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Stephanie Liu Hey, what's up you guys! It’s Stephanie Liu and welcome to another episode of Lights, Camera, Live.
Hey, if you guys are interested in learning how to use LinkedIn to get new leads, this is the episode for you. So, if you're tuning in, let us know where you're watching from.
If you're watching the replay, go ahead and leave the comment "Hashtag replay".
If you're wondering about LinkedIn group business, we're going to go ahead and get started.
All right, so shout out to Mario who's already here in the house.
All right, so I've got my girl, Judi Fox on the line here with you. She's just wrapping up her Instagram stories real quick.
Hey, Judi Fox! Welcome to Lights, Camera, Live. How are you doing?
Judi Fox So excited to be here! Yes, I'm doing great. How are you?
Stephanie Liu Doing really good, yeah. You know I was telling this to a bunch of social media strategists, as well as my mastermind crew, I was like:
Listen, if you want to attract the best leads, you’ve got to start ramping up on LinkedIn because that's where the most affluent community is right now. If you think that doing what you're currently doing on Facebook is going to work on LinkedIn, it's probably not the case.
As a matter of fact, I've got Judi here to talk to you about that.
So having said that, shout out to Mike Allton who is tuning in.
Hello Mike Allton!
Mario, So good to have you here.
So, for those of you that are just tuning in, Judi Fox is like the go-to expert whenever it comes to LinkedIn marketing. As a matter of fact, you guys, she's actually hit 3 million views on LinkedIn. To me, that is just mind-boggling.
Was that all organic? Was that paid? How did you do that?
Judi Fox It was all organic. None of it was paid.
Stephanie Liu And what was your video about? Is this like a culmination of multiple videos?
Judi Fox It was definitely a combination. I think there's about -
I ended up estimating a hundred pieces of content that added up to 300 or 3 million views.
Stephanie Liu
Wow. And how active have you been? How long have you been active on LinkedIn?
Judi Fox
So it started -
I started getting very active doing content creation on March of 2018. You know, the ability to do video on LinkedIn was part of what drew me to start getting really active. It was a different way of creating content that I'd never seen before on LinkedIn.
Stephanie Liu Oh, interesting!
P.S., by the way, I just noticed that you had a fox in your background. That’s so adorable!
Judi Fox I've got all my foxes.
Stephanie Liu
I love that. I love it. I love it. All right, awesome.
So let's talk about LinkedIn in the sense of -
I mean LinkedIn has been around since when - like 2006?
Judi Fox I would say -
I think it's almost 2003... 2004
Stephanie Liu
Yeah. I always felt like it was the redheaded stepchild. Everyone was like, “that's not the fun platform”. But now - everyone is super gung-ho about LinkedIn and they're like, “it’s a B2B gold mine. I need to be there”.
Why do you think that that's happening now? Is it like just better marketing, better content?
Judi Fox I think it’s because of Microsoft buying LinkedIn. You know, Microsoft being able to expand that platform to have more investment in the platform - that I see happening. They're investing and expanding into live video now. Just the fact that they even added the video component in September of 2017, they really rolled it out for everyone to use.
So, they're doing the same thing now with live video. They're giving it out slowly to content creators to test it out. When it goes out into the world, it will be available.
I think I've heard that there's going to be an application process, but at this point right now I am trying to stay in touch with LinkedIn. I am waiting to see when it's going to be available to other creators. I can't wait.
Stephanie Liu
When you say "staying in touch" Does that mean like, "hey, hey, hey"?
Judi Fox No. I mean…
As you know, in networking, you never want to be annoying. I think it's just being in front of the right people paying attention to their content.
For example, if you know some of the people who are on that team who are rolling out the LinkedIn live video, you would make sure to engage in their content. It's very similar to how do you get in front of your ideal client. Well, pay attention to what your ideal client is liking, what they're sharing, what they are doing, and their activity on the platform - and you can start getting involved in their activity.
Stephanie Liu
Yeah, very true. So don't be that person that's basically like - “Hey, it's been awhile since we last spoke. By the way, can you give me a ride to the airport?”
Don't be that person. Be that person who has a genuine interest in what people are working on, especially the team over at LinkedIn.
As a matter of fact, I think you'd probably know Chris Strub, right?
Judi Fox Yeah.
Stephanie Liu
So, Chris Strub was one of the first content creators that I saw that leveraged LinkedIn live using Switcher Studio. And I thought that was really cool.
Then, the second person that I actually saw was Goldie Chan, who I just met recently because of Social Media Marketing World.
And it sounds like - it looks like -
Switcher Studio is the one that's just banging it out - working with the content creators. That’s what's really exciting.
Judi Fox Yes, they definitely.
I saw it in a Tech Crunch article where Switcher Studio was mentioned. There was a couple other ones. But, you're right, I personally know the people that work over at Switcher Studio. It always comes back to personal relationships.
If you know people and they know you, you're more likely to use their content. It's very similar to having brand evangelists. People, who naturally love the products, are invested in making products that work for that platform.
So, if Switcher is making it super easy to go live on LinkedIn live, then more and more people are going to utilize that platform. It's all about ease of use and how it looks when you do go live. If it looks good, people are going to keep using it.
Stephanie Liu Well, before we even dive into LinkedIn live, let's first talk about strategies for building your online presence on LinkedIn.
I've had a couple of social media strategists, members say like: “Hey, you know, I'm looking at other people's posts and liking and I'm commenting, but I'm just not seeing any type of engagement on the stuff that I'm creating.”
I'm curious to hear what your strategies are … on how to increase your impact and your influence on LinkedIn.
Judi Fox
I think the first thing I remind people is that - LinkedIn video is still very new. It's in its infancy and as you mentioned, it's not necessarily the same thing as other platforms. I think we have to all kind of remember that LinkedIn originally was a very reading-centric, written-word platform.
Even though you may do video, I remind myself all the time that having the written copy as part of your video will 1000% make it go much further on the platform because people will be clicking on that ‘See More’ button.
You're constantly sending signals in your content just like you do on LinkedIn, like you do on Facebook and Instagram. You're sending signals when your content is valuable, when it's being shared, and when it's being liked and commented. When people click that, “See More” button, that's so important.
I think people don't realize how important that trigger is for LinkedIn. So you have to provide tons of value in the written content plus the video.
You have to do it in both places.
Stephanie Liu Oh, interesting. So then, would you combine that effort in a sense that you would have a very long text, but then you'd also have the video? Or would you stop? Would you break that out into two separate pieces of content?
Judi Fox You can.
I would say you do it with the video so that content that goes along with that video. You're going to push that video further if you're getting people to read the post along with the video. It works different for different people. But I've noticed over time that some people have learned that just getting people to watch the video may not work.
Some people are watching it at work and they don't have the volume on. So, having captions is important at that point. But I've also learned that sometimes, depending on my production, depending on where I'm at with making a particular video, I don't have access to put captions on right that minute. But, I'd love to get the content out. I've noticed that you can do great if you can get that. What's in the video, the value they're going to get from watching the video - if you put that in the written content that goes along with it.
Stephanie Liu
Now, is it true that a real human being is looking at your posts over at LinkedIn? Is somebody actually looking at your post and deciding whether or not it should be shared into the feed?
Judi Fox I don't know about that. I don't know if it's a real human being. Is that what you mean?
Stephanie Liu
Yeah. So, I heard this and someone else had shared it. It might've been Rob Balasabas from Thinkific. He was saying that:
Instead of your content just being pushed out to LinkedIn, there's actually a person on the content team that's reviewing the content to see if it’s really valuable content. I've actually read that in other LinkedIn material as well. I was just curious if you've heard that, too.
Judi Fox I think indirectly I've heard that. I haven't been flat out told that they're reviewing every single piece of content. I did reach out one time and I had a couple back and forths with LinkedIn on a specific question about something in one of my views, and how something had changed. I had a back and forth with them at the end of the day. They reminded me that if it's high value and it's getting shared, it's just naturally going to go on longer. That is really cool to hear that somebody - a real person - is monitoring the content.
So, I am seeing those comments come up and I just don't know that firsthand. I can't directly confirm or deny.
Stephanie Liu
I feel like it's one of those things where-
People on LinkedIn, more often than not, are putting a lot of great content on there - little business snippets to tickle your brain. I feel like if you were the actual person working at LinkedIn and reading all of those posts, you could be just like earning your MBA. Just saying, reading a LinkedIn post, I think is funny.
Okay. So if you guys are just tuning in, we're talking about how you could leverage LinkedIn to attract better leads.
So far we've talked a little bit about how LinkedIn live is coming down the pipeline. We know a couple of folks that have been playing around with it.
We've also talked about the power of leveraging video as a part of your content. So, you talked about supplementing video with captions. We know that some people when they're watching video, they might not have the audio on, especially if they're at work.
Not only that though, by just knowing the origins of LinkedIn, when they first started, it was all very written text. So, people are used to that in terms of digesting the content.
The other question that I have for you then is what about this whole push for hashtags and tagging other people, do you see that as strategic, or it just kind of fluff?
Judi Fox
I definitely see the value in hashtags. Pay attention to your hashtags, and see where your video ended up on the hashtags.
For example, after you push out a piece of content, you can turn around and check that hashtag and see where you are in that feed of that hashtag.
There might be some hashtags that you can search, and find out how many people are following that hashtag. To be honest, LinkedIn is improving all the time - including their hashtag feed and how it shows up.
I've also noticed the shared feature -
When somebody is sharing somebody else's video - that would start to show up again in the news feed. But I don't know at what point they trigger that to be seen again as valuable content.
I've personally spent time turning around and checking every single person that shared my content. I go turn around and thank them. I'm not trying to push an agenda. I mean, I'm literally just being thankful.
Stephanie Liu
Well, are you saying things to them, just like in the comments or do you direct message them from there?
Judi Fox
I'm sending them a thank you on the post that they shared.
Stephanie Liu
Got it, got it.
Judi Fox
So if they share my content, I will turn around and say: Let me know if you have any more questions about what this is. Thank you for sharing.
A lot of times they'll respond and say: I do have a question, but it'll be in their piece of content that they shared, not on my original post.
Stephanie Liu
Oh, clever. Okay.
So then, you're going back there to give them more engagement - live on their posts, which of course they're going to go ahead and respond to that. They don't want to sound as if they asleep at the wheel. .
Cool. I got it.
Judi Fox So, it's letting your content continue to live on their profiles and on their content?
So, Mike is saying that -
When you turn around and acknowledge somebody taking the time to share and (sometimes we don't catch every single share it happens), but the more you try to pay attention to that, I really believe it creates more goodwill around your content in general. And more conversation.
Stephanie Liu
Yeah, that's very true. Okay. Well then what about LinkedIn groups? Do you see that making a comeback?
Judi Fox Oh definitely. I've joined a couple of groups recently and I've seen their content in the news feed - much better than I've ever seen it before.
A lot of times when I joined groups, I have to specifically remember that I'm a part of a group and go over to checkout what's happening on that group. And, you know how that goes. If it's not front center and easy, a lot of times you forget about it.
Stephanie Liu
Oh yeah.
Judi Fox So, I have noticed that groups are definitely making a comeback and they're getting more priority in the news feed - if you are a part of an active currently active group.
Stephanie Liu
Yeah. I remember back in the day when LinkedIn first had the groups. You would have to… It was like buried - underneath the navigation. You had to go to the top nav, and then you'd have to go into networks, and then, you'd find groups.
But now, and I'm actually in LinkedIn on the dashboard area, I could see it on the left hand side and towards the bottom.
Yeah, I'm totally a part of that social media speaker group.
Judi Fox Yes. I feel like it's definitely making a comeback. LinkedIn is realizing the power of groups. A lot of times, there's a lot of different creators, who are trying to run organizations and trying to create community, because that is why we're on social media.
To be honest, social media is not just speaking out into a world, and hoping it lands somewhere. Creating groups creates the ability to carry on a conversation beyond one piece of content. It levels everybody up when you have a group. That's why I feel like LinkedIn is really smart to revisit that.
Stephanie Liu
Here's a question from Sarah Humphreys: How do you even find groups?
Because some people might not be aware of it. Do you just plug in a keyword and see what pops up? Or is there some type of easy directory or like choose your own adventure that gets you to the right group?
Judi Fox At the very top you are able to do a search. You are going to search at the very top.
I don't know if he can see my screen. Oh, it's too bright. I've got brightness issues anyways.
At the very top, there's “Search”, and you can type that in and look for keywords. So you're going to look for, you know, you want to be a part of your local area.
The other day I was searching for San Francisco groups. So, I was looking in San Francisco specifically cause I was going out there to speak.
Oh there you go. Good. Yeah.
Let's pick something. What do you want to look for?
Stephanie Liu Let's just go find social media. I mean that's easy.
Judi Fox Yeah, let's do it. Hold on.
So, here's where you can start that “More” button. It says people, jobs, content, and then more, there's groups.
Unfortunately it's not so front and center, but now you can start to join different groups, check them out, and see how many members.
So when I was looking at speaking at a group out in San Francisco, I was looking at how do you get your event. If you're running an event, I was looking at how you get it to go further. Well, you could join a group. And again, it depends on the group’s rules and how engaged you've been, because you don't want to just be somebody who posts and goes. You want to be active and engaged in a group. So, you're going to think ahead of time.
For example, I'm going to be speaking at Vid Summit in October and I'm going to think in advance. I'm very excited and I'm going to be at Social Media Marketing World. I'm not speaking there, but I will have my camera. I have my podcast equipment. So we're going to hang out.
Stephanie Liu Yeah!
Judi Fox The main goal is that you're going to think long term and in advance about your year, and who and what groups you want to be active in. So that, you don't just show up and promote something. You can be an active part of the community.
And again, because LinkedIn groups are making a comeback, I think it's totally worth it to get more active in groups that are going to further your career, or they benefit you because you love seeing what people are posting in them.
Stephanie Liu So when it comes to LinkedIn groups, are there any special features of that LinkedIn groups that are above the bar when compared to Facebook and the way that the Facebook groups are created there?
Judi Fox I think the main thing right now is that LinkedIn groups are getting better access in the newsfeed, and better notifications. It's more about not having to leave the platform to go to another location to connect with people. I think right now, that's really my main thing that I'm seeing.
I was a part of the Beta launch of the events they are now putting, including the ability to post events very similar to Facebook, where you can create an event, put a time...
Stephanie Liu This is all LinkedIn?
Judi Fox It is on LinkedIn. So they have the facilities where...
Stephanie Liu I have never seen that! Where do you even find that?
Judi Fox I'm in the Beta group. Let's see if we can... But I did do it on my personal profile. Let’s see if it's still active. I'm looking on my past posts.
Stephanie Liu Yeah, absolutely. Go ahead and do that.
Judi Fox I used the event feature a while back, but again, they're making edits there right now and they’re just taking feedback.
I filled in a form talking about it. They didn't take it down, but it's kind of empty-looking.
Stephanie Liu It's hard to see.
Judi Fox You can't see it.
Stephanie Liu That's okay. But it's cool though.
So LinkedIn has beta groups that you can be a part of.
Oh, now I see it. Okay.
Judi Fox Yeah, I was talking about how networking is getting easier, faster and “funner”. “Funner” is not really a word.
I was posting about a LinkedIn Local Richmond, Virginia event in November, but see how it didn't get very much. I mean, it got 32 likes, 29 comments. I gave my feedback to the team - the events team - because I was part of that Beta and I think they're still working on it and kind of tweaking it.
Stephanie Liu
Well, funny thing is that when you said “funner”, did you know that there's actually a place here in California called Funner, California?
Judi Fox I love that.
Stephanie Liu
Yeah. It's Harrah's resorts. They're in California. It's one of the casinos, the resorts that we have here. They actually decided to go ahead and rename their city from Rincon Valley to Funner, California. One of the mayors that they have is David Hasslehoff. Everything is “funner”.
Judi Fox Yeah. I totally love using the word “funner”. My friends have made fun of me for using “funner”.
Stephanie Liu There, you would absolutely love the campaign, because it's all like David Hasselhoff and what you can do in Funner, California.
It's a whole thing. It's like - it's hilarious, but cool. Cool. Cool.
So, if you guys are just tuning in, we're talking about LinkedIn for leads and the different strategies that you could do to go ahead and increase your impact and your influence on there.
So, we've talked about video. Video should have a text component to it. Remember to have your captions because you never know where people are and just having captions make things a lot easier. We also talked about groups and how you can find groups.
So thank you Sarah Humphreys for asking that question.
And then, you even talked about hashtags.
For me it's so funny. Even though I do put hashtags in my LinkedIn posts, I'd never actually really clicked on one before.
Judi Fox Click on your own hashtags. If there's no numbers, if we do it right now…
But, the hashtags will actually have numbers underneath them showing how many people are following your own hashtags.
Stephanie Liu Interesting. So, let's just pull this up here. So let's say content strategy is one that I use a lot.
Judi Fox And so? There's how many followers?
Stephanie Liu A million people are using content strategy. So, that number, where it says a million, in what timeframe is that? Is just that in perpetuity? Is that within the last 30 days?
Like how, how much value should I be putting on that number?
Judi Fox Well, that's where I scroll down. As you can see, the most recent ones was one day ago, 16 hours ago.
So, if you think about it, this person posted two days ago. This is a really good one honestly. If you look at it, if you use this hashtag you're more likely to stay at that top spot and not have to scroll down too far.
Stephanie Liu Well, that's interesting.
Judi Fox But, there's other ones that are almost like -
You can tell if you make a post. So, you're going to make a post can take a screenshot right now. We can talk about the value that we gave in this video. We're going to post it and use #contentstrategy and we're going to see how long it stays in that top spot on content strategy.
Stephanie Liu So then, so then are you saying, so this is like our experiment? This is us putting our Agorapulse hat on, right?
Judi Fox I love it. I love it.
Stephanie Liu So then, okay -
I post something, and I use the #contentstrategy, and then, from now on for the next seven days, we’ll see like where it ranks.
Judi Fox I know is that, if it's going to stay in that top spot longer, it's more likely to show up in people's news feeds for that hashtag. Again, this is my personal time spent on LinkedIn. It has no backing from LinkedIn.
I will say on average I'm getting anywhere from 400 to 600 likes and comments per post. So there's something to be said there. I will say that again, if it's high value, people are sharing it, and you stay at the top of certain hashtags longer, you’re going to stay more front of mind for anyone when they get on LinkedIn.
So maybe, they get on LinkedIn three times a month, maybe, they don't get on LinkedIn or are not very active, but you're more likely to be at the top of their feed because it will have been seen as a high value piece of content.
Stephanie Liu Very interesting. Are there tools out there to help you research hashtags? Like ritetag.com? Or is it all a manual thing right now?
Judi Fox Right now, it's manual. And, I do it for my clients.
Stephanie Liu Do you have a cheat sheet that says: Hey, social media marketer is, here's your top hashtags.
You know, how they always had that for Instagram, where it's - like these are your top Hashtags when you're in the pet industry.
Judi Fox Well let's do an opt-in together. We're going to have a Judi and Stephanie for Social Media Marketing World.
Stephanie Liu Yeah
Judi Fox I mean, that'd be perfect. It'd be a great collab and then we can put it out on the platform. We can generate leads and traffic, because we have shared something of high value.
Stephanie Liu That's very true.
And hey, shout out to Chris who just joined the show.
He says, delivering value is where it's at.
Welcome. Welcome Chris.
We did chat about you just a little bit earlier, about Switcher Studio and whatnot.
So hey you guys, if you have any questions about LinkedIn, by all means, go ahead and drop them in the comments. As you can see here, Judi's answering all of my questions, and yours, too. And so, we've talked about groups, videos.
What about the other functionalities?
Because Mike Allton was telling me about this hack, about how you could upload press or slideshare presentations...
Judi Fox I love that.
Stephanie Liu He was like:
Girl, this is what you could do. You could just create us a presentation where it has the cover photo of you and Judi talking about LinkedIn. Then, you embed your Youtube video and then, boom! You have a slideshare deck that can be shared.
And I was like: What? Tell me more about that.
Judi Fox I love that. And first of all, that feature is pretty new and I think anytime you jump on a new feature you're going to get more reach, because it just looks so unique on the platform and it has such a big... I don't know what the word is.
It shows up and takes up a lot of real estate on the platform. And so, I made one that was: “Five Ways Your Profile Cover Can Sell For You”.
I'm never going to get in front of this camera.
Stephanie Liu It is just right in front of your face.
Oh, I see it. I see it.
Judi Fox It's so bright.
Stephanie Liu That's okay.
Judi Fox Anyway ,you can slide again on your cell phone or on the desktop. You can slide to the right, very similar to…
I mean if you go to my posts.. If you want to do that, you can just slide. And that way, it's very similar to Instagram.
So go down and then go to my posts down, down, down… See all activity? So you got to keep going to all these different places...
Stephanie Liu I know. And is there like an easier search functionality?
Cause like I feel like in Facebook, you can easily say something like search about LinkedIn leads by this certain source and then, it'll pop up.
Judi Fox I'm not sure. I think so.
Yeah, go to posts.
Unfortunately, I don't think right now it's still very organized to see everything.
So if you scroll down… Keep scrolling. Eventually get to one. I think this might be one. Yeah, this is the document feature.
So look how - how tall it is and how much real estate it takes up. And then, I personally put that arrow because as you can see, there's nothing telling you that it scrolls.
Stephanie Liu Yeah.
Judi Fox So I always, that's my personal arrow that I added and I don't know why it's not naturally just coming up.
Ah, there's the arrow, but you can see that it tells you four pages are ahead.
Stephanie Liu Yeah.
Judi Fox And then, I personally like literally put an arrow in there myself.
Stephanie Liu Oh, interesting.
Judi Fox It is taking a minute.
Stephanie Liu It's taking a minute. Yeah, my computer is...
Judi Fox But, those are incredible.
So you're right, we could post like you could take a screenshot of us side by side, put it on there, and give the top three bullet points of what we talked about on this live. Maybe some tips, some hashtags.
You could say, these are my top three hashtags that I've determined I'm gonna keep using because they get a lot of reach on the platform. And you know, like you said, have an end cap of where you can find this video for Lights, Camera Live and voila! You've made an amazing post.
Stephanie Liu I'm so excited now! And now, I don't know if I think he saw my easel video, right? The one where I was like, oh my God, I could easily design something!
So they have all these really cool templates. When Mike told me that hack, I was like, cool. They have a presentation, design it, embed the video, pdf it, and then I'll just upload it over to LinkedIn. I'm excited to test that out and then see how long it stays in #contentstrategy.
Judi Fox Yeah.
Stephanie Liu Cool cool!
Renee Dominguez just jumped in, and she was asking if a LinkedIn Premium is worth it. I hear this all the time and I haven't really played around with it. Is that something that you've done, too?
Judi Fox I only just got LinkedIn. I've been on LinkedIn since right when it first started. So I personally hadn't been on LinkedIn Premium, but just to be blunt, I grew my platform from about -
I started at around 2000 followers about a year ago. So I've gone from 2000 to 20,000 in one year.
So again, that's with a hundred pieces of content, and mixing and matching, not just doing video. There's some people who are like die-hard video. I did other posts, sometimes images, sometimes I will share content and just to mix and match of content. Definitely being active in your comments, and comments on the platform is still content.
Stephanie Liu So spending time commenting on other people's content is your content.
Judi Fox Yeah. But going back to Premium, I'm not sure. I know that I bought the Sales Navigator. There are some ways that I think it's been really helpful to give me more searchability.
When I searched for people using the sales navigator, I can see how active they are in the past 30 days on LinkedIn.
Stephanie Liu What does that allow you to do?
Judi Fox For me personally, I'm paying attention to who's active in the last 30 days. If I want to get in front of that person, I know how engaged they are and I can actually find more and I can pay more attention.
So, if you're being strategic with who you want to get in front of and do more social selling and inbound leads versus trying get in their DM's, you want to start publicly on the platform. That's how you pay attention on who you want to put into your buckets, which I create for my clients. I create three. I create a bunch of buckets. I'll be like, pick three people who are your ideal client that you wish were paying you right now.
But, you can go in and use the Sales Navigator and look to see how active they are. Then you can kind of pick those people based on knowing they’re active, knowing they're going to see your content because they're literally logging into LinkedIn.
I wouldn't be able to see that if I didn't have that paid subscription, to see how active they literally are getting on the platform and paying attention. LinkedIn will tell you how active they've been.
Stephanie Liu I guess that is true because on Facebook there's this feature, this functionality, really. Like whenever Mari Smith does something, I could toggle it to say, anytime she does anything, I want her to pop up in my newsfeed - like to be at the very top. I don't think LinkedIn has that natively, right? Unless you're using Sales Navigator?
Judi Fox I don't think I can. People can follow my hashtags. So first of all, I've created a personal hashtag called #Foxrocks. And it's how you say it.
I know that there are people following that hashtag because they have told me that they see my content and it comes up because they're following #Foxrocks.
And that has been incredible. So, number one, if you want people to see your content and stay in their news feed, tell them to follow your hashtag. You're going to get your super fans to follow your hashtag. Basically. You may not get the million followers, but you may.
Stephanie Liu Yeah, what about LinkedIn articles? Is it still a thing? Should people be focusing on that or just more in the newsfeed?
Judi Fox I personally love-
I've written my first LinkedIn article. Like I said, I wasn't an active content creator until a year ago. I've been on the platform. I've been making sales in the DMs, but I haven't always been a content creator. So when I finally went all in on content creation, you can see where it just really blows up your platform. And again, valuable content.
The question was... Wait, what was the question?
Stephanie Liu I know cause I'm totally geeking out with you because I have so many ideas.
But yeah, like LinkedIn articles...
Judi Fox LinkedIn articles help your content live on. So, it's more of an evergreen strategy to have articles available.
And the reason why I say that is because I've noticed that I took my highest value posts. So if you have videos that have gone down in the news feed, you're able to turn that video. You can still link it as part of that article, but you can create it into a blog, if you’re into blogging.
Number one, you can show the social proof of that video, where over time goes away in the news feed. But you can keep things alive by turning round and creating an article, which is exactly what I did for that document feature post. I turned it around and made it into an article.
Stephanie Liu Love it.
Well, hey, if you guys are digging the tips that Judi is dropping right now, go ahead and give us some hearts. Give us some likes. If you have anyone that's struggling with getting some leads on LinkedIn, go ahead and tag them. Share this in your groups. Even go ahead and do a watch party by all means, because we've got the Judi Fox right here answering all of your questions.
And I have so many ideas right now. I'm like, oh my gosh, where is that post-it note?
Judi Fox Well, I always tell people: take your best performing content.
If you're on Instagram, if you're on Facebook, if you're on Pinterest, whatever you're on, take your...
I took a Pinterest pin that I had 5,000 re-pins on Pinterest Pin. So that told me that was a very popular pin. I turned around and created a post on LinkedIn about that Pinterest pin. It sounds funny, but it worked and it got probably 10 or 15,000 views and over two or 300 likes and comments.
But again I'm already taking content because I've been blogging since 2008. So I have content for days,
Stephanie Liu For years.
Judi Fox Yeah, for years! But I was always blogging in a sense of just kind of trying things out. I was just stretching my creative muscles with nobody watching. It's kind of nice in some ways when no one's watching. You just create.
Stephanie Liu Yeah. You know, create without any judgments.
I think we should all have that mindset honestly. Because you, you just got to experiment sometimes. Just because no one else has done it before, doesn't mean that you can't be an innovator in your field. And that would be interesting.
Good, good.
Judi Fox A lot of people see that I just got on LinkedIn, but I honestly applied a lot of my content creation from the fact that I've been blogging since 2008. I almost feel like if you can create an article, if you can create a blog, if you can tell a story, then you can turn it into a video.
Stephanie Liu Yeah. Very true. Or vice versa. Cause I feel like -
Mike Allton and I are always like-
He starts off with a blog and I'm like, No, I'll just answer it in a two minute video and then have it transcribed. Boom, boom, boom, we're good to go!
Judi Fox You’re right. It can go both ways.
Stephanie Liu So here's another question that I have for you.
Thank you so much Sarah, for she's like, I'm going to take advantage of this time and drop it in here.
So, she's saying, I found Judi Fox on LinkedIn. I see her profile. What's the next step?
Should I go ahead and connect? oOr should I follow? What's the difference and what is really going to help me move the needle on my business? What would you say?
Judi Fox So right now, I am so excited to connect. I want to connect with good, great connections. If I'm going to run into somebody at Social Media Marketing world, I'm gonna meet them and interact with them, and have a great collaborative. I'm there for good connections, good conversations. And if that's going to be that kind of person, then please connect.
Now if somebody is more of a non-active - they're not really going to comment or not going to like - or, they just kind of want to follow and be more of an observer. Then, at that point, I would say you would follow.
So, for example, there's some people that I probably can't connect with. Let's just say Gary Vaynerchuk. He may not, he may connect with me - I'm not sure. But he might also, because he has, I think, over 2 million followers.
I'm going to turn around and follow him. So the limit for the number of connections is 30,000.
Stephanie Liu Okay.
Judi Fox So I can only literally connect with 30,000 people. I cannot connect with any more than that. So, the rest would have to be followers. Right now, I have 20,000 some followers. I am not connected directly to all 20,000. So my connection does not equal my followers.
Stephanie Liu Got it.okay.
Judi Fox That means, I'm more in conversation and I'm more interested in only being connected to people who want to have potential business relationships or they're just super awesome people that I love connecting with and knowing what they're up to.
We have direct messages, but can you imagine? You can't direct message 30,000 people. I mean, maybe you can, but I can't.
Stephanie Liu I feel like I know a couple of people where they had LinkedIn bots and they do all that stuff.
Judi Fox I mean I've heard people go back and forth about automating things on LinkedIn. I personally don't, I have decided to create a time block and I set aside an hour every single day where I'm going to get back to people. I'm going to send them voice messages.
You can send voice messages to people, which I love. So, I do it that way. And then, I decide if I, I will connect with people and I'll assume they're going to be a great connection. If they show me they're not a good connection, I will say: Unfortunately I'm going to have to disconnect.You're more than welcome to follow.
And I don't mean that in a rude way.
Stephanie Liu You actually say that to them?
Judi Fox I have done that. Oh yeah.
And I'm not trying to be rude. I will say things and I say it very, very professionally and kindly.
I say I'm here for good conversations and good connections. And it's basically when somebody is trying to hit on me, it happens.
Stephanie Liu Yeah. Okay.
Now you said that like I did it. I'm like yeah.
Judi Fox See what I mean?
Stephanie Liu I was like, wait a second, I totally blocked it out of my memory.
Judi Fox I needed to explain probably a little more. If anyone gives me an intention that they're only there to... I'm not there for that.
Stephanie Liu Yeah,that's true. Good call. I mean it's, it's nice to have that line in the sand, and Kudos to you for that. Mike Allton, he says like: you go girl, you go girl.
Judi Fox Again, I didn't mean to come across as rude. I'm just turning people around. But honestly, I'm clear. I'm not there to date. I'm not there to attract anyone that just wants to say, "Hey, hi. How are you", and not have a business tone to their conversation. ‘Cause I don't know where they're going with that. I can't tell where the relationship is going to go. We're either going to be asking and helping each other out and offering each other amazing content and, and leveling up each other's businesses. Or, we're going to work together.
I can't come up with any other scenario that makes sense.What else are we going to be? Are we going to be friends or are we going to be a colleagues?
Stephanie Liu Yeah.
Judi Fox Working together… what’s the other category? I don't know.
Stephanie Liu Miscellaneous. Um, yeah.
So of all the tips that you've been sharing right now, would you say that they're best suited for B2B connections? Would it also work out for someone that's looking for a job? Because we do have a couple of Lights, Camera, Live viewers that are looking to move to a different city and all of that stuff. Would you say that the strategies that you mentioned, like the LinkedIn Sales Navigator, would that still apply? Was that something that they should sign up for?
Judi Fox Again, I didn't use the Sales Navigator, and I was still running a six-figure business by using LinkedIn. So again, I've been using LinkedIn. I started my first business running behind the scenes. Again, not content creating.
So it's very interesting. You can run a very successful business with 2000 connections. And, I think we forget - somebody reminded me the other day, Joanna, who runs some Facebook groups. She mentioned to me: imagine having those 2000 people in your house right this very minute and talking to all of them.
So can you run a successful business with 2000 connections? Yes.
When utilizing LinkedIn, you don't really need to have the sales navigator - all those different activities on there. If you have real human beings, you know the power of relationships and referrals. So, all it takes is working really well with three or four clients. Then, those people have communities.
If you position yourself well and you have turned around and done the work, they're more likely to be your biggest supporters and support your future on your business - and that's basically how it goes.
Stephanie Liu Well, I love the fact that you brought up word of mouth referrals, right? Cause I feel like even when I started my own agency, I got a lot of referrals from past clients who were like, Look, I've worked with her back in the agency run, she's got her own thing now.
And, that really helped me in my business. I didn't have like droves and droves of fans. Right? I was always behind the scenes - in the backstage, I guess you could say that.
Judi Fox Well, when someone was saying how often you need to post content and that's a good, great conversation. There's a million things we could probably talk about. But one thing that I will say about posting content, I actually peeled myself back. I was posting maybe two or three times a week. Again, I've got maybe a hundred pieces of content. Maybe I might be up to 150 now, but I kept a spreadsheet. That's my engineering background.
I have a spreadsheet. I will say that if your back-end of your business isn't built - and I keep talking about that.
If the user experience of a really warm or hot lead comes in and I'm still working on this to make sure that I can get back to and not get distracted. Like somebody just mentioned, I think it was maybe Renee, who just popped up on the screen talking about people who immediately just want to sell you to me, I have to kind of decrease that noise and work on my end of the business that highlights and makes the people who come inbound with those inbound leads from creating content.
If you have a good call to action, a good way to position yourself as an authority in your space, you're going to get those inbound leads.
I've seen it time and time again with my clients. Even if you got many inbound hot leads, if you had three or four of those per week, your business could be - the pipeline could be full. So basically how many pieces of content you have to actually create. You’re better off creating high value, high performing pieces of content at a lower rate so that you can keep up again. Can your business keep up with the inbound leads and the good user experience?
Stephanie Liu Okay, very true. well cool. Oh Wow, you guys. I think there's so many gold nuggets like in the back of my head. I'm like, this is already going to be transcribed and turned into a pdf, upload it to slideshare, getting it.
Judi Fox Get it into an article and use the social proof. Actually, from the post that I made, I took screenshots of. So I tagged - do you know Tim Schmoyer?
Stephanie Liu Yeah.
Judi Fox I tagged Tim Schmoyer in one of my posts and then he turned around and sent me a screenshot of his screen grab because he said, this is what happens when Judi Fox tags you on LinkedIn.
It showed a spike in his activity, and I asked him and I said, do you mind if I take a screenshot of your profile after I tagged you and what happened?
He said, go ahead and do it. So of course I put that as social proof in the article that I wrote. Sharing, this is the power of LinkedIn.
Stephanie Liu Well that power of #Foxrocks, I feel like, okay, now I just need, you need to go tag me. Can you tag me?
I feel like that's the same way with Mike Allton. I feel like whenever he pushes out a blog content out there and then if he tags you on Twitter,it's just like, Ooh, there goes my traffic. Like, wow, thanks!
Judi Fox I'm so excited! So then that article that I posted, Mikayla And Alexis turned around and wrote an article for the Social Media Examiner. So when you create good, high value content, it's going to keep going.
And, if you can hear screaming in the background, that's my seven year old.
Stephanie Liu You know, I had to put myself on mute a couple of times because someone decided to just, you know, start mowing the grass. Really?
Judi Fox Yeah, there's all kinds of things that happened on live. I told him to be quiet, but I think he thinks he's in his room and we can't hear him. So it's a little loud.
Stephanie Liu It's cute. My daughter just turned four and she's really into like singing. She doesn't know what like inside voices is at home. So she's very much like at the top of her lungs. Let It Go Frozen, whatever it is, all that jazz.
Well, you know what, if you guys have any other last minute questions for Judi - because she is a busy gal, she's got a lot of things coming up - go ahead and drop them in the comments now. And, if we don't answer them on air, I'm sure that she's going to go ahead and hop back in and give you her knowledge there. If you're not already following her on LinkedIn, go ahead and reach out to her.
Judi Fox Okay, go ahead and connect!
Stephanie Liu I said follow, cause I dunno.
Judi Fox I mean, I always tell people I said if you were going to take the time to watch this video and Lights Camera Live, then you're a great connection. Let's just be honest. You know what I mean?
Stephanie Liu Yes, yes. Cool. Then you're also coming to San Diego for Social Media Marketing World. Is that right?
Judi Fox Yes, I'm so excited. I will have my videographer there with me, so we'll be able to capture a ton of content. I've been working on my Youtube channel because I know there's a lot of value in creating content that can continue to live on and you can create not only a Youtube video, but create micro content for LinkedIn.
Stephanie Liu Love love, love, love, love!
Shout out to Armenia, Sarah and Mike...Renee.
Thanks to everyone for tuning in today's show. You guys have have been absolutely amazing. Thank you for geeking out with Judi and I.
Judi, you've been absolutely amazing.
Judi Fox This is a lot of fun.
Stephanie Liu Well, thank you so much. You guys! Again, connect with Judi on LinkedIn, and me, too.
Judi Fox Yeah!
Stephanie Liu So, if you want to geek out somewhere in social media, we could do that.
All right, you guys! Thank you so much.
We'll go ahead and sign off.
Bye! Bye everyone take care, I'll catch you later!
ABOUT THIS EPISODE
If you’re looking for that revenue boost online - there’s no doubt - your best bet is LinkedIn. It’s where the most affluent business people, entrepreneurs, and top business decision-makers spend most of their spare time.
However, LinkedIn has changed so much over the years. What used to be a slow-growing platform in the 2000s is now a B2B goldmine. So much has changed that what used to work in LinkedIn in 2005 may not work as well in 2020.
So, with all these changes, as a marketer, how do you get in front of that B2B gold rush?
In today’s episode, we are lucky to have with us, Video and Content Strategist, Judi Fox. Judi will be sharing with us her secrets on how she has grown her LinkedIn following from 2,000 connections to 20,000 in just under a year. She will also share with us the best strategies on how you could turn your audience into your biggest supporters.
IN THIS EPISODE, YOU’LL LEARN
Strategies For Building Your LinkedIn Presence
How to Leverage LinkedIn for Your Other Channels
Insider LinkedIn Video Marketing Tips
ABOUT JUDI FOX
What is the best investment for your career and business?
For Judi Fox, the woman behind #foxrocks, it’s building strong business connections and networks.
In the early stages of her career, Judi started as a Chemical Engineer and an Environmental Consultant. She established a technical consultancy business of her own, but her thriving business took a sudden turn when the crisis hit. This setback drove her to delve deeper into the world of marketing, particularly that of social media marketing through LinkedIn.
Now, Judi owns a thriving LinkedIn Coaching and Consultancy Business, and she’s eager to share with the world what she knows about building significant business relationships over at LinkedIn.
You hit 3 million views on LinkedIn. How did you do that? How long have you been active on LinkedIn?
“It was all organic. None of it was paid,” Judi recalled. She started doing active LinkedIn content creation in March 2018. Video posting, by then, was very new to the platform. According to Judi, about a hundred pieces of ‘mixed-and-matched’ content of videos, images, and text added up to her 3 million LinkedIn views.
“When it comes to LinkedIn, engaging in your ideal clients’ content, paying attention to their activities on social media, and publishing content that would pique their interest is a sure-fire strategy for getting more leads.”
LinkedIn is now considered by many as a B2B gold mine. Why do you think that’s happening now?
Judi thinks that LinkedIn gained more attention after Microsoft bought it. Microsoft was able to (and continues to) expand the platform. Currently, LinkedIn is expanding into the live video space now, after rolling out the video component in September 2017.
What do you mean by “staying in touch” in Social Media?
When it comes to networking, Judi believes that it’s all about being in front of the right people. But, the best way to do this is by publishing valuable content, and building relationships with your ideal clients. Judi recommends the following activities: engaging in your ideal clients’ content, paying attention to their activities on social media, and publishing content that would pique their interest.
“You never want to be annoying,” she stressed. “But, you can start getting involved in their activity.”
How can you increase your impact and your influence on LinkedIn?
According to Judi, LinkedIn was originally a written-word platform. The video component is still very new. Although content creators can now publish video content on LinkedIn, a written copy could significantly help video content go further on the platform. People will click on the “See More” button, which signals LinkedIn that a valuable piece of content is being shared.
Judi believes that the number of clicks on the “See More” button is as valuable as shares, comments, and likes on LinkedIn. Not so many people realize this, but the “See More” button is one of the few LinkedIn triggers.
Also, captions would be extra helpful to people who watch videos on mute. Not only would this help you get your content out, but it would also make it easier for your audience to consume your content.
One of my favorite resources for creating captions is Otter.ai. You get real-time streaming transcripts and, within minutes, rich, searchable notes with text, audio, images, speaker ID, and key phrases. Plus, with the free version you get 600 minutes of transcription for free every month.
Does a real human being over at LinkedIn actually looking at your post and deciding whether or not it should be shared into the feed?
Judi couldn’t confirm or deny this, but she thinks this is good news if it’s true.
How can we use hashtags and tagging strategically?
Judi wants us to pay attention to hashtags because there is value in them. We could use hashtags to monitor how well our content is doing. The good news is that LinkedIn is constantly improving its hashtag functionality. However, at this time, Judi is not sure at what point hashtags help classify valuable content.
Aside from doing hashtag monitoring, Judi also spends time everyday thanking people who shared her content. She also encourages them to ask questions. This allows Judi’s content to live longer on the sharers’ profiles. Other than conversation, it also creates a sense of goodwill around the content that’s being shared.
“I grew my LinkedIn followers from 2,000 to 20,000 - all within a year. ”
What about LinkedIn groups? Do you see that making a comeback?
Judi strongly believes in LinkedIn groups making a comeback. She added that recently, LinkedIn groups now have better feed and content than ever before.
Judi firmly believes that several content creators, who run organizations and communities, would find the group feature very handy. According to her, groups help in carrying on a conversation beyond a piece of content in social media.
Are there any particular features that LinkedIn groups that are above the bar when compared to Facebook?
"LinkedIn groups now have better access in the newsfeed," Judi mentioned. This could mean that the users don't have to leave the platform to connect with people. She said that there's a beta launch of an events feature that is similar to that of Facebook. However, it hasn't been officially launched.
Are there tools out there to help you research hashtags?
At this time, Judi does her hashtag research manually.
Is a LinkedIn Premium worth it?
Judi was already on LinkedIn when it first started. However, she hasn't tried LinkedIn Premium, but still managed to grow her followers from 2,000 to 20,000 - all within a year.
She is still yet to try Premium, but she found the Sales Navigator feature extremely handy. For Judi, the Sales Navigator allows her to see how active a user is on LinkedIn, and this is very important for her. She wants to know if her prospects are active on LinkedIn so that she could engage with them.
Should we prioritize LinkedIn Articles as part of our content strategy?
“LinkedIn articles help your content live on. So, it's more of an evergreen strategy to have articles available,” Judi explained.
With articles, content creators can repurpose high-value videos and take advantage of the social proof they’ve already been getting. They could link the same video to the article - or even create a blog from it. It’s about keeping things ‘alive’ over time.
What is the difference between ‘connect’ and ‘follow’ in LinkedIn?
Judi uses LinkedIn to find great connections and to help forge business relationships. She thinks that ‘connects’ should be limited to people on LinkedIn who could interact and have conversations.
So, if you’re not the active-type on LinkedIn or if you’re the observer-type, it would be best for you to use ‘follow.’ Otherwise, feel free to ‘connect.’
LinkedIn Connects are limited to 30,000 per account. Judi has very few connections, but she has over 20,000 followers. And, she sets aside at least an hour every day where she sends voice messages to those who interacted with her content.
Of all the tips that you've been sharing right now, would you say that they're suited for B2B connections?
Judi didn’t answer this directly. Instead, she recounted building a six-figure business through LinkedIn - starting with only 2000 connections.
For her, having 2000 connections on LinkedIn is like speaking to 2000 people. She firmly believes that anyone could run a successful business with at least 2000 LinkedIn connections. Whether you’re running a business or looking for a job, your audience on LinkedIn will become your biggest supporters.
“It’s the power of relationships and referrals,” Judi pointed out.
Loved this episode?
If you answered yes, then you’ll love the episode with AJ Wilcox on A Beginner’s Guide to LinkedIn Ads - a step-by-step tutorial on how to get your message in front of audiences that are ready to buy!
Get more behind-the-scenes tips by joining the Social Media Strategist Group!
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