EP 677 - Market Like a Duck: How To Leverage LinkedIn To Grow Your Personal Brand With Anthony Jones

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This is the no Closer show, where you get the latest developments in distressed note investing and learn the secrets of how you can control millions of dollars worth of property for panties on the dollar. Get educated and entertained by someone who has closed thousands of deals and lives to support you in achieving the same. Now, here's your host CEO of We Close Nodes, Scott Carson.

Hey, this is Anthony Jones with Ducks Unlimited. Happy to join the podcast. Today, we're going to talk about Ducks Unlimited. We're going to talk about how we're using social media and LinkedIn in particular as part of our marketing and fundraising efforts. But we're also going to Talk about using LinkedIn to build your personal brand and how you can become more active on the profile.

Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, everybody. Welcome to this episode of the no Closer Show. As always, Scott Carson jacked up today. To be with you today, I've got a very special guest. I think you're gonna learn a lot. This guy represents the world's leader in wetland and waterfowl conservation. And for the last 19 years, he's led the team responsible for the organization's website, social media, email marketing, online fundraising, and mobile application. He's also a highly recognized face on LinkedIn with over 30, I think 35, 36,000 connections on LinkedIn. So he's in that top 1% of 1%. For the last five years, he's worked to build his brand through a unique content marketing strategy, and he now loves to share that across the board. So I'm talking about the head honcho, the head duck, the man, the Myth, the legend, Mr. Anthony Jones joining us from Mississippi this morning. What's going on, Anthony, how you doing this morning?

Scott, how you doing, man? I'm great. I got to correct you, I'm far from the head duck, but I appreciate the title. I'm kind of a middle duck here, but.

Well, my apologies. The head marketing duck is what I would say.

Okay, we'll go with that. We'll go with that.

Exactly. Well, Anthony and I met actually, guys. I was actually here. It's hard to believe. It's been two or three weeks, but there was a conference here in Austin I went to. Same week as fincon. It was the Neo Summit. It's a nonprofit innovation and optimization conference, which is basically, it's a marketing convention. And Anthony was up there sharing his secrets of how he's used LinkedIn and with his team at Ducks Unlimited to really do an amazing job of getting the word out and what they're doing and I was like, we connected. And I was like, you guys, if you're listening to this, you know how valuable LinkedIn, you know how I'm a big advocate for. So it's like, we gotta get this guy on. So we exchanged some messages and honored to have him on here today. So, Anthony, I think you shared an interesting story about how you kind of got started into this and how you were probably doubting yourself a little bit. You want to kind of share your origin story a little bit, I guess.

Yeah, sure. So I first started on LinkedIn back in 2007, back when I created a profile, uploaded a picture, a few sentences in the about section, and that was pretty much it. I connected with a few dozen people that I personally knew, and I never really thought of it unless I was looking to hire someone for my team. And that's how I use LinkedIn until about four years ago. And it was actually around the time When Microsoft purchased LinkedIn, I came across an article that talked about how fast the network was growing and that a lot of people were starting to use it to build their personal brand. And that was really the first time I'd ever heard that term personal brand before. So that kind of piqued my curiosity, and I started coming back to the site maybe once or twice a week, but paying attention to the content. And every time that I did, I had the exact same reaction, like, this is the most boring crap I've ever seen. Job postings that had no relevance to me, links to corporate press releases, and bizarre sales pitches in my inbox. So I figured one way to kind of change that was to reach out to new people, to expand my network. New faces, new perspectives, new content. And over time, I started to get a better quality newsfeed. And I started to see a lot of people doing something that had never been done on LinkedIn. And they were showing their personality, they were using humor, they were being themselves. And that's when I kind of started to realize what building a personal brand was all about. This whole idea of people connecting with people, not people connecting with a lot of the corporate stuff that people kind of put out on LinkedIn by default. And I've kind of taken that approach over the last few years. I've tried to be authentic. I've tried to add some value in terms of just sometimes daily humor, sometimes lessons that I've learned in my career. And it's kind of started out as a hobby, but now it's kind of grown into some other opportunities. As you mentioned, you know, speaking at Neo a few weeks ago. So that's kind of how I got started with LinkedIn.

Now, I imagine you had some fears initially. You shared some funny videos of the thoughts that go through people's head when they're starting to start marketing, marketing as a brand. And I think LinkedIn is one of the better brands out there, especially when you look at all the turmoil and negativity on some of the others. Instagram, Facebook and all that stuff. Their LinkedIn, I think been lucky not to have a lot of negativity. But besides, what's going on here, you want to kind of walk through that, that mental.

Yeah, and you raise a really good point. If you think about all the turmoil that social media networks have had going back to last year's election. Like, LinkedIn is the only network that has stayed out of the fray. They remain solid. They do what they do. It doesn't have the confrontational aspect that so many other social networks have had. And it represents a great opportunity for people. This is something that I talked about at the conference. There are 700 million LinkedIn users across the globe, but only 3 million are posting content on a regular basis. That's less than half of 1%. And I like to call this kind of the good old days of LinkedIn because the platform is growing day by day, but it is not oversaturated with content like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, where those channels, if you're not paying to run ads, your content is not going to be seen at any level of scale. But that's not the case on LinkedIn right now because there are so few content creators in comparison to the whole universe out there. So I like to tell people now is the golden time to have your content be seen and have your voice heard and to build your brand.

Yeah. And I really believe everybody's got their own voice. We don't need a million Mark Zuckerbergs or a million Gary Vaynerchuk or a million Scott Carsons. We all need one more individual, but that individual to be you, to share what you're doing. Cause I think that's what I mean. People like brands, but I think they really build rapport with personalities.

People.

People. You know what I mean?

Absolutely. That's the number one thing that I advise when I'm doing coaching sessions or giving presentations. The first thing that I tell people is stop overthinking the content. Post content that allows your network to learn about you as a person. And if you just do nothing but that on a regular basis, over time, people are going to start to feel like they know you, they trust you. And then when you do start sharing career related content or advice, they're going to listen to you because they feel like they have some level of credibility that you're not going to get. If you just start sharing content left and right that really has no relevancy or doesn't speak to who you are as a person.

That's so true. You shared some AHA's at Neo too about what you have found in some of the different things that you post besides posting personally. Individual stuff you've also shared besides being daily like that huge stat. Less than 1% of all LinkedIn users are doing stuff on a regular basis, let alone daily basis. But you also shared some other things that maybe surprise people because LinkedIn is such a business oriented stuff, the personal stuff, but also I think post on the weekends too does really well for you. Is that correct?

Yeah, it really does. I think I saw a stat recently. 60% of LinkedIn users are checking in on the weekends, but only 20% are posting. So like that right there, that's a huge opportunity. That's just a little small nugget. But look for time, look for opportunities when others aren't posting that. That's a great opportunity for your content to be seen by even more people than it would otherwise.

Now, with you handling doing a lot of stuff personally, how's that kind of transitioned into what you're doing for Ducks Unlimited? How's that kind of gone from your house or your office to the boardroom or to everything in full effect there at Ducks Unlimited?

Right. So for the last couple of years, I've done a lot of just individual personal branding, development and that sort of thing really to learn the platform, to figure out what works, what doesn't work. And about two years ago I had a meeting with my team and we specifically talked about, okay, how can our team not the organization, because I'm not the CEO, I'm just the marketing, digital marketing guy. But how can our team kind of start to leverage LinkedIn to put a positive light on what we do, to showcase and highlight the great work that my team is doing? So we came up with a team hashtag. It's hashtag Ducks Unlimited Digital. And I encouraged my team to post as often as they were comfortable and when they posted something about their job, about a project or just something fun behind the scenes that's taking place here at the office to use that hashtag in their posts. And we've had a number of staff that have Done that. Some people are going to be more apt to post than others, just naturally. But we've had a number of posts that have gone up over the last few years. Everything from marketing tips to lessons learned to just a video of a dog of a lab running up and down the hall. Because that's part of our organization's culture. And I want to show that. And if you look at it from an organizational standpoint, I like to say that I want people to see the content that we post and want them to want to work for Ducks Unlimited because of what they see. I want them to want to work for my team because of what they're seeing our team post. Showing our value, showing our culture. And it's something that we're still building. We actually are discussing broadening that out to the entire organization. I had a discussion with my boss about that recently, as a matter of fact. So on the organization scale, that's still to be determined. But that's kind of how I've taken it with my team, kind of as a pilot project to get that off the ground. And it really goes back to that quote, that whole idea, people connect with people a lot better than what you're putting out on your corporate LinkedIn page. And those corporate pages are important. You need to be putting out content. But it's the individuals that people are more likely to engage with, leave comments on than a press release or something like that that your company's putting out.

Yeah, it definitely adds the heartbeat to an organization. And I like what you said there about you want people to see what's going on and want to come work with you or interact with you. What are some things, though, that may surprise you, that maybe some things you've done in the past that I hate to say it may have been a dud instead of being something successful.

Ducks Unlimited Digital can't think of a dud. I would say that going back to what I referenced earlier, some staff are going to be more apt to do it because they're just naturally social media savvy. They're out there, others a little more private. And I think that's just something that you have to accept and encourage your staff to be as active as they're comfortable. As I also mentioned at the summit, every organization needs a social media policy. It should have general guidelines, sort of guide rails as to what is acceptable, what's not acceptable, but it should not be so long that it stifles creativity. I like to say if it's longer than one page, it's probably too much.

Right.

And as I've also said before, one of the biggest barriers that people have to posting or being active on LinkedIn at all is they don't know what's appropriate. And kind of where I land on that is the position that I've taken is I don't post anything that's divisive or polarizing. I stay away from politics, but more importantly, I don't post content that would be conflicting with the core values of my company. And that's kind of the bottom line. That's the common sense approach that I've taken and that I recommend others take as well.

It's a whole bartender method. Don't talk religion or politics most of the time and you'll be okay. Good stuff there. Now, how important is video been with LinkedIn? I just got to prov LinkedIn last I'm pretty excited about in the last few weeks, but I really think LinkedIn dropped the ball with COVID of not being more open to releasing more of their LinkedIn Live features to more creators out there. I mean, the 10 minutes, okay, it's great for shorts, but a lot of people like podcasts are doing longer form content with videos and webinars and trains and stuff like that. I think LinkedIn really missed out on a lot of stuff. What's your take and how much are you using video with what you're doing?

Yeah, no, I completely agree. LinkedIn was late to the game overall when it comes to video. They did not allow native video on the platform until like 2017, 2018. But having said that, using video on the platform can be a game changer. It can be the fastest way to build your personal brand. It's the toughest, but it's the quickest way. It's because it's literally you talking to your network and it allows you to build a sense of trust and credibility with people much faster than any other media, text only or photo posts. So it's more authentic, it's more genuine. Obviously a lot of people are skeptical or nervous just to even begin using LinkedIn video, but once you do, once you get enough practice out there, it becomes obviously a lot more comfortable. It's something that I'm still working to improve. I don't put out near as many videos as I would like, but to the point of LinkedIn Live, yes, you're exactly right. They've been slow getting that out. I applied for LinkedIn Live like two years ago and they denied me two or three times and now they're opening it up to pretty much everyone and I have used it twice so far and I'm still trying to figure out how to incorporate that in. But a lot of people are using LinkedIn Live and they're doing it really well. They're bringing in other experts in the field, having conversations or just kind of an ask me anything type of session just on the fly. I've seen a lot of really good uses of it and that's something that I hope to take advantage of more in the coming year.

Now that you've got access, you're ready to rock and roll, right? Same here, man. I'm like, oh, I've been waiting for this. Now let's figure how to incorporate it in with everything. Now, how much do you plan out some of your posting strategy? Maybe not just a LinkedIn, but other things with you and your team. Do you guys have a year long marketing calendar or quarter calendar? What's kind of your overall line game plan?

Yeah. So as far as the organization Ducks Unlimited goes, we do have a marketing plan. We do have a social media schedule that's extremely complex. We're on every channel, we're posting multiple times a day. We have everything from conservation to fundraising to event promotion. So we're juggling a lot of different priorities, a lot of different messages at one time. And the team does a fantastic job of managing that from a personal LinkedIn standpoint. I will tell you that I don't have a schedule that I keep to. I don't have a written schedule or a calendar. I think it's great for a lot of people who are like better organized than I am or organization is not one of my strong suits. Most of the content that I put out is kind of the day of on the fly. Whatever I'm thinking of that day now, I may shoot a video and work on it for a week and understand it'll be a week or two before I put it out there. But a lot of the content that I make is just whatever's in my mind that day. And there are also plenty of days where I have good intentions of posting, but it's like I'm looking at this blank wall, like there's zero creativity, zero ideas, and that happens to everyone. So what I like to do is I keep just a running list of post ideas on my desktop. I've got a folder on my phone where I've got LinkedIn ideas, where if I see something while I'm driving to work, I may snap a picture, drop it in that folder. I may not know what the post is going to be at the time, but I might flush that out later into a post. So just keeping a running list of ideas so that you're on the lookout for content on those days where you're looking at that blank wall with no creativity that day.

The other coffee hasn't kicked into the creative folder yet for that. I think. I think everybody goes through that and I think so many people that aren't embracing or aren't marketing, they think that's like the kiss of death. They think of that initially. And I like what you just said. You post or you come up with ideas as your surroundings. For me, it's the movies. For me, it's a little bit of pop culture to bring in a little bit of everything. But it's also, hey, when I see a great sign or a great show or something else, oh, I could use that. Like the James Bond thing. We've got a whole new thing coming up. He said, no time to die, no time to invest. The fun stuff that goes along with it. That individuality that you share helps you stand out so much versus, like you just said, that kind of robot auto post. Same in, same out.

Vanilla, right?

What's one post that you shared that, well, you were just surprised the heck out of that just, I won't say, maybe went viral, but you got so many responses or feedback from people that you just kind of had to chuckle about it then?

Quite a few. I'm trying to think of one in particular. I'll tell you the most popular post that I've ever made. It was a little bit of humor that basically said, and I don't have it in front of me, but basically said, if you connect with me and send me a cold sales pitch immediately afterwards, there's a 200% chance I'm never going to respond to you. So you slow your roll there. And then I followed that with like a bunch of hashtags and that reached like 158,000 people, had thousands of likes and comments. And what I realized about that was it was relatable. Everyone can relate. Everyone hates the cold sales pitch. And I have actually reposted that three or four times. And every time it has phenomenal reach, phenomenal engagement. And that's actually a tip that I like to share with people is if you've got a post that did well, bring it back four or five months later because one, a lot of people aren't going to remember it. Two, if they do remember it and they engage with it, they'll probably Engage again. And three, you've probably added a lot of new connections or followers since then, so it's brand new to them. So putting out content like that, that's relatable, that's human. That's what's going to get the most engagement time in and time out.

Yeah, that's a really great one, being able to recycle it if it's. We all add new connections. Are there any tools that you've used like Sales Navigator or Lead Views or Octopus CRM to help you grow your connections on LinkedIn?

I'll give you a couple of tools that I really use and recommend. So Shield Analytics. So LinkedIn is great in that it gives you some analytics, it gives you like a total reach and that sort of thing, but they don't have a really comprehensive dashboard. There's a company called Shield App. It's Shield App AI. It's actually a web service, not a mobile app that you can subscribe to. And it's got all of your posts going back to the beginning of time, all the metrics you can click. You can easily find a post doing a search.

It's.

It's probably the most important tool that I've used and it really, if you are data geek like I am, you can look at the metrics. What post had the most engagement, had the most views? What was it about that post that caused it to do well? What time of day, what day of the week? So just a lot of insights you can glean from that. The other app that I use for videos, I highly recommend there's two. One is just called Inshot and it's a free video editing app. It's really intuitive, easy to use, great for people like me. And the third one, and this is also related to videos, is called the teleprompter for Video app. And I actually showed this one at the conference. It's a lifesaver because you can load your script directly into it, or if you just want, talking points. And it even scrolls the text right near the top of the camera lens. So you never lose eye contact with your audience. It looks and feels really natural. When I first started out, I would completely forget. I'd be halfway through my mental script and I'd go blank and I'd start again. Or I'd have to tape a piece of paper next to the camera with some bullet points. So the teleprompter app has been a game changer for me. So those are the three tools and apps that are the most useful for me.

I Love a teleprompter. I probably told 20 people about it and they're using as well. You need to get you affiliate code or something for it. Now, what I found is strange. During your presentation at nia, you also challenged people to kind of a posting challenge. Let's talk a little about that.

Yeah, something that I've done just kind of on my own as standalone posts. But anytime I give a webinar or I give a talk like this, I try to one, inspire people and give them some tactical ideas they can use to start posting. But a lot of times people leave those and they, they don't know what to do next. So I try to give this challenge of, okay, when this is over, think about what you've just learned here and make a post and just tell us three things about you. It could be anything. It could be about your day, about your job, about your family, just 1, 2, 3. And then at the end of that, ask your connections to share something about themselves in the comment. And when they do that, what that does is it kind of allows them to introduce themselves to their network or reintroduce themselves. And by asking the question, tell me something about yourself. A lot of people are. It's an easy cue, okay, I can tell them about my dog or my something my kid did. They'll put a lot of comments in there. And when you comment on someone's post or you get comments on your posts, that is like the best fuel to increase engagement, to increase the overall reach and visibility. Because LinkedIn's algorithm sees that, okay, people are not only liking this, but they're commenting and commenting and commenting. There's something good happening here. So they're going to show that to more people organically. And I kind of like to use that as a challenge because it's easy to do, doesn't take a whole lot of thought behind it, and it's a great way to kind of kick off. So that's something I recommend anyone do, whether they are just getting started or even if you've been posting on a regular basis. Just doing that. One, two, three things about me. It helps again, make you relatable, human and people connect with that.

No, I love that because it's simple. It's easy to talk about yourself a little bit because people, I think sometimes I'm going to have to be an expert or talk about something like not talk. We're all an expert on ourselves. These simple things make it pretty easy. It's a great. Then also the commenting, how active are you in the commenting aspect. And how are you using that, obviously using that to connect with new people or expand your audience as well too, right?

Yeah. And that's something that I tell people. If you want to get some visibility on LinkedIn or want to start building your brand, but you're not comfortable creating new content yet. And that's the case for most people. You can get started by simply make it a goal. Every day, spend 10 or 15 minutes, go in and just leave comments on other people's posts. And what that's going to do is it's going to show that you're contributing to the larger conversation. It's going to get your name out there to people that are seeing you for the first time. And as you do that, LinkedIn is giving you credibility kind of on the back end. And you will also start to get new ideas for content as you start posting or as you start commenting on other people's posts. And that's one of the most important things you can do. I set aside 10 to 15 minutes every day just to do that. And if you don't see the content that you, I guess, would want to engage with, you can just use the LinkedIn search feature. Type in something about your career, whether it's investing or fundraising. When you do that, you're going to see a list of posts that were made today. Go in, find something that you can relate to that you can leave a meaningful comment on. Not just great posts with a thumbs up, but actually a sentence or two that gives your perspective on it. That's what's going to give you credibility and will do amazing things for your personal brand.

Yeah, leaving a thought, I think is what most people think. They like the like thing. Or hey, great post. Leaving a thought. Whether you're commenting on somebody else's or you're sharing an article over LinkedIn, share a little bit. What's going on between those six inches between the ears is it will add a lot of value to the platform, right?

Absolutely.

Is there anybody that you're following that you really love to follow on LinkedIn on a daily basis? Or somebody that you're like, oh, I like their content, their information.

There are so many. If I had a list prepared, I could share them with you. But there's. Yeah, there's a lot. I wish I could think of just one or two offhand that at the top of the list. But yeah, there's some good ones out there. I could send you a couple of links. Maybe you could drop it in the show notes. That would Be easy to. I can give you five or ten really popular folks that are putting out amazing content.

Yeah, we'll be glad to do that in the description for sure. That'd be great. Now on with what you guys are doing with Ducks Unlimited and spreading the word in conservation and hunting and other things like that out there. Your message really weeds through all this stuff on a regular basis. From going back and looking at stuff, there's. Have you seen any controversy, have you seen any, I hate to say trolls jumping on there to kind of get against you or share anything negative by any chance?

There's always trolls and never going to get away from them. But typically if a troll shows up in a comment, I typically leave it alone or I'll laugh at it and let the network come in and defend me or defend that position instead of me trying to get into a personal battle. That's a no win situation most of the time. But that doesn't happen very often. Fortunately, with our mission, what we do, and especially the content that we put out on our company page on LinkedIn was very mission centric. It's very donor focused and there's not a lot of controversy to be had in a lot of that content.

Yeah, no, that makes sense. Yeah. Let the audience, let your followers in your LinkedIn family defend you. You can't win an argument with an idiot is what I always like to say.

Yeah, absolutely.

What's the biggest surprise that's happened the last four years with you in your LinkedIn strategy? Anything popped up, speaking opportunity or connection or conversation that just kind of was an aha moment. Wow, that's kind of. That's pretty freaking cool.

The lessons that I've learned, the people that I've met, the CEO of NextAfter, their executive team, I met them a few years ago at NEO Conference and he actually came up and found me in the crowd. He said, I've been following you on LinkedIn for the last year. I wanted to meet you. We've gotten to be friends. And he invited me to speak at NextAfters or the Neo Summit. That's led to a couple of other speaking engagements. It's like I mentioned in the presentation a few weeks ago, you don't know what opportunities are going to come up once you start building your personal brand. It could lead to promotions, it could lead to new career opportunities, speaking engagements, partnerships, podcast interviews like we're doing now, or even a side business that I've kind of started doing some LinkedIn consulting on my own. So there's so many Benefits. I like to tell people you don't know what they're going to be until you get started, but you've got to take that step. And the worst time to start building your personal brand or where you want to build a network is when you need it. You want to start doing that before you need it. So in times of a global pandemic or whatever it may be, economic crash or something, if you have built up a network, if you have built up a personal brand, if something happens to your job or your company or whatever, it gives you opportunities because you've built a foundation, you've got a strong network out there and it can be invaluable in times of distress.

Yeah, that's the thing. Worst time. Yeah, you hit the nail right in the head there, Anthony. The worst time is when you need it. Start putting that. Start investing in play, start socking. It's like investing in your future. Start socking away that branding, that momentum. And that way it can easily be pivoted if you need to. Job loss, change, economic meltdown. So what's a big pet peeve you see people or a big mistake you see people doing on LinkedIn, besides the cold pitches on an introduction, those are absolutely the worst.

So, couple of pet peeves. One is when you do post something that's showing your personality, something that's fun or whatever, and my favorite trolls are the ones that say, this belongs on Facebook, this isn't Facebook. And usually someone will come to your defense and say, look, get a life, that sort of thing. If you don't like it, you can unfollow me or block me or whatever you want to do. So that's one pet peeve. Those people just don't understand how LinkedIn is used today.

Right.

They're thinking of it as the LinkedIn of 10 years ago, and the platform has just evolved beyond that now. That's probably my biggest. The other one is when people just blindly reshare stuff, whether it's a motivational quote or whatever, with no context, that content really isn't being seen. It's not that valuable. What's valuable is your original thoughts, your perspective, that sort of thing.

Yeah, that's the thing. The blind sharing or the daily motivational quote without any comments. You know, it's set up through hootsuite, a buffer just to automatically share. Doesn't really add a lot of value. It's just being passed over on a regular basis there for you. With Facebook, I won't say going down, but with them really shuttering down. Yeah, exactly. And then the whistleblower coming out, talking about the negativity of their platform and hiding things. Have you talked with your team about how important it is to make sure that you're owning your content or that you've got your cross promoting much more efficiently or effectively in a lot of cases to avoid things like that happening in case things go down?

Yeah, we have had some conversations and we are fortunate in that over the years we've worked to build a really strong following across all the social network platforms. Certain platforms, like Facebook, personally, it's not my favorite, but we generate more revenue from membership and so forth because of the paid ads and because of how phenomenal that advertising is. The most effective advertising platform in the world. Whether you love it or hate it, it's effective. But we also recognize that usage on that platform is going down a bit. It may go down even further based on whatever comes out of all this taking place in the media right now. But having diversity in your social networks, but also not putting all your eggs in the social media basket. We've got a very comprehensive mailing list, email list. If Facebook went away today, for whatever reason, we still have plenty of channels both digitally and offline to generate revenue for the organization. So not putting all your eggs in one basket. Common sense there.

Well, you would hope it's common sense, but common sense is not always common these days. I have friends that's been their whole platform and when it went down, they're literally panicking and having a meltdown because their marketing is at a standstill for a lot of things or people launching events and then that aspect is not there for a period of time, stuff like that. So it's going to be stretched out and spread out because there's so many people like, oh, yeah, I need to be on LinkedIn more. That's one of the things, like, all right, yeah, I'm on Facebook, but I need to spend more time on LinkedIn. I'm like, don't wait. Never a shot across the bow to do something. It happened Monday. You know what I mean?

Absolutely.

Now, question for you. You have kids, Anthony?

We have two boys, 14 and nine.

14 and nine. Now, how much are you monitoring or talking with them or limiting some of their social media activity or actions on there? Does that kind of concern you in a little bit Sometimes with what's going on?

It is, you know, it's something we try to keep a close eye on. Especially my 14 year old, he's kind of getting at that age where he's going to have some social interaction online and so forth. Nine year old, not so much. Although he does have a YouTube channel that only we can subscribe to. But he likes to put some videos out there and that's fine. But you know, we lock that down pretty tight. But it's an issue that all parents face. Everyone has to address it differently with their kids based on so many different variables. But it's very real. It can be very dangerous, as we all know, for a lot of different reasons. When I was growing up, that was one issue that my parents didn't have to worry about. But that's just the way of the world right now.

Yeah, our wall was literally running into a wall. Playing recess outside, playing soccer, going hunting in the yard, playing basketball or football. It's a whole different social media aspect than it ever was when we were growing up. That's the truth.

Absolutely. And I'm avid hunter, duck hunter, deer hunter. I've taken my kids since they were old enough to go with me. Both of them enjoy going, my youngest in particular. But it's hunting season's right around the corner, so I'm really stoked. Anything I can do to get them outdoors and away from the devices, away from the all the digital stuff is a great thing. I enjoy it, they enjoy it and hope more people do that this fall, this winter.

Yeah, it's definitely a mental health break and mental wellness. I say getting outside and doing some things, Even if it's 5, 10 minutes sometimes my favorite moment of the day is just walking outside around my plants. I'm in Austin. We're not hunting deer or ducks here in Austin, but it's just getting outside and unwinding, taking away the break and going from there. So that's beautiful stuff there for you. What's the best way for people to connect with you through LinkedIn or any other way? Anthony?

Yeah, just look me up on LinkedIn. Also have a new course that I'll be launching soon. It's a build your brand on LinkedIn.com.

Okay, we got to talk about that. You held that to the left. Talk about that. Let's share a little bit about that. Build your brand on LinkedIn.com is that we said the URL was yes.

So working on a course right now. We'll be launching within the next probably month or so. But if you go to that URL, there will be some pre sale opportunities with a discount. But basically it's kind of unpacking everything that I've learned over the last couple of years putting that into a course that will be affordable, that people, regardless of your career or your industry, it will give you kind of the building blocks and the tactical things you can do to start building your brand. So looking forward to getting that out there for sure.

What's the URL? One more time for everybody.

Buildyourbrandonlinkedin.com Pretty self explanatory.

I love it. Good stuff. Well, Anthony, thank you so much for coming on the Note Clutter show and sharing this valuable information and tips and tools and how you've built an amazing brand, amazing following. It's very applicable to what you talked about. Can be applied whether it's a nonprofit, a for profit, a business, a personality. It's just a matter of kind of showing up and doing it every day regularly, huh?

Absolutely.

All right, guys and gals, well take Anthony's advice. Check out the URL, check out his class. This guy, he's very unassuming, but he shared so many good things at LinkedIn. This guy knows his marketing, knows his LinkedIn. And you can learn a lot from a duck, I'll tell you that right now, everybody. So go out and take some action. Everybody connect with Anthony and we look forward to seeing you all the time, everybody.

Thank you, Scott. I appreciate it.

Thank you.

Sa.