Ep 38: How to get your LinkedIn activity firing on all cylinders, Stacey Meadwell
LinkedIn is the social platform for business and in this episode which is my 3rd recording over on LinkedIn we took a deep dive into ‘How to get your LinkedIn activity firing on all cylinders with my guest property writer Stacey Meadwell.
We covered a lot of ground including:
what to post
what makes a good post
what types of posts to do and how often to post
why going viral isn't everything
how to stop the scroll
why you need to engage and comment not just post
And loads, loads more.
It's a fun, lively conversation and is packed with hints, tips, ideas and laughter. And we even answer a few questions from our audience.
The Built Environment Marketing Show is the new name for Marketing In Times of Recovery cos who wants a podcast name tied to the state of the UK economy.
And don’t worry it’s still hosted by marketing consultant Ayo Abbas from Abbas Marketing. The consultancy bridges the gap between business strategy and tactical marketing for engineers and architects. Sign up for my monthly roundup here for the latest built environment marketing news
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Resources
Transcript.
Ayo Abbas 00:05
Hello, it's Ayo here. And I just wanted to give you a quick intro into the special episodes that I'm doing to launch the season. I've just changed the name of this podcast to The Built Environment Marketing Show. Why? You may be wondering? Is the economy in recovery or crisis? Who knows? Well, right now, we're definitely in crisis, let's be honest. So I didn't want my podcast name, Marketing In Times of Recovery to be tied to the economy. So now was definitely the time to change. And to celebrate, I'm kicking off with five live interviews recorded over on LinkedIn in just one week. And now I've given you a bit of background. Let's get on and listen to my interview with Stacy Meadwell, enjoy. Hello, and welcome to the latest episode of The Built Environment Marketing, marketing Show, live here on LinkedIn. And yep, it's me again. I. So if you're joining us live, I came up with a new icebreaker question. I was researching this yesterday. Do tell me something that you're looking to get out of this session today? So, if you can just put something in the comments that will be great. And we can see them read them. And also it tells us that you can actually see us because we have had issues in the past, haven't we Stacey, where we have broadcast live and nobody could actually get on and see us stream on Streamyard? So yeah, that's fine. So if you can say hello, that'd be awesome. So anyway, it's Wednesday, hump day. Day three of my LinkedIn live podcast interviews. And today we're looking at how to get your LinkedIn profile, basically firing on all cylinders, or your activity firing on all cylinders. And my special guest today is an insight is a former property journo, all round, amazing writer, LinkedIn devotee, and friend who has to put up with my mad cap ideas. So she gets the messages from me that go, I've had this idea - I'm gonna go live - I'm gonna do this. And she's always like, oh. Stacey, do you like my intro? I wrote that last night? Would you like to introduce yourself? Or can you top thatStacey Meadwell 02:19
I don't know if I can top that. So many ideas, because I'm I you know, I'm always throwing thoughts at you. And we meet up regularly to kind of bounce on madcap, madcap business ideas. And anyway, yeah, so yeah, I'm in a former B2B property journalist, turns content creator for businesses in the built environment. And I support businesses by either writing content for them or training them to write their own content. That's what I do in a nutshell.
Ayo Abbas 02:54
Fantastic. So let's kick on with this. I can't see any comments yet. So anyone could write anything, I'd be really happy just that we can see that we are actually live. So first question is does LinkedIn work to grow business?
Stacey Meadwell 03:10
Well, I think it depends on how you use LinkedIn. You know, it's not like a case of if you just go on to LinkedIn and post something, you're automatically going to get reams and reams of businesses approaching you knocking on your door saying, "I want to work with you". It's all about your strategy. If you are a lurker on LinkedIn, that's somebody who goes and reads other people's stuff doesn't actually get involved and engaged in any way, then it's not going to bring you business. If you don't post or if you post and ghost or if you just post and use it as a broadcast, then it's only going to get you so far. So I would say yes, it does work if you use it properly. And I have got leads from LinkedIn. And also existing contacts and clients will sometimes use LinkedIn to get in touch with me because I'm visible, I'm staying front front of mine. So it's a combination. I'm not going to say I get tonnes and tonnes and tonnes of completely cold leads from LinkedIn because I don't but it's a good way of keeping in contact with with my network. And people in the market and staying front of mind.
Ayo Abbas 04:25
Brilliant. I say staying front of mind is one of the key things. It's like, I always think LinkedIn is a digital shop window. It's a way of staying front of mind. People knowing you're there and that's the thing is like when I am looking when I am suddenly at that stage of wanting to buy, you want to be that first person that pops into someone's head and I always think that's what you want to be and that's why you do LinkedIn because then people go, Oh, who do I know who knows about built environment marketing? I know Ayo
Stacey Meadwell 04:52
Absolutely. And I've had two existing clients that I've done certain types of work for or that have seen me writing about other stuff. And they've got in touch and go, "oh, could you work with us on that?" And I've ended up working with them on something different to what I've worked with them before. So i it's all about that stay in front of mind.
Ayo Abbas 05:17
Fantastic. So just before, we know, people can hear us. Fantastic. Thanks, Emma. Thanks, a heap, we can hear you. Hello. Hi. And also Hannah Cox has got a question for us, which I'll take towards the end. So we have got people online. Yes. And my other thing was, if you have any questions, I've got to say, please do put them in the comments. And we will get to those at the end as well. So no worries on that. So my next question is, isn't LinkedIn just about likes and no tangible business? Now, I know this is a comment that I've heard when I've worked in consultancies, and a grey haired old man has said this.
Stacey Meadwell 05:55
Yeah, I've heard similar comments, but it comes back to how you use it. And what your reason for being on LinkedIn is, I mean, obviously, today, we're focusing on business and using it as a marketing tool. I mean, there are lots of other reasons to be on LinkedIn, you know, like learning stuff, building your network, recruitment, if you want to recruit people into your business
Ayo Abbas 06:22
research is one that
Stacey Meadwell 06:25
research is really, really good. I mean, that for that comment, I'd say, it just depends on how you use it. You know, if you if you're not actively engaging, if you don't have a strategy, it's like any form of marketing, really, you've got to have a strategy, you've got to have a plan for what you want to get out of it. So you know, yes, you can chase likes, if you want to chase likes, you can chase likes, if that's if that's your goal, if that's your goal, and actually, we've had this conversation recently about, posts going viral and doing really well. And it's kind of, I'm not chasing that I'm chasing quality, qualified connections, and more qualified leads. And actually, I found when I have had posts go go a little bit crazy, it ends up being really, really time consuming. Because you get lots of random people commenting and
Ayo Abbas 07:26
random things like your things like this has nothing to do with me or your Twitter, I really don't want to talk to you. And then you're like, I want to stay away from you.
Stacey Meadwell 07:37
Rather have far fewer likes, but know that they are my target audience. And you know, the people that I want to talk to then have a post go viral and have you know, loads and loads and loads of likes, but it's a lot of people that I'm never going to work with, and I don't want to work I don't particularly want to work with or they're not in my in my field. There are there are times there are tangible benefits. But again, it comes back to the point that it's how it it's, it's all in how you use it.
Ayo Abbas 08:07
Yeah, and I think in some ways, it's like, you can do smart things in terms of I think, likes are important. And impressions are important, because it's about visibility, right, and you want to be in front for more people. But I guess the key is having that strategy behind the scenes about how you take it from LinkedIn onto on to other channels, on to other more direct conversations and things like that, that's what you want to start to build, you want to take it off LinkedIn and have a CRM or start having conversations via email, that's kind what you want, how do you get from the likes to business? So you want to map that out and read and that's part of your strategy. So I think that's absolutely right. So
Stacey Meadwell 08:48
it's building know, like, and trust is that is the phrase that everyone builds around. And it starts with people getting to know you by what you're talking about, and what you're posting about being approachable so that they feel like they can approach you but then having some call, you know, having a call to action, being mean, obviously, nobody likes to be sold to but if you're being useful and interesting. And you're saying look I can, if you want to find out more about how I can help on this, you give people like an in-road, an invitation to sort of get to get to get in touch with you. But yeah, that's the tricky thing is journeying people's, like connections and engagement into actual paying clients.
Ayo Abbas 09:43
So if you want to get your LinkedIn activity firing on all cylinders that's what the title is, what's the best approach to take to make an impact? Oh, yeah.
Stacey Meadwell 09:53
Well, in the built environment, obviously it's location, location, location on LinkedIn. I'd say engage, engage, engage. And that is not that it comes in two strands. First of all, treat it like a networking event, go and have conversations with the with other people comment on other people's content, because that's going to give you visibility. If you're just posting and acting like a broadcast, then that's gonna limit your availability and your visibility. And actually, LinkedIn wants people to be active on the platform. It wants people to be engaging with other content, as well as posting their own content. So you will go, the LinkedIn algorithms, the mysterious LinkedIn algorithms. Yes, nobody understands them. But I know personally, that if I'm going to post something, I don't post anything without having engaged and done some engagement first, just to kind of, you know, to show that I'm active on the platform. And also you can get into some great conversations. And also, if you are going to post, no one is going to comment and get engaged with your content, if you're not going off and engaging and commenting on other people's content. It's got to be a two way street. And the second thing is post regularly. And I'm sure we're going to come on to that in a bit more detail. But also make sure that you are encouraging engagement, right in a way that is accessible, ask questions asked for people's views on things; get a conversation going. Because if you are posts that have lots of comments on them, we'll get more visibility. Yeah. So it's like
Ayo Abbas 11:44
a compounding thing, isn't
Stacey Meadwell 11:47
it is? Exactly. Yeah, because LinkedIn wants people being active and engaged with the platform. And if people are commenting on your posts, LinkedIn goes, "Oh, this post is obviously interesting", because lots of people are commenting on it. So therefore, I'm going to show it to more people. So it's all about seeing it as saying, as a networking, imagine you're at a networking event, how would you have those conversations? What questions would you ask the people in the room, get those conversations going? So that is my number one takeaway, I would say is, engage, and if you are nervous about posting, and some people are really nervous about putting themselves out there, start with commenting, just get comfortable with commenting on other people's posts. And I'm not talking about like just saying great post.
Ayo Abbas 12:39
Great, congratulations. Generally, yeah.
Stacey Meadwell 12:42
If people you know are getting promoted and all that, yes, you can be supportive, and that's engagement. But they also do need to be meaningful comments, add something to the discussion. So, yeah, that would be my key tip for how to approach LinkedIn.
Ayo Abbas 13:03
I think for me, I think it's like you said, it's about engagement. It's also being curious. So asking questions, actually using it, you know, like using your comments as posts yourself. So if I write a good well thought through comment, and it's normally stares up some kind of idea or a post, so I kind of connect those registers. And then that's a post in a couple of days or whatever, when I when I remember. So I think it's all of that kind of being curious and kind of wanting to engage. And I love the analogy that you gave about, you know, if you're going to an event, you talk to people, you circulate the room. And that's what you do. And I guess you do do the same on LinkedIn. However, you wouldn't then meet me at an event. And literally, the first thing you say to me is, Hi, I'm Ayo, here's my business card, which is what people do in the DMs. So don't do that. Because it has an impact, not a positive one. But I think that's the stuff you need to do to make an impact is that I mean, this morning, I was thinking about this, I was like, actually, there's ways to make a bad impact, which is like posting really obnoxious stuff or like, so you could there's another way of making an impact.
Stacey Meadwell 14:10
Yeah, absolutely. Don't be a troll. Do NOT to be a troll. Because whatever you write on LinkedIn, everybody can see it. And that's potential clients. That's potential employers. That's potential employees. Just don't, don't have
Ayo Abbas 14:27
I have blocked a couple of people in the past couple of weeks. Because like, you're just so depressing. and just like, I can't do this. You're actually depressing my feed. And it's just like, everything that person was going on was all about being negative and controversial. And you're like, This isn't nice. People say Yeah, it's like people see what you're commenting.
Stacey Meadwell 14:53
It's your, you know, whatever you're putting on LinkedIn, whether it's a post or whether it's a comment that's reflecting on you personally, and it's visible for everyone to see. And, people now if you're, you know, if you want to look into work with somebody, you go and check out their social media and see what sort of stuff what they're about, which is a massive positive. But also it can be a negative if you're being a troll. So no, don't be a troll, as my mum used to say, if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all. Which obviously, goes down really well with me and my brother when we were having an argument.
Ayo Abbas 15:32
Be quiet. No, it's not fair. So. next question. What should I write about to make an impact?
Stacey Meadwell 15:42
There's lots of things to write about. And you've already mentioned about expanding, if you're commenting, expanding on a comment that you've made, if you're commenting on someone's post, you think actually, I've got more to say about this turn that into a post. But I did actually make a little list of a few ideas. Ayo
Ayo Abbas 15:59
fantastic, fantastic. It's like you've done your prep work? I'm impressed.
Stacey Meadwell 16:02
Yes, I have notes. So, these are just some of the things. Some of these might work for you. Some of them, some of them don't. I think ultimately you have to think about your strategy and think about some content pillars. So these are the key themes, the things that you write about and stuff that you want to get known for. Like, say, for example, my content strategy is I write about writing tips. I write about media interviews, because I do media training. I give tips and talk about, advise and add value. Hopefully helping people with their own writing, and, things that they can do in in media interviews. I also comment on built environment things. Sometimes I comment on work, play staff, I did a post a couple of weeks ago, there was some interesting research about workspace trends, and I had some thoughts on that. So I did a post on that. And I also do occasionally do throw in some personal stuff as well. It might be stuff that relates to me as a freelancer being in business, it might be something that is, again, just something that's happening outside that I want to talk about,
Ayo Abbas 17:29
before you went into your list, my content pillars are the built environment, marketing and me. Yeah, Those are my three so not too dissimilar, and adding a story there are stories about but they're nearly always property related or built environment related experiences I've had, and again, it all kind of builds into marketing. And, and it's general, but it does help me to to shape my content. So yeah.
Stacey Meadwell 17:55
Yeah, absolutely. And then from that, these are just some ideas for if you're talking about. So if you want to talk about your business, think about the questions that you get asked, regularly that is a great source of content for me, because I do a lot of training. So there's always questions or when I'm, when I'm talking to clients about, pieces of work that I'm doing for them the questions that they ask, I think, actually, that would be good, that would make a good post to write about that, because it's something I'm getting asked a lot. Think about, common problems that your clients have that you helped solve, or you can then be thinking about, we obviously both write about the built environment, you know, think about observations about your sector, your industry, and that can be observations, like for me, it could be observations about sort of content. And people sometimes I comment on what's going on LinkedIn, and start, you know, different kind of trends and things happening, but then I also comment on things that are happening in the built environment, you know, so think about your industry trends that you're seeing, what's influencing? What are the challenges? Can you write about that stuff? I've already mentioned about asking question ask opinions, it doesn't have to be used sort of giving your viewpoint on something you could be actually, I'm not sure about this, what do other people think and you know, that can make an interesting post and you're asking people to, you know, to get into a conversation. It also shows that you're open to having those conversations and you're thinking about these things and you want to learn and get other people's views. I've already talked about work life stuff. So what's going on in the office, if you do have a team in an office, I know this obviously, Ayo, and I don't have an office and we don't have a team because we're we're solopreneurs or whatever we're called these days. But if you say for example, once a month you have doughnuts in the office on a Friday that can make a nice little social post, showing what you're like, what you know, what your business is like to work for showing or if you've got a new starter, what do you do to welcome them? These kinds of more social things do generally do really, really well on LinkedIn, because it's showing the human side of your business. And it's showing what you are like as a as a, as a business to work for. So there are just a few ideas.
Ayo Abbas 20:33
Yeah, I mean, I guess of late my most successful posts are the observational ones. So when I see something when I'm out and about, and I turn that story into something into a post, and I think I'm probably one of the most successful posts I've had ever was actually about that trip to Tescos. Which is literally, I was really annoyed because I couldn't buy a cake in Tescos, because you hve to have their app. And that was the story. And it was literally, I only took a picture of that Tescos on the way home after I'd been in a meeting all day. Because I thought actually, I'll take a picture of that. And I wrote that on the train home. And it was like, yeah, it's a bit weird that I couldn't find my cake and had to get it from Marks and Spencers across the road. But like that was my most successful post, by far that I've ever had 20,000 impressions,
Stacey Meadwell 21:22
exactly it is mad. But the reason for that is, which I haven't yet mentioned is it's being relatable. And something like that is relatable because other people, you know, have had that experience and got frustrated.
Ayo Abbas 21:40
Yeah, there are people like I know that Tescos Yeah.
Stacey Meadwell 21:46
The stuff that is related to stuff that is relatable, it will generally do really, really well. If you talk about sort of stuff that you're experiencing in business,that other people are going to be experiencing that thing. And people want to make it easier for people to comment because they relate to it. So they want to say they want to say something. Yeah.
Ayo Abbas 22:08
So how often should I really be posting? Should I be? Should I be posting to make an impact?
Stacey Meadwell 22:16
This is such this is such a tricky one. And I'm kind of interested in your take on this too. Because when I when I first started us using LinkedIn properl I followed some, LinkedIn gurus, and they were recommending four posts times a day, which I tried.
Ayo Abbas 22:35
I did too did you try it,
Stacey Meadwell 22:37
I tried it, but it was virtually impossible
Ayo Abbas 22:39
did you get people going "What the hell you doing?"
Stacey Meadwell 22:45
I think it's important. I don't know. I mean, I'd be interested in your view on this. But I think it's important when you're first if you're really starting from scratch, and you're and you haven't had much of a presence at all, I haven't been very active on the platform, I would say, do more at the beginning. And then when you've established you can then sort of tail off, you don't need to post four times a day. And actually, I don't think LinkedIn is the right platform for that anyway, it's not like Twitter, where you can just tweet, you know, like, do 500 tweets a day, and there's no bother, I think with LinkedIn posts tend to have much more longevity, and they need time to breathe. So post, so you need to post regularly posting like once a month or once every two weeks is not going to dig that it's not going to deliver whether i i post between three and five times a week, that might be too much for you that might be not achievable. So you need to set yourself and an achievable goal. But it needs to be regular. And I I'd say ideally, I would say three times a week, but that even that might be not achievable. So I know that there are some very highly respected LinkedIn guru. I hate to use the term guru, but that's what everybody refers to them as who posts once a week. It's always an absolute cracking post, but bearing in mind that they've been on the platform a long time, and they've built up a big network and a big following. So they can probably get away with that. So that's what I think anyway, I want to know what you think Ayo
Ayo Abbas 24:22
It's really tricky.
Stacey Meadwell 24:24
It's really tricky. It's really tricky.
Ayo Abbas 24:26
The first thing I wrote was how long is a piece of string that was? I mean, like you I post most days. I mean, this week, I'm probably posting twice, but that's because I've got these lives and then I do a follow up afterwards. But genuinely once a day, probably what they do. And I think it's interesting, like you say there are people who are amazing writers and they post once a month but like you say it's an amazing post, and they've got their networks already built who come in and comment. I think really realistically if you're an individual I guess it depends on what you're trying to do. If you want to build fast and you want to make an impact, posting once a week probably isn't going to do that much. If you wanna kind of do a couple times a week, but you don't, it doesn't have to all be your content. So it could be you do a post, and you share an interesting article with a comment. You know what I mean? So, or you share a testimonial, so I think there's lots of different things you can share. So I think that's how you can do it without you having to create tonnes and tonnes of stuff yourself. I mean, like, I mean, for example, when I had my website redone last year, I literally, I had some Canva templates, and I got someone to create a series of carousels from each of the stories and the content from my website. So I've got like, 10, bunches of the carousels that I can share whenever I feel like so I think it's stuff like that, that can be you're not filler content, but things you can use and talk about that are more generic. I think it's stuff like that, it just thinking around, actually, what is content? And then yeah, that makes it easier to post and make an impact.
Stacey Meadwell 26:04
And I would add to that, so there's two things I would add to that is repurposing because just because you posted something once doesn't mean to say everybody in your network have seen it. So don't be don't be afraid of reposting stuff. And secondly, remember commenting is basically content. So even if you're even if you're only posting once or twice a week, ideally, as you say, I owe twice, twice a week, I would especially at the beginning, I would be on that every day, spend 15 minutes, 30 minutes every day going and commenting. Because all of those comments are a building your visibility, because those comments have suddenly visible to your network. If you look at your feed, you get a notification saying oh, so and so that you're connected to commented on this. Yeah, that's happening. If you comment, that means that that little notification is appearing in your contacts feeds as well. So and be active on the platform every day, you can be active on the platform without posting every without posting every every day.
Ayo Abbas 27:10
And also, I think you want to connect with people as well, I guess that's the other thing you comment and comment and connect. Because that's thing is that you want to build up your network. And that's the other bits of your network. And by being supportive of other people's content, they will want to connect with you, as well as their followers, they'll see you and want to connect with you. Yeah, way to build your network,
Stacey Meadwell 27:29
that's a really good tactic is you know, if you want to connect with it, if you know if there's somebody like a potential client now and you want to connect with them, just get commenting and get them you know, they get familiar with you, because you're commenting, they start commenting on your stuff. And then after you've had that engagement, then you can then connect them just you know, it's a nice little easy intro into rather than just cold sending out connection requests, and people have no idea wh you want to connect with them.
Ayo Abbas 27:55
Okay, so is there a writing structure or an anatomy for a good LinkedIn post.
Stacey Meadwell 28:02
It's writing structure. Yeah. I mean, I think the key thing is I don't have, I don't have a template, because I think you need to develop your own style. But the one thing I would say is really important is your first line of your post is prime real estate, to bring it back to the built environment.
Ayo Abbas 28:26
The Mayfair of your LinkedIn posts,
Stacey Meadwell 28:29
It's the Mayfair of your LinkedIn post. If you aren't grabbing people's attention a) making them stop, stop scrolling through, it's got to stop the scroll. And it's got to make them want to read on. So you've got to answer why would I care? Why? Why is this interesting? What's in it for me? Why should I invest time, people aren't paid to invest time in your content, so you need to give them a reason to invest in it. So my number one thing is don't waste your first line going, "Oh, I was delighted to attend this blah blah blah event" who cares? Ultimately, you know, if you want to, if you're talking about safety and events is a good one, if you're talking about going to event, just talk about what was interesting about it, what did you go? Did you you know, who did you see? Give people a reason to kind of want to click and read, you know, click the More button and read the rest of your post. Because LinkedIn sees that as engagement if people have clicked the more that is like the first line of engagement, because they Oh, they're interested in this post they've clicked to read the whole thing. So that would that would be my that that would be my main tip is when you got to make sure that first line that first one is essentially your headline. Yeah, make it work hard. You've got to intrigue you've got to stop the scroll. Think about you know, are you getting to the point how quickly are you getting to the point? Yeah, I mean No. And then after that, it's there's so many different ways. There's so many different ways you can you can, you know, say there's no, there's no real time template, but also I will make sure to deliver on your headline on your opening, you know, don't do sort of very click Beatty type sort of opening line and then not the rest of the post doesn't deliver. It's the same as a clickbait headline. We've all clicked on those in when it's promised, over promised and not delivered
Ayo Abbas 30:24
and you get annoyed. I thought questions, actually questions, it's also quite a nice way to start. Yeah, and that leads you in? I don't know, I think questions can be quite a nice way to start. Okay. So in terms of format, are there any that you recommend that people use to make to get their LinkedIn activity firing comfortable?
Stacey Meadwell 30:50
Is this is like, there's so many different things you can do on LinkedIn. I mean, written posts are very much the opposite. know very much the obvious one, but don't sort of dismiss the other because most people are doing written posts. But not many people are doing video, not many people are doing carousels. So think about these other mediums, LinkedIn Live again, like doing this kind of thing. That obviously, can be quite scary doing something like this, but think about the the other sort of channels that you've got available to you. Pictures, you know, sometimes a picture, take paints 1000 words, you know, and you can have a nice picture, and a shortish caption to go with it. So there are you know, there are lots of different don't just think you've got to write 300 words. And yeah, there are other options available to you.
Ayo Abbas 31:40
That was good. You just kind of answered the question from Hannah Cox, which was interesting, three times per week, it's a lot for a long post or short observational posts sufficient to keep relevant and then mixing it up? And the answer is, yes,
Stacey Meadwell 31:51
yes, definitely. Definitely.
Ayo Abbas 31:54
You would be writing your LinkedIn all day Hannah
Stacey Meadwell 31:59
If you see something in the news, you know, like the the service or what sort of the workplace story that I saw, there was a research and there was a story about it on the BBC. So I linked to the story and gave my two penneth worth on that particular story. And that didn't take that that long to put that together. So no, you don't need to be writing, you know, War and Peace people in also, you know, it's got to be interesting enough to, to make people want to read a 300 words. Now, some of the I've seen some really, really popular posts have done really well. And they've been like two lines. I mean, you know, we've got to make those two lines work. But it doesn't have to be a long post up. Because, you know, if you're writing sort of, you know, the full length, the full maximum word count that you've got on a post for every single one. It a takes a long time. And people just I think people get a little bit tired of it, because they Oh, it's gonna be another long post. I haven't got time to read that today.
Ayo Abbas 32:55
I'm not I don't like walls of text either, like really long posts, I find it you know, like, there's a trend towards really long emails as well. I give up. I'm not focusing. My mentality though. Okay, so I've been posted on LinkedIn, but I'm not getting a lot of traction, Stacy. So what should I do?
Stacey Meadwell 33:24
Are you encouraged? This is a lot of stuff we already covered? Are you encouraging engagement? Are you encouraging a conversation? Are you posting something that is that has your audience front of mind? Are you posting things that you find interesting, that isn't interesting to your actual audience? You know, think about what is valuable to the people that you want to connect with and talk and talk to? What is interesting to them? Why would they care about this? Are you engaging with other content? Again, coming back to the point I made if you're posting but you're not going away? Why would anybody come and engage with your content? If you're not going away and engaging on theirs, if you start commenting on other people's posts, and they might check out your posts and go, What are they writing about? Resting comments, let's go and check, check stuff out. So those are the those are the you know, those are the key things I would say if you know, are you engaging? Are you writing stuff that's relevant and interesting to your audience? Are you thinking about the audience? Or are you thinking about what you just want to tell everybody? It's coming back to that broadcast and that megaphone don't don't think of it as like a networking. You're not you don't go to a networking event and stand in the corner. Shouting what you know, you by me Yeah,
Ayo Abbas 34:47
I mean, on the back of that, I think the other thing is just to note, it does take time to build and work. So like, you might think that nobody's seeing your stuff, but they are, you know, they have 200 people or that 300 questions or whatever. And you're like, Oh, that's really low. It's like, well, actually, if you had 300 people in the room listening to you, you'd be quite happy, wouldn't you? So I think, you know, you just got to get yourself in the mindset, actually, you might not think people are seeing it, but they are, even if they're not engaged in, like Stacy said earlier about the whole lurker thing. So don't give up. I mean, for me, it probably took about six months to get proper traction. So you have to start building. And that's it. And that's, that's what it takes. And so I'm gonna, sort of, I've got a final question, which is around hashtags, are they worth it? What should I be doing?
Stacey Meadwell 35:28
And I would say, yes, they are worth it. There. I mean, I've following the sort of the LinkedIn gurus who really kind of you know that they've got, you know, half a foot in the, in the door with LinkedIn, and they can see what's coming up, and they can sit there, you know, really monitoring what's changing. And there was some, you know, there was some posts a few weeks ago about how LinkedIn might start attaching more value to hashtags. And if how many people are following particular hashtags, I would say that, you know, we're getting interested in what you think about this, I think, have have a personalised hashtag that people can follow. So mine is hashtag property writer. So if people want to k catch whatever, then I put that on every single post, so if people want to follow that hashtag, they're gonna get all my all my content. So you can have like one that's business specific and just unique to you and your business. Then think about what hashtags that are relevant. I mean, LinkedIn actually sets out a guide, it's one of the few things that sets up guide guidance for and it's three to five. So don't go crazy. Do a minimum of three, but don't do more than five, because LinkedIn says it likes three to five hashtags. So
Ayo Abbas 36:44
but LinkedIn changes its mind after a few years.
Stacey Meadwell 36:49
moment that is, so I would be careful about your your hashtags. You know, I suppose it's a bit like keywords. So for example, if you're writing about the office market, and you just put hashtag offices, you think, and that's got, you know, a gajillion followers? Yeah, is that really gonna get your post much more visibility, think about sort of being a little bit more specific. And the other tip I would say with hashtags is don't put them in the body of your post,
Ayo Abbas 37:19
oh, I don't like that. I find it's quite disjointed to read.
Stacey Meadwell 37:23
Don't put that put them on the bottom, put them at the bottom of your post. It's when people include them with the actual text. So they're going down. It's there's a really interesting thing happening in the hashtag office market at the moment. Make difficult to read. So just don't put them at the bottom. Keep it nice and neat. Put, put them at the bottom. So yeah, that that those are my initial thoughts on hashtags.
Ayo Abbas 37:45
Yeah, I mean, I think hashtags are useful, and they are getting more prominence in the overall home feed as well. So you know that when you scroll through all you see more like I've followed, like, the big ones, like construction stuff, and you see more of the posts out. So I think it's worth using, but like you say, three to five in the main, sometimes I go more, because I'd like to go crazy. But the other thing is, you can use a search bar, tapping the hashtag, click on it, and actually see how many followers it has, then you can kind of get a gauge on which ones are mega hashtags, which you probably won't get a lot of visitors visibility on. But also which ones but smaller ones are more niche ones that you might get more visibility on. And actually, it's also a good way to see who else is here you can find influencers, influencers in yours under that hashtag. And you can see who is posting content. So actually, those are the types of people for certain hashtags, who you can engage with and connect with. So that's another way to fast track what you're doing as well, using hashtags as a way to kind of search and find the influencers and the posters in your industry. So yeah, so on to my final question, which is around tools, resources and tips. So bit of a quick fire round, or not that quick to be honest. totals, resources, and people to follow that use, I guess, to create LinkedIn magic, who would you recommend? What do you say?
Stacey Meadwell 39:05
Okay, so person to follow? I would follow John Espirian who is brilliant on LinkedIn. And he's one of those that is following LinkedIn really closely, and always seems to know what's coming up know what new features are being introduced, what might be phased out. And what he does is he's very good because he will try different things like for example, he'll do a post with a link in it, see how that performs, and then do another post within without a link and see and he will then sort of talk about his results and say, Actually, this is what I found by doing this. So he backs everything he says up with with hard evidence, and stuff that he's actually tried, tried and tested. So I would, I would recommend following following John Esprian. In terms of tools, I don't use any scheduling tools or anything like that, but my tip would be and some people don't haven't may not have noticed this, but if you, if there is somebody, you want to make sure you don't miss any of their posts go to their profile, and I think it's on the top right hand side, under the banner, there's a little bell icon, you click on that, that means you'll get a notification every time they post. So it's a really good way. I mean, obviously, you don't want to do that for people, you know, you know, huge amount of just been getting like contact No, because otherwise,
Ayo Abbas 40:28
it does get a bit overwhelming a
Stacey Meadwell 40:33
small handful of people that you really want, target people that you want to engage with their content, and you don't want to make sure you don't miss what they're posting. Use the bell, I use the bell icon. So that would be my my, my tips.
Ayo Abbas 40:47
Actually, I've got John Esprian's book here, which is Content DNA, which is very good. My, my one was actually just free tools, I guess, LinkedIn, as you look, if you're going to start kind of doing more on LinkedIn, I was like, actually, if you Google LinkedIn SSI score, and that will take you to afree thing. And you can look at your LinkedIn profile. And it gives you a score on in terms of how you're performing, your profile is performing in terms of your industry annual, and how much you're posting and stuff like that, and engagement you're getting. So you can have that score at the start before you start kind of doing more activity, and then just track it and just see Oh, I haven't gone up how's it gone down how it improves over time. So I think that's a quick measurement tool. But it's also worth noting that LinkedIn Analytics has improved massively over the past six months for company pages, the individual pages, and you can see a lot more about the companies you're connecting with the time that they're viewing staff what they're doing. So there's a lot more detail there in terms of kind of tracking your performance. So you know, in six months, you can see how you progressed and what's happened in your connections. And so I think that's all the analytics is kind of useful to know about LinkedIn as well. And I guess my final tip is Canva. Canva is absolutely brilliant for doing graphics. I used it to do all the graphics for the lives. I've used it to do, you know, all the stuff I do on on LinkedIn, I use that. So I've only had a professional designer design my logo, basically, and the assets that I use, but then after that it's all my own templates in Canva. And that sort of stuff I use. So that's my other tip is to get handy with that, because it's always good for creating stuff. So yeah, and that's it.
Stacey Meadwell 42:22
Canva is a good call, because you made a video using Canva and I nicked that idea and I actually did a video the beginning of this week using Canva it was really easy. Is
Ayo Abbas 42:31
it seriously as alright, let me just quickly scroll forward and see if we've got any more questions from the floor. We've got Hannah's one that we took. We've got coming from Emma Drake. I think you're right Stacey, which you always are. Often forge social and social media has relaxed a little thank goodness. Ellie Garfield says "I feel like everything I say has to be super important and interesting". Tip Ellie, it doesn't you can be observationally boring. That's always a nice thing to go for. And Hannah joined and she said that the reason she joined was she would like to learn any tips that you are happy to share always, which I think we've shared quite a lot. So thank you so much for being an amazing guest Stacey.
Stacey Meadwell 43:13
Thank you for inviting me chuffed to bits. Finally,
Ayo Abbas 43:17
finally, how do people find you Stacey?
Stacey Meadwell 43:20
guess what I'm on LinkedIn. You can check out my website which is www.Staceymeadwall.com.
Ayo Abbas 43:29
Brilliant. Thank you so much. Bye 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.
