Ep 63: The hidden features of LinkedIn: How to power-up your content’s impact
Welcome
In this episode, taken from a LinkedIn Live, property writer Stacey Meadwell and I talk about the hidden features of LinkedIn and how built environment firms can make the most of them to develop more impactful content contact.
Introduction
Is your built environment firm making the most out of LinkedIn?
It's the social platform for business and has so many hidden features that you may not know exist.
The latest episode of The Built Environment Marketing show hosted by me Ayo Abbas is taken from a LinkedIn Live event that I did last week with property writer Stacey Meadwell.
LinkedIn has a brilliant range of content creation tools, but not all of them are immediately obvious or are underused as they don’t really shout about the fact that they exist.
Many of these features and tools can increase your range of content, boost engagement and propel your reach. They can help you stand out from the crowd and build stronger connections.
We did a deep dive into: Creator mode, LinkedIn Events, LinkedIn Audio and LinkedIn video and tons more.
Download the slides here
Watch on YouTube.
Resources and Links
Tools
About the show
The Built Environment Marketing Show is a podcast for architects, engineers and marketers who want to do better marketing make sure you check out our sizable back catolgue of interviews and solo episodes if you're facing a marketing challenge.
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Transcript
Ayo Abbas 00:05
Hi, it's Ayo here. I just wanted to hop on just to say a quick note before this episode goes live, this episode was recorded last week, we have Stacey Meadwell. Live on LinkedIn. And we were talking about the hidden features of LinkedIn. Because both of us feel that there are so many features that people don't really make the most of. So what I wanted to do was just share this live over here on the podcast, we are talking to slides. So if you want to have a look at what we're doing, I will also put a link in the show notes to our YouTube where it's recorded, and also to the handouts as well. So you can get both of those. Anyway, enjoy the show. In 2023 alone, LinkedIn introduced over 200 new features, which is tonnes, and I go on LinkedIn, a lot. And I don't even know them all, I don't think anyone does. But it's worth knowing Kevin Turner, actually, or Kevin D Turner, who actually does list them all, which is always really useful to see anyway. So the new features are really quite good. So they can increase the range of your content, boost engagement and propel your reach. So and they can also help you stand out from the crowd for what everyone else is doing. And it's all stuff that is actually relatively easy to use and low cost or no cost,
Stacey Meadwell 01:25
which is key, I think here. So let's get cracking. I think you're taking the first one, which is creator mode. Okay,
Ayo Abbas 01:34
so, look, I did some slides, because me like four times on screen or like three times. So creator mode. So creator mode was basically launched, I think it was about 18 months ago by LinkedIn. And it's about giving users more access to sharing tools, it gives them better analytics. And it's basically a way it gives you more control over your LinkedIn profile. So it's like what do you really want to show your audience at that point from your content. So you've got more control of your content, better analytics and more features. And in terms of how you find it, the way that you would find it as a user would be your view your profile, and then go to the kind of arrow that has your profile. And then you could you could click a toggle on for on or off for creator mode. But actually, LinkedIn are changing that this month. So it's all going to be slightly different. But I'll come to that in a second. But in terms of looking at the slide, some of the stuff that you also get, you get like this featured section here, which I've got the top of mine, which I've created some little kind of squares from in Canva, to make them kind of work really well. And then also you can choose more in terms of what you want to show. So you can decide that you want to show posts for this month. Or you might want to show actually, I've got some really good videos that I want to push. So you can have videos as the first thing that people see. So you can you can choose which type of content you want to spotlight on your actual profile, which is actually really, really useful feature. But I think just understanding the you're kind of in creator mode, you're given more, I guess, freedom. But I mean, the main things that are coming up now is that LinkedIn announced, given a lot of the Creator mode features to everybody. So they're going to start rolling that out this month, actually, so in February, so there's a link, which I will put in the comments, actually, which is all about creator mode and what's changing in terms of LinkedIn. So they're gonna take away the Creator mode on off button in March the next month, but you're still all your creative features, I just think what they're going to do is actually give everybody more features. And it's also going to give you more kind of control over whether or not you have a follow button or a connect connects button as well. So those are kind of two main things. And I think the about topics are going further. So the about your profile is going to be further up on your profile. I'll share links to that in the comments. So you can have a good read yourself for that. Knowing
Stacey Meadwell 04:01
what the other the important thing to remember about creator mode that they're rolling out to everybody is it gives you access to certain features, two of which that we're going to be talking about a little later a little later on. These are, these are things that you could do that you could only do if you had creator mode switched on. But everybody's going to have access to them. But I won't sort of steal the thunder of what we're going to talk about a little bit later. Okay,
Ayo Abbas 04:24
so moving on from that we've got. So after creator mode, the next thing to talk about is actually the Events tab. So the Events tab is I think is the main bit of where you can find most of the hidden features of LinkedIn. So you find it by going to the homepage on LinkedIn, scrolling down, and if you have a look, there's a left hand column, which has got lots of stuff like it has a thing which talks about recent events that you've been involved in at top. So either you've been involved in or you've signed up for and you can find those easily there. Then you've got groups which I have to admit I don't use at all, but I think it's the old LinkedIn groups because it's I mean, they're all just about me now and rubbish. And then underneath that you've got the Events tab. Now, if you have a look there, it's got like, for me, it's got a live that I did last week on for my marketing show. And then it's also got things that I've signed up for or watched recently. So that is how you find the event. And if you click on here, and basically you go down, then the next slide, you make sure I'm in the wrong bright bit. It gives you this, which is basically the Events tab. And this is what you find LinkedIn, audio events, LinkedIn, live video events like this one. And also, if you're running events off platform, you can also create a LinkedIn event that links to that as well. So you've got kind of free types of events that live in this area. And it's just worth knowing that this is here. I think it's just one of these kinds of features that is on your profile. But you may never even know it's there. I mean, if you didn't know it was there, let me know what if you didn't if this is news to you, but this whole kind of world of events and LinkedIn. And it's, it's worth knowing how to access them and how you can find more stuff. And
Stacey Meadwell 06:03
I would just jump in and say that if you are using the app, you just click on your little profile pic. And you get two options there. One is groups and one is events. And you come to that page, that same page. If you click on if you click on Events, it gives you a list of all the things that either your lives that you're doing stuff that you've said you're attending, or external events. And I think the external events thing is quite interesting. And I don't think people use that very much. It's a really good way of promoting stuff that you are doing off the platform.
Ayo Abbas 06:39
Yeah, exactly. And I guess if you see that as another promotional channel, so you could add your events to it as another way of just finding more people who might be searching if you're looking to attract more of an audience, or to engage with more people. So yeah, I do think this Events tab and external events is definitely under used. I agree with you. Okay, so what's next?
Stacey Meadwell 07:00
Next is one, we're talking about LinkedIn events, I want to talk about LinkedIn events. It's not a surprise. It's not a surprise feature, if you're watching this, because you're watching a LinkedIn event. But you don't see many of them popping up. And I think they're very underused. So many events at conferences or pay to play now. So then they're often quite a lot of money as well. Whereas a LinkedIn event, doing something like this is fairly low cost, you have to use an external streaming platform, we'll use Streamyard. But it's the cost of that is fairly low compared to what you would have to pay if you were doing a panel or a discussion at a conference. And the key thing is, it's an event that you control, you decide when it is you decide on the topic, the format. And if you want guests, you can do so low. So if you wanted to just do a live by yourself, you could do that that whole idea of that absolutely terrifies me some way. Or you could do you like Cohosts like we do these together every month. Or you can have guests and we have had guests, you know, it might be you and a guest you decide on the format, it's completely it's in your control to decide what you want to do. So you decide on the content, the time and and the format. And it's a great way from a marketing point of view. It's a great way of engaging with people because as they you're watching, you can you can comment we can reply to your comments. No, it's a great way of having that interaction. And people watching you talking about things really helps build a connection. And when we've both had people come up to us and mention the lives that we do that they've watched a live they've seen us and it breaks down it breaks down those barriers. It's also a massive content generator. I'm a firm believer in don't just do one piece of content, take that piece of content and make it into lots of different content. And this is a classic example. Not only are we streaming live here to LinkedIn, but we're also simultaneously streaming live to Ayo's YouTube channel. We could also stream live to an Instagram channel we could stream in three different places we could also stream live as a webinar so people don't even have to go on to a social platform so you can be in four places at once. So there is that you can download the video the video appears as a replay on LinkedIn so it's there forever. You can download the video and put it so I take the video I put that on my YouTube channel. So it's appearing into on to YouTube channels. But we also cut and splice it take little clips that we use in social posts and smaller, you know, smaller little snippets, you can download the audio and turn it into a podcast. If you had, if you have a company podcast, you can run that audio through auto and get a transcript and turn that into articles and blog posts. There are so many things that you can do. So
Ayo Abbas 10:27
it's never anything at all.
Stacey Meadwell 10:30
I could talk about other things, I have got so many so many ideas. But the point being is the time it's, it doesn't take that long to set it up, does it? Oh, I mean, no. Once you've sorted out the banner, you know, we have a banner. And all we have to do is change the title and the date on it each time. Once you've set that up, and you've set up your description, it only takes five minutes to set it up. It's really, really easy. LinkedIn has a guide to LinkedIn lives and how it's step by step. And I can put a link to that in the comments afterwards. But considering the amount of work that goes into it, and all the stuff you can generate from it, it feels a bit like a no brainer. And not many people are doing it. And you can stream from your company page. So if you've got a big following on your company page, you can stream from there as well as from your own as well as from personal accounts. So yeah, I I'm a bit of fan obviously we do them. But I just think it's that it's a really powerful marketing tool, I feel anyway.
Ayo Abbas 11:36
Okay, Gavin Winbanks. So he's asked us what streaming services we use to do this live. So I use, we use Streamyard, which is a couple of 100 pounds a year, I think. And it streams you can stream live live into LinkedIn, YouTube, lots of other things. And it's a really good intuitive platform. Other ones you can explore, I think there's one called econ, which is ECamm. And there's also one called Restream, I'll put those in the comments afterwards as well. So there are three different platforms, I would just say just try them out and see. And I mean, they really, they work really well. And they give you really professional quality audio. And actually, the audio from this video, for example I use in my podcast is high quality audio and things like that. So I think it's it's finding one tool that works for you. Ecamm, there you go, Steve Folland said. And so I think that's the main thing is just try out some of these tools. I think the one thing to say though, about video is I think it's like any other piece of content that you you do need some kind of structure, you do need to know roughly what you're doing. Because I think sometimes people just stand there and it's like, hey, we're just coming online, it's like, it has no structure or no feel. And they're not thinking about the audience who are listening. So I think you do need to have a bit of a structure and kind of know roughly what you're gonna do. But it's
Stacey Meadwell 13:06
It's kind of ironic saying that considering we messed up.
Ayo Abbas 13:10
Yeah, but that involves me reading so that
Stacey Meadwell 13:15
we do we do we have notes? Yeah, we do. We do plan? And I think yeah, it is really it is a really important point is to know is to know, you know, plan out your your lives like you would any piece of content. Yeah. And do we want to move on to audio events is maybe
Ayo Abbas 13:38
before I think before we do, let's ask answer. April Boulton's just asked a question. Sorry, April, I just saw it. It just said, is there a way that LinkedIn lives to now show how many people who signed up to it? Yes, there is. What you do is you have to go into the event on LinkedIn. And then if you click into the event itself, and you click on Manage, there is like, you can see who's there who's like, there's a networking tab, which shows you everybody that signed up for it. To see how so you can see how many people are I mean, we were gonna have like 52, or something with me today, right? So we can see, we can see everybody's names, and everyone who signed up. And there's a couple of things you can do as well through that manage tab is that you can email every single person in that network, regardless of their first second or third connections. If you go in via that manage tab, and then you can post event, for example I sent tend to send out an email which sort of says, in case you didn't make it, ie if I don't see your name in the comments, because we can't always tell precisely who's who's watched. I send a quick email with the link to actually rewatch the live. So in case someone's missed it, they've got the link directly. So I think there's stuff like that you can look at and do and then also in that manage tab. There's also some really good Analytics as well. So you get to know watch times key kind of people that have watched it, not people but like their levels, their seniority, and some of the key firms as well. We look at that, like, a couple of days later, don't wait and see, are they the right types of people we weren't watching and things like that. And
Stacey Meadwell 15:06
the thing to remember is that because it lives on it accumulates views. And you know, sometimes we don't get a huge amount of people watching life, sometimes it's difficult because people have got busy diaries and stuff to actually be there. But people will catch up and watch the replay. And it tells you how many hours how many minutes have been watched, how many people have watched the replay. So it's not something that's just, you know, just there for the moment. It's something that lives on, on the platform. And obviously, on YouTube, as well, as we're streaming, we're streaming there. And
Ayo Abbas 15:46
we actually, we've got a couple of lives and you've got a blog as well, haven't you about LinkedIn lives and how to get the most out of them. And I think we will put some links to those in the comments, I've got a lot of comments and links to put in, but we'll do that. And the other thing to kind of mention is sometimes when you first do that event post Via when you set it up on site, Streamyard, and it pulls it through to LinkedIn, the rate can be really low. So you just have to be aware that you will have to do more stuff to get people to attend and know what's going on. Yeah. So just making sure you're doing separate posts that link into it. And that you are inviting people directly as well, because I think all of that just means that you get more visibility. So you really do have to push them a bit more and just be mindful that yeah, reason. I think your awareness is diminished, isn't it? Yeah,
Stacey Meadwell 16:31
I think basically what LinkedIn does is because you're using an external platform to stream on to LinkedIn, it treats it like a web link. And LinkedIn doesn't like web links. But even though it's a LinkedIn event, it kills the reach. And we found actually inviting people is the best actually sending out invites. And actually there's a there's a bonus to that, because it's an opportunity to get into people's you know, notifications by sending them to get into a secret into their DM it's an opportunity to Well, I think it's more notification, you get a notification to say you've been invited, but it's an opportunity to kind of you know, to be to send a notification to someone invite people. So, you know, there's, there's a bonus to that as well. Do you want to talk about audio specifically? i
Ayo Abbas 17:20
We have one more question, which I think we should
Stacey Meadwell 17:23
pay attention. Meanwhile,
Ayo Abbas 17:24
there is another April question. So awesome. Thank you. Do you think it's better than Eventbrite? I think they're two completely different tools. I think Eventbrite it's about signups really isn't it and all of that, I wouldn't say that the LinkedIn stuff is anywhere near as good to be honest, in terms of signups and capturing people. But, you know, event, Eventbrite is a very different tool, in terms of how I see it, and events and event management,
Stacey Meadwell 17:52
the thing I would say about LinkedIn events is if you've already got a big network here, and when you go live, it pops up in people's streams that you're going live. So whereas if you're doing something off platform, when you're, you know, if you've got big mailing lists and stuff, you can obviously promote that. And we always promote it through our own through our own newsletters. But if you've already built up a presence or building up a presence on LinkedIn, it can work both ways it can be be a good way of kind of connecting with your existing network, but also help you build up your network on LinkedIn.
Ayo Abbas 18:29
Hi, it's Ayo here. And I just wanted to interrupt the show quickly, to say a bit more about what I do. I'm a digitally lead marketing consultant, and I specialise in working with built environment firms, just like yours. I think there's so much more that ese firms can do to make the most of the digital marketing opportunity. And if it's something that you would like to explore working with me how to make the best of online and in person world, then do get in touch, email me at Ayo, which is ayo@abbasmarketing.com. And let's have a chat. The next kind of type of audio event that you can have is actually linked in audio. So, which again, I don't think many people know about. No, it's It's basically, I guess, it's like LinkedIn version of clubhouse. If you remember, back to like,
Stacey Meadwell 19:24
I remember Clubhouse
Ayo Abbas 19:26
when it was cool, and everyone was like, you haven't got an iPhone, you gotta get on. And I was like, I have an iPhone, sorry. And then when they brought it to Android, it was too late. So it's basically that says Audio events. And what's interesting about that, is that I mean, when it first came out, LinkedIn had so many gremlins, people didn't have volume and the volume was really bad and the audio was bad, but it's all been fixed and it works really, really well. And if anything, it seems to be they seem to be pushing it algorithm wise. So there's a huge opportunity there to build up a following audio wise. And again, I think it's about having that structure, knowing what you're doing. You can have your six speakers who are your main people at the top table or panel or whatever. And then you can pull people from the audience or whatever or manage it in a way that works for you. But just having that structure again, I was gonna talk about Mel Barfield and Ben McKinney, they started running a regular LinkedIn audio event for copywriters. And they have like a set time when they do it themes topics, they have guests, they had Dave Harland the other day. And then on the back of that they then do a substack newsletter where they write up about the event, you know, include coat post quotes from people and sort of tag people in. But I think the one thing about LinkedIn audio is that you can't record them. So for me, that's a huge misstep. Because like we say, we're really into repurposing, how else can we get more bang for our buck? And let's be honest, people are busy can always make certain times. So I think that's the one kind of area and like adding a recording feature will make it so much easier. So I think that's the one bit where, like, that kind of falls down and which is why I haven't really tried it. But I guess some people were kind of doing their own thing and having ways around it to record the audio and then use it in some way, shape or form
Stacey Meadwell 21:19
that there is no there is a way I've heard of people talking about there is there is a way that you can hack it so that you can get a getting recording. But maybe it's one that we should try. At some point I Oh, we should give it a go. Because neither of us have actually, I've actually tried the the one we haven't. And it's kind of like it's a suppose it's sort of a more, it's sort of like listening to a live podcast, I suppose is the best way of describing it. And, you know, if people want to ask a question, you can invite you can invite them, and they can actually verbally ask the question rather than type something in. But yeah, maybe, maybe we should give it a go. But as you say the algorithm is really pushing it at the moment.
Ayo Abbas 21:58
Yeah, there's a lady called Liz Hamlet, actually, she's running some master classes on running LinkedIn audio events, which I think she's charging, like 20 quid for. And I think I've got a feeling though, it's gonna be a very similar thing to how you on LinkedIn live, just understanding how you manage it. But I think that's the main thing is so just knowing that all of that is there for audio and give it a go. And I think you can build up good communities. So yeah, so we do need to try one we are going to try one by the way, we are we will do only that.
Stacey Meadwell 22:33
Your way do you mean? Talk about newsletters next, because this is this is another I think underused feature. This is a creator mode feature that is being rolled out. You can you don't need an external platform. You don't need Mailerlite or anything like that. This is something you can purely do through through LinkedIn. And once you've got it set up, I mean, all you really need is a banner. And I think you put a little description about what your newsletter is about. But once you've done that, you just literally create an article and it sends it out to all your subscribers of your newsletter. And one of the things that I found because I started and links in newsletter, back in the summer, I'd already started an email newsletter and the email newsletters, still important. It's something I will continue doing. But the speed with which you gather subscribers to a LinkedIn newsletter is crazy. I mean, I'm a freelancer. So I don't, you know, don't have big company backing or anything. And I got to 1000 subscribers really, really quickly. It pays it tails off, you don't get that level of increase month on month after the initial kind of initial start with the initial published publication of your newsletter, but it carries on creeping up and I don't do any promotion for the don't ask people to subscribe, it literally finds subscribe, find subscribers, and because it's an article, it's Google searchable. So it's a really, it's a really useful tool. The first one you put out, make sure it's all singing, all dancing, because that gets the algorithm will really push your first newsletter really hard, which is I think why you get a massive like influx of subscribers when you first start, and then subsequent issues, I think gets put in all the feeds of your subscribers. And it has really good stats, it will tell you how many people have not only it's not just impressions because impressions are a bit of a wishy washy stat because they don't tell you who's read it but it will tell you how many people have viewed your article, which I think is really useful. And my last edition, I got nearly 400 views and I'm I say I'm not a big company. So I know There are companies and I, you've got an example of a company that that does that does a newsletter. But the other thing to remember is that with newsletters, you can have more than one, you can do them, run them from your company page. So if you are a big business with several different departments, several different disciplines, you could run out, like, you know, say, for example, you're an agency and you cover, you know, you could have one for the office sector, you could have one for the industrial sector, you could have one for the residential,you could have more than one newsletter, and you can you can tell them is this right now, you can tailor them to go out to specific audiences,
Ayo Abbas 25:38
I think you can, if you can't do the segmentation, I think that's where that could fall down. So I would look into the segment segmentation parks, I'm not entirely sure, but I'm not right. I think that'll be the only bit where I'm like, you know, because like, if you're, if you're only, you know, if you if you're a large agent, you're going to have so many different markets, you just need to be mindful of that. But at least you know, you can have, you know, if there are certain themes that work across multiple segments of your audience, then great, but if not, and you can't segment as much the maybe having that many different kinds of specific newsletters might not work as well. But you know what, that's kind of thing you can try quite easily. Yeah, see how it works. But I just think people are maximising their use of
Stacey Meadwell 26:19
it doesn't have to be loads of extra work, either. I mean, spoiler alert, I don't actually create X, I don't actually create new content from my LinkedIn newsletter, I take the content from my email newsletter, and I repurpose it for my LinkedIn newsletter. There are certain bits that I earn only on my email newsletter that are exclusive to the email newsletter so that subscribers to that are getting something that nobody else gets. But I literally repurpose it, it's nothing, it's nothing I haven't already created. If that's actually my email newsletter goes out twice a month now. And what I do is I combined the two, two into one LinkedIn newsletter. But yeah, I think it's just a real. Again, it's you've got a captive audience, if you've got a big network, they're all there.
Ayo Abbas 27:08
And I think that to really emphasise the whole newsletter thing. So I think for my my, my own kind of mailer light newsletter, I have, say, 250 subscribers, for my LinkedIn newsletter, which is basically the snippets version, just a shortened version of that which actually, my virtual assistant mainly puts together for me as a draft, I go into a minute read, it takes me less than half an hour to do it. I've got 1500 subscribers. So you know, it's a big difference. And also, it's the same content. And I think you've just got to kind of sit there and go, I've done this piece of work, how else can I get it out to my audience? And I think the LinkedIn newsletters are really under utilised. And also, I think you've got the whole thing of loads of property firms and companies already got their own newsletters, why not have one on LinkedIn, you know, it'd be really easy. I'm just going to talk about the next example, which is actually Buro Happold. So Buro Happold, global engineering firm. They've got 200,000 subscribers to their company page. But they also do an a monthly newsletter, which is basically a roundup of what happened the month before, really easy, small, 50 words, snippets with a link to their kind of story on their main website. And it's just lots of little snippets of stories. They put that out once a month, they've got 66,000 signups for that newsletter. So can you imagine that it just means everything they've posted or done in that previous month gets another hit another kind of bite of the cherry as it were. And yet, it's just a way of kind of engaging, and just making giving yourself another chance to engage with your target audience. And it's a relatively simple thing to do. And it's free. So for me, there aren't that many firms actually doing this. And huge opportunities are missed opportunity. So yeah, that I thought was a really useful one to see.
Stacey Meadwell 28:51
Yeah, it's, it's great. We're both big advocates. And I was trying to get me to do a LinkedIn newsletter for ages. And I resisted and resisted and resisted. And then of course, I didn't want to went, Oh, wow, this is amazing. Isn't this brilliant? Look at growing season. I was like I told you
Ayo Abbas 29:08
I think it's easier. I don't want to do another thing. But you're like, it really is. Yeah, it's huge out of work for for a hell of a lot of visibility. So and it
Stacey Meadwell 29:18
doesn't cost it doesn't cost anything other than a bit of your time. I think is the other thing. We've, we've we've got we've we're gonna go slightly over on our time for this one, I hope you don't mind and then will indulge us. But our final one is actually link different types of posts that you have on LinkedIn. Io, do you want to go first? So
Ayo Abbas 29:41
yeah, someone has actually called me the queen of polls, which I think is a great name. I know because I love doing goals. There was a time when polls were really kind of reading amazingly well in the algorithm. Everyone was doing them and that's kind of when I backed away but now not that many people are doing them and I still love them for now and back. So polls are great. And it's a way I guess, I, for me, I think about when I'm going for a personal current conundrum or thinking or what should I do here? Or a client asked me a question quite often, I turned them into a poll. I keep it simple. So normally simple questions. And generally, it's a great way of having engagement, having conversations with people, and just kind of keep stuff relatively broad brush, because really, it's about getting engagement and having conversations and starting something with different people. So, I mean, some of my recent polls have been do you class yourself as an expert? Do you call yourself an influencer? How do you learn? What's your content priority? So it's all just little things like that. And some of those will link to maybe one of our lives or something that we're doing or trying to push? So polls, I think, are a kind of good way of starting conversations, and they do still work. But yeah, don't do the ones about what did you have for breakfast? I hate those. Yeah,
Stacey Meadwell 30:55
or coffee or tea? No, I mean, Keep it keep keep it, keep it keep it relevant. And the algorithm does push polls, so you can actually get a you can actually get quite good, good traction on a poll with not you know, without too much without too much effort. So definitely one and it's just mixes up your content, I think, yeah. I was gonna actually because I noticed on there that on that one, you've got other please comment. And one of the things that I was going to suggest, sorry, I do is don't is don't put that as an option. Because keep it so that people either have to choose something and then encourage them to comment if they if they don't see the option that they're like, this would be my sneaky little tactic. Yeah,
Ayo Abbas 31:38
that's one thing. I mean, to be honest, my people still do comment, darling, so it works. Don't worry. I know I've heard that one before. But no, I still add it. Anyway, sorry.
Stacey Meadwell 31:55
Just ignore me. My ideas, rubbish.
Ayo Abbas 31:59
Just challenging it. We don't have to agree on it.
Stacey Meadwell 32:01
No, no, absolutely. Absolutely. If it works, if it works for you, it works. But it works for you. Say, document post now there was I did a poll about and I mentioned document posts, and somebody commented that aren't those carousels. Now, some people call them carousel some people call them sliders, LinkedIn, call them sliders. I've never heard that. I've heard other people calling them sliders. I don't know what to call them. This is the thing. LinkedIn calls them docs calls them document. And this is where you just open a post. And it's got all the little options below. And if you click on document, it lets you basically upload slides, it's a PDF, you just upload a PDF, I don't know whether you can do it from I imagined that it works from PowerPoint, and you convert that to a PDF and upload it that way. Or I use Canva. And I create a load of Canvas slides and I convert I save it as a PDF and upload it, it gets the reason why I think this is this is a good thing to do is a is it's like polls, it's a different type of content. And it's got good dwell because people click through from slide to slide to slide. So it has, it tends to get pretty good. Pretty good impressions. My tip would be don't put too much text text on each slide, you see some where people have just put so much information on each slide, it's just too much. So keep it short and sweet. I mean, you know, you can take if you've done a thought leader, and you've got five key points, make a point, you know, make a slide for each point and make it you know, make a document posts that way, there are all sorts of different things that you you can do. But they get that, you know, they get really good engagement. And it's just something it's just something different from doing a text post or a text and image post.
Ayo Abbas 33:50
And I just think layout wise for the slides, what you're saying about keeping the the wording, like keeping the wording down, so they're not too wordy. It's really, really important, especially because quite often people just scroll on their mobile phones. So think about having slides that work on a mobile phone, you try it have a look. And then you realise actually your text is too small. So I think have that in mind that especially me like when I can't sleep I might just be scrolling. I know. Yeah. And then the final one we've got is kind of events, isn't it, which we've already kind of covered quite a lot and just making the most out of those events.
Stacey Meadwell 34:28
I mean, I suppose the other thing I was just going to mention is video. I mean everyone bangs on about video, but video again is still I've seen more and more people are using video. I still don't think it's used enough. And some people are doing some really interesting things with with video. There are there are some firms that are doing some really good great sort of almost TikTok style video content. That is just it's just a really different they presenting, you know, buildings and presenting information about their business. In a really interesting and an innovative in a con speak and innovative way. So yeah, don't don't dismiss, don't dismiss video and it doesn't have to be really, really polished as long as you've got reasonable sound and reasonable, you know, people can see you and they can hear you properly.
Ayo Abbas 35:21
And I think I can do. Yeah, and you can definitely you can just like, basically, you know, get some a little mics for your phone or whatever, or just use your mobile and you know, decent lighting, and you'll be fine. And I think that's the thing is like, it's just finding ways to engage and show who you are. And I think there are more and more that people can do. I think we may have some questions, and we have a quick look. I like this one a lot noises Oh, my God, yes, please advice on how to use use of utilise polls from my company, which is super useful information. I think for companies, I would just say they don't use me enough polls. And if you can do just ask questions, if you'd like to put out a report on sustainability, ask a question around sustainability. And then you can trail that you've got a report coming out. So there's loads of things you can do. It's just how can you ask questions? Yeah.
Stacey Meadwell 36:07
But I think as I said, Keep it keep it fairly simple. I mean, the other thing actually, is, it doesn't give you that many letters to use on each option. So sometimes you have to be quite creative in your card, like have a two sentence.
Ayo Abbas 36:22
It's like 30 characters or something, something that's really
Stacey Meadwell 36:26
small, so So yeah, you might have to play around with the with what the text that you put on each poll button. It doesn't give you that much bass, unfortunately.
Ayo Abbas 36:37
Okay, so Federica has a question for us. So what would you class is too much text on a single carousel page? Ie more than one or two sentences? I'd say normally, it's like one sentence, isn't it? It's it's it's not even a one full sentence. It could be.
Stacey Meadwell 36:54
I mean, I would say depends on how long your sentences are. Because I've I've done slides with three sentences, but they've been fairly short sentences. So I just, yeah, because I've done one recently. Yeah. So I yeah, just I mean, less is more, I would say. But then you don't want it you don't want to document post that's about 35 slides long. Because that's the other thing to remember. Because people get bored clicking, clicking, clicking. So keep it you know, keep the number of slides down. And if you've got so much information that you either going to need 35 slides then maybe do more than one document and sort of thing that around the break, break it down into into smaller chunks and do it that way.
Ayo Abbas 37:42
Cool. Fairly reduced, as you said, LinkedIn doesn't like links.
Stacey Meadwell 37:47
Yeah, web links. It doesn't like Link LinkedIn, if you put a web if you put a web link in a post, it won't get the same amount of reach as a post without a link. Sadly,
Ayo Abbas 37:56
that is true. But I mean, but then it's interesting, because some people they kind of like saying, Well, I put my links in anyway, because I need them. And yeah, yeah. I think it's I think it's what your goal is. And yeah, I mean, I still put links and stuff, I'm kind of like, I think more about the user experience and like not having to click through and find stuff. So for me, I
Stacey Meadwell 38:19
mean, from from LinkedIn perspective, they want to keep people on the platform. They want don't, they don't want you sending people off to your website, or somewhere else. So that's, I think, I don't know this for sure. But I imagine that's why they they don't they curb the reach of posts that have got a web Lincoln. But he I've tested, if you do post without Lincoln do post with and you'll see I'm sure you'll see a difference. But it's always been that way. There are various hacks that I'm not sure whether any of the works, some people say publish your post, and then go back in and add and add the links. And people say that in the comments, but there are issues and problems with all of those. But as I said, sometimes you just got to sometimes you've got to dig up, you just got to do it. I mean, you know, I like to promote, you know, I, you know, promote my email newsletter. And so yeah, that's always going to have a link in it. And those posts never do as well. Any events. You know, when we do post about these, these links in lives, they never do as well as a post without, because it's classified as a web link, unfortunately.
Ayo Abbas 39:23
So yeah, we've got lots of people saying, Thank you so much. This was been brilliant, very nice. And Alana has kind of asked the question about the links in posts, which he kind of answered. So I think we've already done that. Lorraine, so just think about more and more videos presented in portrait mode, like insert now. Yeah, that's an interesting trend. I don't know it doesn't work as well in in LinkedIn. I'm not sure but then sometimes I'm like, sometimes it kinda just stands out from other staff. So why not? So there
Stacey Meadwell 39:52
are rumours that they're going to bring their stories equivalent back again, because when when they launched Instagram Stories In Facebook stories, LinkedIn, did their own version of that for a while and then got rid of it. And there are lots of rumours that they're bringing that back. And obviously that's where the portray will come in. I imagine hopefully. Yeah. Yeah. And one of though it's interesting, I saw something recently, the Tick Tock are starting to push landscape videos, which so it's, you know, it's, I wish, I wish, I wish they would just all have one format that worked across all of them.
Ayo Abbas 40:28
Sadly, it's about shareholders and getting dwell time isn't it? So that's what they're all driven by. Thanks so much for listening to The Built Environment Marketing Show. Don't forget to check out the show notes which will have useful links and resources connected to this episode. You can find that on www.abbasmarketing.com. And of course, if you liked the show, please do share it with others on social as it helps more people to find us. See you soon.
