Priority Pursuit
A podcast dedicated to helping small business owners define, maintain, and pursue both their business and personal priorities so they can build lives and businesses they love.
Priority Pursuit
Organic LinkedIn Strategies for Business Growth with Deirdre Martin
The world of social media marketing is ever-evolving, but one platform that continues to offer exceptional opportunities for business growth, especially for B2B service providers, is LinkedIn.
In this episode, we sit down with Deirdre Martin, founder of Deirdre Martin Consulting, to get into her organic LinkedIn strategies that really work for small businesses.
We walk through her four C's strategy: content, connections, conversations, and comments. Deirdre also shares a three-step content strategy to help you capture, engage, and convert followers. She emphasizes the importance of being authentic and will teach us how to optimize LinkedIn profiles effectively.
So don't miss out on this opportunity to get some game-changing tips from Deirdre Martin. Tune in now and start transforming your LinkedIn presence today!
Specifically, this episode highlights the following themes:
- Deirdre Martin's four C's strategy for LinkedIn
- Importance of authenticity and engaging content
- Tips for optimizing LinkedIn profiles
Other Mentioned Links & Resources
Get to to know more about Deirdre Martin:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/deirdremartincustomerexpeience
Check out Deirdre’s website:
https://www.deirdremartin.ie
Subscribe to Deirdre’s podcast, The Master Your Business Podcast:
https://podcasts.apple.com/ie/podcast/the-master-your-business-podcast/id1667327376
Learn More About Treefrog’s Small Business Marketing Resources & Services:
https://www.treefrogmarketing.com
Receive 50% Off Your First Year of HoneyBook:
https://www.treefrogmarketing.com/honeybook-coupon-code
Book a Strategic Marketing Coaching:
https://treefrogmarketing.com/marketing-consulting-small-businesses
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https://www.instagram.com/treefroggers
Follow or DM Kelly Rice on Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/treefrogkelly
Follow or DM Victoria on Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/victorialrayburn
Deirdre Martin [00:00:00]:
You need to have really good content. People always say to me, but dear jokey, how many times should I post? I'm like, post as often as you can go for quantity over quality to begin with because eventually your quality will improve. And I think firstly, what you're trying to do is build an audience. You're trying to get people to know and understand what you do. And most business owners are not marketers. They don't know how to do all the things to begin with. So go with quantity first. The quality will come.
Victoria Rayburn [00:00:30]:
Hey there, your little listening to the Priority Pursuit podcast, a podcast dedicated to helping small business owners and leaders define, maintain and pursue both their personal and business priorities so they can build lives and businesses they love. I'm your host Victoria Rayburn, and today I am very excited to have Deirdre Martin on the show to discuss the social media platform that many small businesses tend to neglect. LinkedIn LinkedIn is known for being a hub for quite corporate networking. As a result, many entrepreneurs and small business owners overlook the platform and assume it isn't for them. However, if your ideal clients are on LinkedIn but you don't have a LinkedIn strategy, you are likely missing out on business. With this in mind, I am thrilled to have Deirdre Martin, founder of Deirdre Martin Consulting, on the show. According to Deirdre, many small businesses grow rapidly because their founders are excellent what they do, but they reach a point where they outgrow their brand, brand marketing and customer experiences, which impacts profitability and sales. Deardra knows that most small business owners want to outshine their competition, increase market share, and have a reputation that precedes them so that sales and growth will take care of themselves.
Victoria Rayburn [00:01:46]:
To do that, they need a unique brand strategy, a story that sells and magical customer experiences. The problem is that most coaches, consultants and small business owners aren't marketers and don't have hours to waste trying tactics they find randomly on Google. And they're worried their marketing will fall by the wayside if they don't have accountability to help keep their marketing engines humming. Dirtier believes that every entrepreneur deserves an opportunity to achieve their vision, even if they're not skilled marketers. Deirdre Martin understands how hard and how important marketing is for ambitious professional service providers. That's why she created her unique BMC method, which includes the renowned storybrand framework. Deirdre helps her clients level up their marketing strategy, style, story and sales to grow their dream business. Deirdre is an award winning business mentor, international bestselling author, podcast host, story brand guide, level c, brand strategist, keynote speaker, and a LinkedIn expert to boot.
Victoria Rayburn [00:02:49]:
I am thrilled to have Deirdre on the show because her mission mirrors ours at Treefrogs in so many ways. And I have no doubt that this episode is going to be packed with tactical information you can use to help take your small business to the next level. Deirdre, thank you so, so much for coming on the show.
Deirdre Martin [00:03:07]:
Thank you so much for having me. I'm thrilled to be here and to talk about all things LinkedIn. And Victoria, you are 100% right in your intro. It is the platform that so many businesses overlook, but it's. There's so many opportunities there. I can't wait to get to dive in and talk about it.
Victoria Rayburn [00:03:25]:
Oh, me too. And before we do that, y'all, I do just want to state really quickly that so much of Deirdre's intro was a result of her sending me her brand script. We could talk about the power of brand script forever and forever and forever. But please listen to how, like, just succinct that was. And she sent it all, and it was wonderful. And now you know exactly who she was. So props to Deirdre. And also, if you have not written your brand script, please, please do that.
Victoria Rayburn [00:03:47]:
But we are going to get into LinkedIn. Deirdre, you obviously do so, so much before we talk all things LinkedIn, is there anything else you want to share with our audience? I mean, I know that you have a podcast. You have so many resources for small businesses, and I just want to make sure that they know all the things.
Deirdre Martin [00:04:04]:
I think probably the first thing is, no matter what you're doing in your business, even before you write your brand script and your messaging is to look at your brand. And sometimes what happens is, or how I describe this to clients is you can come and do your marketing, but doing your marketing before doing your brand is a little bit like painting walls in your house, but painting them before they've been plastered, painting them before you've put foundations in the house, because potentially what can happen is the wind will come and it'll blow down the walls. But if the foundations are solid, if you've looked at your brand first, well, then your marketing is going to be much more impactful and it's going to last longer. And when it lasts longer, the what you'll end up creating are one time powerful assets, just like your brand script. When you're clear on who you serve, how you serve them, where you're going to serve them, all of those things make your brand script even more clear. And that is actually brand strategy. That's what brand strategy is about. So my BMC method, it starts with the b, which is brand.
Deirdre Martin [00:05:10]:
It's about really building out those solid foundations for your brand and then going all in on your marketing.
Victoria Rayburn [00:05:17]:
Man, I love this. We could essentially combine businesses. We are aligned on so many things. I just love that. But Deirdre, I know who again. Oh, I feel like we could talk for hours. I mean, and we talked quite a bit before we hit record. But I would do want to make sure we get into LinkedIn stuff today.
Victoria Rayburn [00:05:36]:
So, Deirdre, what kinds of small businesses should use LinkedIn? And then also I want to ask, what are the benefits using, like, of using LinkedIn compared to other social media platforms? Because again, like we discussed, so many people neglect this. So, you know, why should they be using it? Who should be using it?
Deirdre Martin [00:05:52]:
Great question. So I think if you're a b, two b service business, LinkedIn is the platform to be on because it's a professional platform. So most businesses are actually there already. And when you're searching for businesses or you're searching for potential prospects or leads to connect with, LinkedIn is that platform that allows you to filter and search for the exact people that you're looking to connect with. So if your pipeline is running low or dry, well, on Instagram, for example, if you want to find a ton of people who are, let's say, bookkeepers or accountants, for example, it's much more difficult to find them on Instagram than it is on LinkedIn. On LinkedIn, you can literally go to the search bar and type the word accountant or bookkeeper, and it will produce a ton of people who you could potentially connect with. And those could be people in the businesses. You can filter it even more, and you can filter by companies so you can find company pages as well as individuals who have that role.
Deirdre Martin [00:06:56]:
So in terms of the platform and why you should use it, if you're b, two b, it makes 100% sense to use LinkedIn above all other platforms. If you're b, two c. But the customers that you serve are professional individuals who are showing up on LinkedIn in a professional capacity for their, the companies or organizations that they work with. Again, they're much more searchable on LinkedIn. So let's imagine I'm an executive coach, or let's imagine that I'm a coach in an organization who has teams of people. So what I might do is I want to target those individuals so that they will want to hire me as their coach, but maybe the company will pay for it. Again, it makes it much more searchable to be able to search for individuals. It could be a C suite leader.
Deirdre Martin [00:07:54]:
So if I want to coach a C suite leader, it's much more difficult to find those people on Instagram or Facebook or TikTok or any of those other places. But again, LinkedIn makes it much easier to find your target audience. And interestingly, I think right now, LinkedIn today in 2024, as we record this is a little bit like what Facebook was like when Facebook first came out. It's much more accepted now to post content like not necessarily what you had for your breakfast or your dinner, but the kind of stuff that you do at the weekends. You know, I like horse riding, right? So horseback riding. If I'm out horse riding at the weekend, I might share a picture of me with my horse during the week. And that's much more acceptable now on LinkedIn than it was pre Covid times, I think. So it's easier to connect with people on LinkedIn now than ever before.
Deirdre Martin [00:08:48]:
It's easier to find the right people for you to connect with on LinkedIn above all other platforms, too. 100%. I can say that with 100% conviction because I'm doing it. My clients are doing it. It works. Yeah. It just works. Yeah.
Victoria Rayburn [00:09:04]:
Oh, that's so good. And, dear, that's kind of a great segue into my next question, because I think that in addition to neglecting LinkedIn, a lot of small business owners and leaders and entrepreneurs assume that they can't really use LinkedIn to build their personal brand. They just assume we need to post articles and that's it. And it should be very, very newsy. But like you said, LinkedIn has changed so much. So just so we have a really clear answer, how can individuals leverage LinkedIn to build a strong personal brand?
Deirdre Martin [00:09:33]:
That's such a great question as well. I think there's a few things you can do there. One is thought leadership. If you've got an opinion about anything related to the industry or a sector that you're in, well, then share what your thoughts are. Those thoughts can come in the form of tweet style posts. They don't need to be big, long articles. You can repost things from other organizations as well. I used to be an employee.
Deirdre Martin [00:09:58]:
I worked in financial services for 20 years, and before I started my own business, I had built a personal brand on LinkedIn. So I had maybe 3000 followers or something like that. And those were, they were clients from when I worked in financial services. They were colleagues from when I worked in financial services, and those things enabled me to build my business quite quickly once I started. And even people that I was connected with who I thought, oh my God, if I post on LinkedIn, they're going to judge me. They're going to be like, who does this girl think she is, showing up here posting about business stuff? What does she know? But actually, some of those people have left financial services and they've since hired me to support them in their business. So those thoughts were limiting beliefs that I had about the platform and about marketing myself as a personal brand on LinkedIn. So absolutely, showing up and sharing your thought leadership is so important for building a personal brand.
Deirdre Martin [00:10:57]:
Those opinions that you have, it's about articulating those in different types of content. If you're comfortable on video, share it on video. If you're comfortable speaking or talking on podcasts or audio, record audio posts and share them in that way. If you're happy or writing, write what your thoughts are. You can create all sorts of different types of articles, newsletters, you name it, and you can share those on LinkedIn as well. And I think what really helps you stand out on LinkedIn in terms of that personal brand are two things. One is now there's an opportunity to create what's called a top voice. So you can, LinkedIn can invite you to share your thoughts and opinions on various collaborative articles, which can help lend to your credibility as a thought leader.
Deirdre Martin [00:11:52]:
So what will happen is on your news feed on LinkedIn, you will see you have been invited to collaborate to this article. And when you do that, that again helps you give an extra layer of authority or credibility to your personal brand, which is amazing. And what can help you do that? There's no algorithm or formula, by the way, folks. So, but what can help you to do that is to create the type of content that gets you a large number of followers quickly or the type of content that gets you a lot of engagement quickly. And so what I propose that you do to get that is to write your content. Start with the problem, but make that first line a hook. And that hook, if it's in some way provocative or controversial, people are going to stop scrolling and pay attention to what you're saying. They're going to read what you say when they're bought into what you're saying.
Deirdre Martin [00:12:47]:
And that opinion might be something a little bit different. If it's something that creates a paradigm shift, if it's something they've never heard before, if it's not. You know, let's say AI right now is really popular. And maybe something you might say is, I do not agree with AI written content, or I think AI content is rubbish, whatever it might be. When you write a post with a headline that makes people stop scrolling, if it's a little, goes a little bit against the green, well, then that's going to get people to stop, pay attention and engage on your content. And that is the type of thing that helps the algorithm come back and find you so that you get invited to become a top voice contributor. And that voice part is what can help you stand out and build your personal brand even more. But another way to do it, Victoria, I think, is to engage on other people's pages.
Deirdre Martin [00:13:44]:
There are groups as well. So LinkedIn is fantastic for groups that are, again, quite niche. Niche or niche, as you might say, in the US. So when you can. When you go on to LinkedIn, you can join. It used to be limited to 50 groups, 30 or 50 groups, but I think that limit has been removed now. I don't even know. I just keep going in and connecting in groups.
Deirdre Martin [00:14:04]:
But you can post in those specific groups, which can help peers find you and connect with you. And equally, you can go out and find, let's say, for example, if you are, let's imagine you're building some sort of a business that you want to fly space rockets. Well, then you might want to follow Elon Musk or Richard Branson and say, okay, who are these guys connecting with? Who are the big followers these guys are checking in with? Maybe then what would be beneficial would be to connect with their followers, because what you're doing then is you're building a bank of followers who are in the same industry. And again, that helps raise you up in terms of your personal brand and thought leadership, because you're like, hey, look at Victoria. She's connected with Elon Musk and Richard Branson. That's pretty cool, you know, and when you become a second degree connection or you can't see everybody that the other person is connected to, but when you're a first degree connection, that means if I send Victoria a direct request to connect and she says, yes, I'm happy to connect with Deirdre, well, then I can see everybody that she's connected to. So that helps strengthen your personal brand as well. So I could talk about this part on its own all day, but I won't because I know you've got some other great questions lined up for me.
Victoria Rayburn [00:15:26]:
Oh, man, that's. I mean, it's just so wonderful to think about because I think, well, a lot of small businesses, you know, they get very caught up and, you know, how many Instagram followers or things like that that they have. But just the way LinkedIn handles those connections, it's just entirely different because they are actually connections. And we always talk about, you know, so much of how much your business grows, really, as a result of who you know. And LinkedIn just offers a really great opportunity to get to know people. And also, before we get to get into the other questions, I do just want listeners, for those of you listening, I just want to note really quick that please keep Deidre's story in mind as you are thinking about whether or not you need a personal brand. I mean, Deirdre, I love how you broke that down and explained, you know, you were an employee, and so much of having a personal brand was why you were able to build a business. And it's so much of your business now.
Victoria Rayburn [00:16:17]:
So if anybody listening is thinking, I don't need a personal brand, my product and services will speak for themselves. Please, please, please build a personal brand that's going to enable you to do so many things. Okay, so, Deirdre, I do want to ask, because I think that a lot of small business owners, entrepreneurs, when they think about starting anything new, I mean, they always think about like, okay, I need to start this account. I need to optimize my profile. I need to make sure that I'm starting this the right way as opposed to I put up an account and I'm going to see what happens. So if somebody, whether they're starting an account or they're like, okay, I really need to use LinkedIn, it's time to update my profile. What can they do to best optimize their LinkedIn profiles? Is there certain information that they need to be sure to include?
Deirdre Martin [00:17:00]:
Great question. So the first thing I'll say is there is a thing on LinkedIn which is called an SSI score. Okay, s for Sierra SSI score. And that SSI score, what it does is it calculates how good you, your, how well your profile or how much of your profile is completed. And what happens on LinkedIn when you start in new account is that some of the sections are hidden and you actually have to click in to view your profile to find it. So there are sections like skills, your experience automatically comes up. And what I would just say quickly on experience before I move on is you, if you've had 20 jobs in your lifetime, you do not need to list the 20 jobs on LinkedIn. It's not your cv, folks.
Deirdre Martin [00:17:46]:
List the ones that are most relevant and current in terms of what you're actually doing now. The things that you did when you finished school 20 years ago are not so relevant as the things that you're doing today. And you know, people, if they hop over to your profile, they're not going to want to read all of those things back the way. So you can list things as well on your profile, like licenses. So, for example, I'm a storybrand certified guide. I might put down that I have that license with storybrand so that I can actually talk about storybrand and do certain things like that. That's important because it lends to credibility. There are things like honors or awards that you've won.
Deirdre Martin [00:18:23]:
So it doesn't matter what that was because that, again, lends to your credibility. Languages is a really important one. If English is your native language, list that. If you speak another language, list that, too, because maybe somebody will hire you because you're bilingual. Maybe somebody will hire you because English is your first language. And I'm not talking just companies hiring you, I'm talking about clients hiring you, too, right? So things like interests, groups that you're connected with, all of those things. Fill out as many of the sections as you possibly can. That's what I say for the section side.
Deirdre Martin [00:18:59]:
And then what I think is really important, Victoria, is that brand script, right? You read out my brand script at the start of this podcast. My brand script is pretty much my about section on my LinkedIn profile. I tweaked it ever so slightly at the end so that the three step plan that you incorporate into your brand script, it's like how you can reach out to me, how you can connect with me, what the three steps are to work with me. That's what goes into the about section. That's what I encourage my clients to do, too. But the most important part of all of this for your LinkedIn profile is the headline. Because everywhere you go that follows you around, it follows you around in your posts and your content and people's feed. It follows you around in your DM's.
Deirdre Martin [00:19:44]:
If you're messaging people on LinkedIn, that first section, in terms of what you say about yourself and your brand, that tagline that you might use, that is the most important part of your profile. And the final thing that I think is most important part of your profile is your URL. If you are in a really great position where you're just ready to start taking on LinkedIn and really leverage that platform. You can edit your profile URL. When you don't edit your profile URL, what you'll see is, for example, it will say LinkedIn forward slash Deirdremartin, and it will have a list of numbers. You can delete those numbers. It's really simple to do. When you click on your profile, there's a pen over on the right hand side of the page when you log on via desktop or laptop, and you can edit that out.
Deirdre Martin [00:20:35]:
So if you're Deirdre Martin accountancy, you can change it. So it says whatever you want it to say. That makes you more searchable and easier to find on the platform as well. So just to recap on what I'm saying is fill out all the sections, use the brand script for your about section and make that headline really captivating because that's the part that follows you around the most. Actually, another one, before I forget, make sure your picture is not from the nineties when you were like really young. I know I looked amazing when I was 21, but I have celebrated the second time of my 21st birthday. So, you know, it's important that your profile picture is relatively up to date and that when, if you decided to have a call with somebody that you look like your picture, you know. Yeah.
Victoria Rayburn [00:21:25]:
Oh, that is all. Wonderful. Teacher, would you mind? Because I know it's such an important part of optimizing your profile. Could you give us some examples of good headlines just so people have an idea of what the heck they should put in theirs?
Deirdre Martin [00:21:39]:
That's a great question. So I think it's important that, you know, try not to have it boring or the same as everybody else. If it's boring, well, then people aren't going to stop and say, what does it mean? But at the same time, it needs to be clear and not clever. So I have, I think mine says right now, and I've only changed mine recently, but it's strategically building uncopyable brands for scalable profitability. Something like that is what it says now. So. And then it lists who it's for and how I've done it. There's different ways that you can write it as well.
Deirdre Martin [00:22:13]:
So you could write your I help statement or your elevator pitch or your one liner, whatever you like to call it. You could put your one liner in there if it's succinct enough, other ones that are good. Sometimes what you'll see is people who have emojis in their headlines too, which is a great way to make a pop. If there's an emoji that reflects a word or reflects your brand, and it's relevant and appropriate based on your brand voice guidelines will then absolutely use emojis too. So it can be your I help statement. Another thing, I don't know what it's called. You know those straight lines? Do you know what I'm talking about? Like forward slash only it's straight. I know what they're called.
Victoria Rayburn [00:22:54]:
Yeah, like the vertical line.
Deirdre Martin [00:22:55]:
Yeah, a vertical line. Right. So yeah, I have, I have a kind of short statement and then I have vertical lines that lists. I'm the host of a podcast and storybound certified, that sort of thing. That works well. So I think taglines that you might have on your website could work. Also, the one liner is really powerful. So I'm trying to think of some off the top of my head and like, you want to throw out a service business at me and then I'll like, come up with one on the spot.
Victoria Rayburn [00:23:24]:
Oh, sure. Yes. No. Oh, this will be so much fun. Let's say a lawn care business.
Deirdre Martin [00:23:31]:
Lawn care. Lawn care business.
Victoria Rayburn [00:23:32]:
Specialize in tulips. I'm going to get really specific in the hopes of making.
Deirdre Martin [00:23:39]:
So it could be tulips to make your garden an everyday ray of sunshine. It could be something like lawn care, like you've never seen it before. It could be lawn care with tulips. Like you could have pictures of tulips sprouting.
Victoria Rayburn [00:23:54]:
Like there's actually, I mean, there's a tulip emoji.
Deirdre Martin [00:23:57]:
Yeah. Yeah. So things like that. And then it's like lawn care. It could be green lawns twelve months of the year. It could be like, what do people look for and put in that aspirational identity piece? Or that, what does that vision of success look like? And that can be enough for your tagline. So I like to have it where the tagline is actually positive because, and it's solution focused. Or if you're working on your brand script, you know, that aspirational identity or the success part, those bits, I think are really powerful.
Deirdre Martin [00:24:29]:
And it's interesting because I heard on another podcast recently for somebody who was running a campaign and what they said was that the success based headlines worked even better for people who are unfamiliar with your brand than the problem based headlines. So the problem based headlines work really well for conversion and in your content, but for your headlines and for brand new people who've never come across you before, success based headlines. So I would urge you to focus on something that is success oriented rather than problem focused in the headline, what.
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Kelly Rice [00:25:52]:
Many small businesses don't have an effective marketing strategy, and because of this, they try one tactic after another without seeing results. This not only prevents consistent business growth, it makes managing marketing efforts more difficult than it should be. As a marketing agency for small businesses, we understand how frustrating it can be when hard work doesn't deliver the results that you want. Because of this, Treefrog has developed a proven four step marketing system that will help any small business grow. On our website, you can also schedule a 30 minutes discovery call to discuss working with Treefrog to build a marketing strategy that will allow your small business to finally see the growth you've been working so hard to achieve.
Victoria Rayburn [00:26:30]:
That's so good. Man. I love when we have podcast interviews where I get to learn things too. So this has just been wonderful. And for those of you listening, if you don't have a one liner yet, I do want to encourage you to check out our marketing guiding statements mini course. You can find it@treefrogmarketing.com guiding statements but that course is going to walk you through how to write your one liner and your other marketing guiding statements. And just as a heads up that all feeds into your brand scripts, and you'll be good to go once you have all of that completed. Okay, Deirdre, so I'm super excited to ask you this next question, and I know it's just kind of a big one, but I want to leave it open ended because you are the LinkedIn expert and you just know all the things.
Victoria Rayburn [00:27:15]:
And I'm really excited about this because you've already started talking a little bit about different kinds of content that you can develop for LinkedIn. So again, big question, but what organic LinkedIn strategies work well for small businesses? You know, what kind of content performs well? How can small businesses use LinkedIn? LinkedIn to attract the right customers. Basically, how can small businesses use LinkedIn to grow?
Deirdre Martin [00:27:39]:
Great question. Okay, so there's a lot in there. And I think the first thing I'll say is, I've got this four c strategy that works. It works. And this doesn't just work on LinkedIn, this will work on every platform. So the four C's are number one content. And I'll talk about the different type of content in a moment, but you need to have really good content. And people always say to me, but dear joke, how many times should I post? I'm like, post as often as you can go for quantity over quality to begin with, because eventually your quality will improve.
Deirdre Martin [00:28:15]:
And I think, firstly, what you're trying to do is build an audience. You're trying to get people to know and understand what you do. And if, as Victoria, you read out in my bio, most business owners are not marketers. They don't know how to do all the things to begin with. So go with quantity first, the quality will come. The second thing is connections. On LinkedIn, you can connect with 100 people every single week. So if you took 20 minutes Monday to Friday and connected with 20 people, that's going to help you grow your audience.
Deirdre Martin [00:28:47]:
The third thing is, when you connect with people, have conversations with them. What drives me nuts is I think that as business owners, sometimes we spend so much time consuming content, we forget to create it, and then we forget that we're on a social media platform where we should be social. So we need to have conversations with people when we connect with them. And then we need to not just engage on our own stuff. That's like constantly inviting people over to your house for a party, but never leaving your front door. You need to go out and meet other people and network with them, and so comment on other people's content as well. So, content, connections, conversations and comments, that's the four c's. So that's the first thing when you comment on other people's content.
Deirdre Martin [00:29:37]:
Let's say, Victoria, if you and I are second degree connections, that means I haven't connected with you yet, but I comment on Kelly's content. And if Kelly and I are first degree connections, you're going to see my comment on Kelly's content, which opens up the doors for us to potentially connect as well and grow both of our audiences even more by connecting with one another. So that's the first thing, the four C's. The second thing I would say then is content. So the content, I've got a three step strategy for content. And that three step strategy is about capturing, which is about creating curiosity for people. So when you create curiosity in terms of the content that you create, people are going to be like, whoa, that was interesting. Oh, I'm curious to learn more.
Deirdre Martin [00:30:29]:
I'm going to follow this person. So you've captured them as a follower or a connection. Second type of content to create is engaging content. So engaging content nurtures those followers. It enlightens them and it maybe shows them the behind the scenes stuff, like that Facebook stuff I was talking about earlier where they really get to know you and it's not know like and trust you. That's important. But it's know like and love you. Because when they know like and love you, then they're going to fall into the third part, which is converted.
Deirdre Martin [00:31:00]:
So if you show up on social media, and this is the biggest mistake, one of them that I see most people do on social media is that they're constantly trying to convert people. Every post is a sales post. It's always like, buy now, buy now, buy now, work with me. And that just feels icky. It feels like you're a sleazy salesperson when you're doing it, but also your audience on the other end, they're like, they see your stuff and they're gone. Just scroll past because it's not interesting. But if you're, if your conversion type content is stuff that adds value. And by conversion, I mean it's anything that takes them away from the platform.
Deirdre Martin [00:31:41]:
It could be to sign up for your lead generator, something for your email list. It could be to attend a masterclass or a webinar. It could be to dm you anything that takes them away from the piece of content they're on. That's a conversion point post. So in terms of a strategy that works around this, what I'll say is 80% of the time, aim for content that captures new followers and then engages those followers. And 20% of the time, aim for content that converts. And when you do that, most of the time what you're doing is you're building that relationship with people on their content. What makes this really effective as well is it makes you as a business owner, show up with value.
Deirdre Martin [00:32:27]:
And that value driven content is the content that people will start to relate to and start to trust you because you're showing up with things that help them. So show up and solve their problems. Show up with those opinions that are a little bit different. Show up with pictures of you behind the scenes. And those are the things then that make you relatable, they make you uncopyable, and they make you the type of person that somebody wants to get to know better. You know, it's interesting that I had. This happened to me and to my clients where I was speaking at an event locally, and somebody who'd been following me on LinkedIn decided to come to this event. And she came up to me at the event, and she was like, deja, I've got to shake your hand.
Deirdre Martin [00:33:13]:
Oh, my God, I've been following you on LinkedIn. I'm like, who is this person? You know? But I found LinkedIn famous. Now I only have about 10,000 followers on LinkedIn, but at the same time, I was like, oh, my God, I'm like, LinkedIn famous. And she was, like, ready to buy from me because she'd been following me on LinkedIn. Now she got to meet me in person, and it's like, I'm the exact same person on LinkedIn as I am in real life, you know? And so when you show up authentically as you are in real life, ditch any corporate tones of voice, you know, just totally be you speak like you speak to your friend in a coffee shop, you know, or at the bar, wherever you're hanging out with your buddies. And that's how you should show up on LinkedIn. You don't need to have this professional Persona. As I say, that's gone.
Deirdre Martin [00:34:01]:
Just be you. So that's my second strategy for LinkedIn, and then the final one that I apply. And, yes, this all ties in together, and this is all doable in 1 hour per day, is what I call a dream 100 list. So this is not my concept, I think. Is it Shep Holmes who came up with this? I can't remember who came up with it. Do you.
Victoria Rayburn [00:34:24]:
Have you heard of this familiar? I've heard of it, but yes, now that you bring it up, I'm like, I don't know whose idea that was. I feel like I hear about it on podcasts all the time.
Deirdre Martin [00:34:32]:
Yeah, but Chet Holmes, I think it was. I can't remember. I'll find his name later and send it to you. I read it in a book. When I started my business. I went, this is ingenious, and it's probably something similar to what I would have done when I worked in financial services. Essentially, what it is, is it's a list of 100 people who you would like to be potentially your clients. And what you do is you break it down so that 20 every day, five days a week, you spend 20 minutes connecting with new people, and then of those people who are potentially your ideal clients, you build a list of 100 people on that list, and five days a week, you engage with 20 of them.
Deirdre Martin [00:35:15]:
That engagement might look like, what did they post this week? And going in and commenting on that post and getting to know them. And again, this strategy has worked really well for me. On my own podcast, I've had people who were usually charged to come and do shows come on for free because I've been engaging on their content. So it doesn't have to be just ideal clients. It could be big influencers. Again, like I said, if you're commenting on big influencers posts, what ends up happening is all of their followers will see who this person is. You can like some of the other influencers underneath the influencers, and you end up building a reputation as a potential influencer or thought leader in that space. So the four C's, then the CEC strategy.
Deirdre Martin [00:36:07]:
So capture, engage, convert, and then the final one is the dream 100. Does that make sense?
Victoria Rayburn [00:36:14]:
Absolutely. And, you know, we love acronyms and straightforward tactics, so all of this was so good. And, Deirdre, I do just want to say really quick, I really appreciate the fact that you highlighted that LinkedIn doesn't have to necessarily be formal. I think that so many, especially millennials, because, I mean, really, like, when I was graduating from college, LinkedIn was still pretty new. And so I remember taking, you know, professional development courses where they talked about, like, on LinkedIn, you make sure that you show up very, very professionally and, you know, it's the equivalent of your resume, and everything needs to be, again, just very formal, very corporate y. But that's. That's no longer the case because, I mean, you can use it to build your professional, personal brand. So thank you so much for touching on that, because I think you just gave a lot of people permission to, like you said, show up authentically and, you know, really actually enjoy LinkedIn.
Victoria Rayburn [00:37:08]:
Because I think that's another big reason that a lot of small business owners and entrepreneurs don't use it, is that they don't enjoy it because they were taught to use it differently.
Deirdre Martin [00:37:19]:
Exactly. Yeah. Like, one of my clients, he's a quantity surveying business in the construction industry. And in November, we had been posting, I had been teaching him how to post, and then he was posting on Instagram because he thought, oh, that's where my ideal clients are. But he already had almost 7000 followers on LinkedIn because he used to be a lecturer and he worked in other companies and just like I did when I was an employee, he'd been building up his network in the industry. And so I finally persuaded him that LinkedIn was a good shout for him and his business. So on November, the first week in November of 2023, we started posting on LinkedIn. Within three months, he'd had 1 million impressions on LinkedIn by just following this strategy.
Deirdre Martin [00:38:06]:
So 1 hour a day, consistently posting, seven days a week. And yes, you can post more than three times a week on LinkedIn. As I say, go for quantity over quality. And just consistently posting, consistently posting. His DM's are popping off all of the time. He's getting clients coming through all of the time, and it's just from showing up and literally being himself. And the very first post that he put out, it was actually around mindset. It's like, you know, I didn't fully answer your question, but I will come back to it around the type of content as well, to fall in under those capture, engage and convert strategies.
Deirdre Martin [00:38:46]:
So he posted a picture, which was a visual of himself, you know, arms folded, and it was a white background, and the headline was, contractors are burning out. That was the post. That post alone, it was the first one he'd posted intentionally on LinkedIn, aside from hiring people in his company, where it was around getting people to really think about what's happening in the construction industry, because it's a tough industry and people don't talk about it. So it was a very much a thought leadership piece. It was opinionated, it wasn't overly controversial. Like, there was nothing controversial about it, but it was provocative because people don't talk about that stuff in the construction industry. So it got 117,000 impressions on that first post, which was like, whoo. And that was organic with no advertisement, nothing behind it.
Deirdre Martin [00:39:44]:
And it was a foundation for him to take off. And then within three months, like 1.1 million, nearly 9700 engagements, all organically. And it's just from following the strategy. So. Yeah, but let me come back, Victoria, to the, you had asked me about the content types as well. So what I encourage people to do is, firstly, when you're starting with quantity, go with what you're comfortable with. I love to write long form content. I love it because, as you can tell, I like to talk, so my content resonates what I'm like when I'm talking.
Deirdre Martin [00:40:18]:
I like long form content, so I'll write long form text captions because that's what I love. But I also encourage people to vary the type of content and what I know works right now is we're recording this almost in May 2024, is video content. Video content right now is working exceptionally well on LinkedIn. And that can be talking head. So it's the equivalent of a reel where you would just talk for 60 seconds, 90 seconds. Those are working really well on LinkedIn right now. Live videos are working really well. And native videos.
Deirdre Martin [00:40:55]:
So a native video is a video you might record in your phone or on Zoom or somewhere like that, and you upload it directly to LinkedIn. It can't be any more than 15 minutes when you upload it natively. But those types of videos, CEO's are working exceptionally well right now. And then I think it comes back to what is your strategy for the platform? Why are you there? Are you there to build awareness for your brand? So for example, are you trying to get more people to learn and know about your company name? Are you trying to literally, are you on a conversion campaign? Do you have an offer going on right now that you're trying to get people to buy right now? Maybe there's doors closing soon. Whatever your strategy is in your business and for your brand needs to align with what type of content you post on LinkedIn. So for example, again, a really great way to write for me, what I find works really well in my service business is that that short form reel type content, as in Instagram reels, that content where you're a talking head almost and giving people examples. You don't need to do the pointy thing, but that type of talking content works really well to get people to follow you. So those are good capture posts.
Deirdre Martin [00:42:11]:
People might cringe when I say this, Victoria, but great content for engaging type posts are selfies. The selfie posts, really, they work so well. And even if you've got a company brand and you're posting under your company page, you can still post selfies. That's still okay. You can absolutely do that. So post some selfies, talk about where you are. Maybe you're going out to meet a client, maybe a client is on the way to meet you and you're frantically cleaning your office. You know, talk about something that's relatable, share a selfie.
Deirdre Martin [00:42:48]:
Those will get a lot of engagement. And the conversion posts really depends on what it is that you're selling. If you're selling a freebie, maybe a PDF, and you want people to sign up for that, I would say put in an image of what that looks like. Make sure that you put the link for your freebie in the comments. As opposed to in the caption. Because like all social media platforms, their goal is to get you to stay on that platform for as long as possible to consume their content, to consume the ads that people have paid for on their platform. And they're not going to share your post. If you're posting links directly within your caption, they're not going to share that.
Deirdre Martin [00:43:28]:
You're not going to get as many eyeballs on it, is what I'm trying to say. So post your, your link for your freebie or whatever your website, whatever it is you're sharing, post that into your comments. So, yeah, that works. That works.
Victoria Rayburn [00:43:43]:
Oh man, all of that was so good, so wonderful. So many, so many ideas. Deirdre, you have just made this so, so approachable. Now, if, however, someone is listening and they just are not sure where to start with LinkedIn or they aren't sure if it's worth their time, what would you tell them? I know that you have already covered this in so many different ways, but in case they need one last final nudge before we wrap up this episode.
Deirdre Martin [00:44:10]:
Okay, a great question. I think firstly, it's go back to your brand and then start with your profile. Fill it out as much as possible. But then look at what does that journey look like? And even in your brand script, if you're writing, step one is this. Step two is that, step three is this. If that's part of the journey with you, can you break that down into the types of pillars of content you might talk about? So I like to break down what you're going to talk about in LinkedIn into like, mindset is one. So like what is your mindset and what is your ideal client's mindset about what you do or what you offer? And then how can you talk about that in a way that they'll resonate with them and then mastery. So, for example, I mentioned my framework is the BMC framework.
Deirdre Martin [00:44:55]:
That's brand marketing, customer experience. But I believe all of those three are so intertwined and they, it's what brings around a holistic business solution for any business. So I talk about brand marketing and customer experience in terms of mastery. That's where my expertise is. And then there's a personal aspect as well. So your personal stuff can be your journey, the things that you've learned to date your hobbies. Like again, I mentioned horse riding. So for me, I'll talk about horse riding.
Deirdre Martin [00:45:26]:
But one thing that, you know, horse riding has in common with business is resilient. You need patience and resilience if my horse throws me off, well, I can stay on the ground or I can dust myself off, pick myself up, and I can go and try again, you know? And so how can, what do you do in your personal life that you can relate back to business? And what stories can you tell around those things so that, again, people reading or listening or watching you online can relate to? So I would say the first thing is, again, profile your brand. So who's your niche? Who are you going to talk to? What are you going to talk to them about? What is your offer? And then complete your profile, and then quantity over quality, just go for it. You've got nothing to lose. And if you're worried about people judging you, probably the people you're worried about judging you, they're not your ideal clients. So when you're showing up there, just think about you're showing up for. For who your ideal clients are. Forget everybody else.
Deirdre Martin [00:46:27]:
They're never going to pay you.
Victoria Rayburn [00:46:30]:
Amen to that. Deirdre, this episode has been so good. You've really just. I cannot believe how much wisdom you gave us in just 45 minutes. Thank you so, so much. Again, I feel like our audiences and our missions align so much. So I have no doubt that our listeners are going to want to hear more from you. So would you mind telling us, where can people find you, connect with you? You know, where can they find you on LinkedIn? Because they're definitely going to need to connect with you there.
Victoria Rayburn [00:46:58]:
But tell us all the things so that way they can continue to learn from you.
Deirdre Martin [00:47:02]:
Thank you, Victoria. Yeah, so, absolutely. Look me up on Deirdre Martin Consulting on LinkedIn. You'll find me there. I'm on Instagram as well, but I don't hang out there so much because I love LinkedIn. So, you know, I'm always on LinkedIn. Also, my website is deirdremartin, ie, so you can check me out there. And I've got my own podcast, and you guys are definitely going to have to come over and talk on my podcast, too.
Deirdre Martin [00:47:25]:
And it's called the master your business podcast.
Victoria Rayburn [00:47:29]:
Oh, well, we would love that. It would be an honor. And yes, y'all be sure to subscribe to Deirdre's show as well. Deirdre, thank you so, so much for coming on the show. And listeners, I cannot wait to, you know, see your LinkedIn content. This is also definitely motivation to me to remember that, like, oh, I need to pay attention to my LinkedIn profile. But y'all, thank you so much for tuning in to another episode of Priority Pursuit. We hope you will join us again next week to discuss even more marketing tactics and strategies you can use to build a life and small business that you love.