get distracted. And, you know, on LinkedIn, it's very easy to kind of get lost in the feed. And, you know, find yourself commenting on one post and then you go out back in the feed and you're scrolling away. And before you know it, half an hour, an hour has gone by. And you haven't quite achieved what you want to achieve. So one of the things that I've started using a few weeks back, which has just saved so much time, is when I'm on the LinkedIn feed, I allocate a certain amount of time every day depending on what's happening in the day to engaging with people that I feel that I want to engage with or with specific posts that I feel might add value to my own audience. And what I typically do is when I go through my feed, I'll scroll through my feed, and if I find a post that stands out and I go, oh, I'd love to add a comment to that, but I just don't have the time right now, I'll spend literally 10 minutes, go through my, uh, my scroll, and on the top right-hand side, hit the little 3 dots and click the save button. And then I'll just keep going through and just click, click, hitting the save button on a, on all the posts that I want to engage with. So that I've gone through, shortlisted the ones I want to engage with or potentially bookmark for, you know, future content and sharing with my audience. And then what I'll do is during a designated time, I'll go back to where it says view my profile, click on my dashboard, I go to my saved items, and then I literally just work through those posts that I want to engage with. So I'll you know, mentally put that cap on of going, okay, for the next 10 minutes, all I'm doing is I'm just commenting and engaging. So as I go through each one of those posts, I then click the 3 little dots at the top and unsave the moment I've engaged with that post. And therefore, I know, you know, I'm, I'm being very strategic rather than commenting, scrolling, uh, getting lost in a post and hours going by. So literally spend, you know, 10 minutes, go through the feed, bookmark those, and in another 10-15 minutes, just commenting and engaging. So, it's a lot more structured and easy to follow up. And at least I know I've got back to those because sometimes you'll read a LinkedIn post at like 3 o'clock in the morning, if you're like me, and you'll think, ah, that's really useful. But it's, you know, commenting and engaging at that time might not be suitable. So, you can just save that and then, you know, come back to that at a later stage. So, really useful feature in LinkedIn.

Well done, Mac. And I've used that feature quite a bit myself, and I use it in a very, very similar manner. So thanks for highlighting that to our listeners. The one I want to bring to your attention, and you guys all probably across this anyway, we know the power of hashtags in relation to content and not only being able to discover content, but also to reach out to those who follow hashtags and to put that content before them. The one I use a lot, it's a Chrome extension, it's called LinkedIn Hashtags. And what I like about this is it actually gives you the ability to put hashtags into your post and gives you an up-to-date real-time update on how many people are following that particular hashtag. So it's got real-time follow count and it's also easy to use as part of a search bar integration. So what I do is I'll put a hashtag into my posts, I'll put my cursor over that hashtag, and the extension, the Chrome extension, will give me the count number of how many people are following that hashtag. Like you guys, I do have a personal hashtag that I use, but when I come to using the other 2 or 3 that I want to use, I'll make sure I find ones that are— one got a high connection count, and 2, that I know that's going to get some eyeballs on that post because it's got the high number of followers for that hashtag. So it's called LinkedIn Hashtags. It's an integration with Chrome. It's a Chrome extension. I've been using it for a while. I love it, and I can't see myself doing without it when I'm creating my posts, or even just to find out which Hashtags are powerful. Hashtags with followers that I should be using in my posts. Anyway, gents, uh, that brings us to the end. Paul, I really appreciate you staying with us. I know it's late where you are, so a big thank you. What I'll do is we'll go quickly around to give you all opportunity to, um, sign out. Tell us again where people can find you and how you can help people, and we'll go from there. So Paul, again, you've stayed with us most of the night here today. I want to give you the opportunity Thanks.

Oh, look, it's been a real privilege to be, uh, be part of the show, Con. So yeah, thank you for that. And, uh, yeah, really, really, uh, how I help organizations is those that are predominantly small to medium that want to leverage technology more in whatever form that is. And also on the flip side to leveraging it is minimizing risk. From a cybersecurity perspective. So, you know, happy to hear from people on either of those fronts and on the futurist mindset. So feel free to reach out and connect on LinkedIn and paulspain.com.

Is that correct?

100%. Thanks for that.

Magic. No worries, buddy. Mac, over to you.

So yeah, Mac Laubscher, you can find me on LinkedIn and the LinkedIn expert.com, and that will give you a few options. I run some free sessions where people can come and check out what I do, come and network, come and connect with people. On the 10th of every month, I also run a LinkedIn networking event for just LinkedIn connections where people can come and meet each other on Zoom and introduce each other. So a little bit more fun. And I effectively, you know, help board members and executives and and business owners find themselves and get their voice heard on LinkedIn and get themselves properly positioned so that they can connect with the right people globally. So yeah, look forward to connecting with you. And Con, once again, thank you very much for the opportunity to be on the show.

No problem, Mac. It's always a pleasure to have you on and you do share so much with our, with our followers and listeners. Craig.

Thanks, Con. So this is Craig Langley. I'm in the UK. You can find me on LinkedIn, my company, is, uh, HJSAM Limited, and I help, um, engineering startups, um, develop, uh, business, uh, through LinkedIn. Um, typically I, I focus on, on companies that are sort of 10 to, to 25 people globally. You know, I have clients, uh, all across, uh, Asia, in the US, in Mexico, Italy, uh, Eastern Europe. Um, so, um, happy to connect with people, uh, on LinkedIn if they think I can help. And as Max said, it's been, it's been a pleasure, and, and thanks very much for, uh, for this session.

Thank you, Craig, and it's always a pleasure to have you on our chats. I'm Con Sotidis, I'm the Social Selling Warrior, your find me on the YouTube under Social Selling Warrior as a channel. You find me on Instagram as Social Selling Warrior, and you can find me in LinkedIn as Con Sotidis. Website, uh, stay tuned, is coming soon. Thank you again, Craig. Thank you, Mac. Thank you, Paul. Really great chatting today. I think we've had some great content shared with our listeners here today. Uh, the podcast will be available on your favorite podcast platform within 24 to 48 hours of this broadcast. So keep a lookout for that. Once again, thank you everyone. Same time, same station next week, Wednesdays, 12 PM BST. Social Selling Tips and Tricks with Craig and Mac, and he pulls up to it again. Would love to have him back, and anyone else would like to join us, please feel free to join us. So from Con here in Australia, in Melbourne, Australia, good night. Goodbye, and we'll see you all next week.

Thanks, everybody.

Cheers, everybody. Look forward to speaking.

Cheers. Enjoyed it. It was great.