welcome to new beginnings with care and where we celebrate the creativity courage and wisdom of people creating change we highlight those who charge you pause make new life and career choices and face turning points welcome to new beginnings with karen dilke and i am so pleased to have joining me an expert in linked in and she is president and c e o of digital media and her name is find out a little bit more how did you even get into the concept of developing this business you know what you know it doesn't happen like there was no straight path to it that's for sure it kind of developed as my business grew as i found the things i love to do and that i was good at i started to leverage those things and my background was in corporate so i was comfortable with linked in but when i started to take some courses in digital marketing you know our five six ten years ago now i realized that it was kind of like my sweet spot because that was where i could blend the kiki techie stuff that i was good at with the social piece which i loved to write so i started to to to use it more for my business and then people started asking me to help them for their business so that's kind of how it moved forward but because my background was was corporate sales and i've always had relationships sales linked in really was a natural place for me to get started and so that's kind of how that that developed yeah yeah and so your target market is who you know my target market is mostly entrepreneurs and small business owners but i do a lot of work with sales professional sales teams i do a lot of training corporate training to sales teams and things like that but  private clients the programs that i run those are mostly entrepreneurs and small business owners and so i'm assuming you're hoping them understand how to navigate linked in to prospect to prospect absolutely to prospect but also beyond the prospecting how do you how do you engage them how do you what's your what's your call to action for them what you want them to do next so it's so there's more than just prospecting and actually we've already jumped to that to step two because before you even need to start prospecting you really have to address you your personal brand your profile right and really taking the time to create a personal brand that makes you stand out from your competitors that shares your unique selling proposition and that's really why i started focusing on linked in because when i worked with people on their digital marketing i i would always start with their personal brand because we often feel like we want to jump right to our business brands or talk about our products and services and i'm like hang on this is you know this is the you know we're not in one nine hundred seventy five where we didn't care what the i b m guy that sold us a paper had for lunch we marketing is much more personal people want to know more about you they are you know we don't so much as buy a paper clip without looking for reviews on it right so no one's investing  to you know doing some research on us first so before you even start prosody you take the time to tell the i tell your prospects what you want them to know about you because that's how you're going to start to attract those prospects by creating a personal brand for yourself and that starts with your profile you know so tell us what are the highlights what are what are some of the things that you think are must haves for a really solid to great links well you know there is the everybody has that you c rated by linked in right you're an all star but all that really means is that you filled in all the blanks and that's good that's a great start but i want you to think first and foremost think about keywords what are people searching for that you want to come up as a search result and using those words strategically in your profile will help people find you while you're not prospecting right so that's that's starting to attract people to your profile so that's hugely valuable also thinking about what they're searching for they're probably not searching for a c e o right so if you're saying you're a c e o nobody really cares about that we want to know what's in it for me right so making your procure profile client facing i use as an example if you are a financial planner there's a million of financial planners on linked in and if you say well i've you know i've helped people make millions of dollars again you're just like everyone else but if you say i help women over fifty create enough wealth to retire at sixty now you're telling me about you but you're making it about me right  and that's where you're going to start to attract the people that you really want to attract and that's why people are going to be intrigued so so make it about the you know write it about you but make it about the people you want to be attracting so what are some of the obstacles that most people struggle with and then they come to you in the most well there you know it's funny i do i've done that research right why do you come to me what do you us for no because we don't even know where to get started so that's the big answer right the big answer is people know there's there's money in using linked in profitably but they don't really know how to do it but one of the biggest obstacles is that profile piece it's a piece where people so easy to tell people how great your right and i you know i like his example of unless you're like unless you're feeling a little nauseous and thinking can i really say this about myself then you're not really going strong i want to tell people why you are the best at what you do and that's hard for people to do so that's an obstacle sometimes they need a little help you know getting there but also putting a plan in place you know we spent our wheels a lot in digital marketing we've spent all this time on facebook and twitter and instagram we don't know what to do i like how people put a plan in place i don't want you to spend a ton of time on this every week i want you to be teaching yoga or you know running your retail store your restaurant whatever it is you love to do but if we don't market right we're not going to be in business and digital marketing is where our customers eyes are right there on their phones so you've got to do this piece so i like to help people create a plan that easy to implement easy to execute a lot of work on the front end so we do a lot of work on the front end but once that front and work is done then it's easy to just keep it rolling rate so the plan is brandon plan a marketing plan and what are the other composers so so you know i when i speak to people often they say well you know their linked in connections consist of people that reach out to them and connect with them as a book a that's great but who are they and they don't often know who they are and that's good because people when people want to connect with you and you don't know who they are mean traditional marketing works right so that's that's a good thing but being just completely reactive to your network makes it tough to make things repeatable right so i want you to be proactive in building your network i want you to think about what you're doing in the next two months three months four months that if you have a network full of people that will help make that whatever that is you know more valuable more profitable who are those people start connecting with them proactively so proactively build out your network so when you need that network like if i'm speaking at an event i may look to connect with all the other speakers before the event i will look to see what geography obviously it's in what is it for c p a is it for realtors whatever it is  also connecting with them because i want to do is a couple of months like an idea months before the event i'll now sort my network by my first degree connections that fit that priority and i'll be like hey are you going to this i'm going to be speaking we've been connected here only to a while but we never really got a chance to meet i'd love to have coffee with you that's how you make that event you're already going to double triple quadruple in value for you by proactively building out your network instead of just being reactive to who reaches out to you so you're actually saying person by person person by person and it isn't the place to go to sell twenty thousand pencils a month it's a place to go to get however every selling pencils who can you partner with that's going to sell twenty thousand for you right you're looking for those hot those partnerships that can be really valuable so things that business that can bring you five thousand five hundred thousand five thousand dollars ten thousand dollars or more where that's where the that's really what linked in is good for developing relationships one person at a time but if you proactively do that it could it's it's so i've seen it be so valuable and businesses explode as a result of just that little tweak stop looking at it is spraying the wall with lots of stuff and narrow it down to who are the people that i can really that can really move my business forward and by the way those people that do that are the people that are doing that in real life are probably not the people using linked in right if you are like a heart center business or you build your business and networking in relationships calling to corporate for me it's exactly the right place for you because that's where you can further those reset relationships and narrow it down and really build actual relationships with people as opposed to just being on hiding behind facebook or twitter  so is of the digital platforms which i would say the major ones are obviously twitter facebook instagram now linked in the others out is there is a new one every week you know so not really that's pretty pretty much at all the big one so all of those which are your preferred you know what i don't i don't as they all have their own value you know i love twitter and i have you know i spend a lot of time on twitter it's  so you don't need as many followers there to get as many you know as good results facebook i love facebook but facebook is a challenge for us lately we're getting it's harder to get an engagement it's harder to get in front of our audience so you know and if you look at studies  z sumo did a study a couple of months ago about engagement about what platforms and you know facebook can gauge when it's just dropping like a rock mainly because we've got to we've got to learn how to be better at it not read his facebook is not a good place to be because it is still a good place to be all the other platforms are pretty stable linked and is growing it's a place where engagement is growing so you know i love seeing that because i think it's i i've been saying this all along right and you know we've been seeing we saw mark marks up the corporate on capitol hill for two days months ago and we've been seeing even the owners of the other platforms really get and you know they're being held accountable we need you to be authentic we need to know you are who you are we don't want fake news we don't want the users of linked in has never allowed figures in those so they don't have any you don't see linked in  any of those conversations because they've never had that issue they've always required you to be authentic and be who you are by the way they're cracking down on that even more but they're cracking down on the rules they've always had in place right there actually upholding the rule exactly yeah exactly so i just want to shift a little bit and i'll come back to linked in so you like twitter a lot i do tell us why because you can talk to anybody and because anybody can talk to you twitter is more conversational and as a business owner it's easier to grow your following there and it's not i'm not ever going to be the person to say you need a lot of followers it's not about having a lot of followers but there is a perceived influence around that right so if you want to get a speaking engagement and it's between you and someone else and you've got fifty thousand twitter followers and they've got two thousand twitter followers they're going to perceive you differently and twitter is easy to grow so so that is one reason and when i talk i talk a lot about personal branding that's why i love linked in profiles right so so that if you can extend that out if you want to get featured in the media if you want to get featured in a magazine or connect with your local media there you know i actually did a was part of the media panel about a year ago and every single journalist that was up there said the best place to reach them is twitter don't e mail them tweet them and then tag them in it so they know that it's coming and then you can follow up the conversation because our in boxes are inundated and you know so to every single one of them said twitter so if you're an if you're only using twitter for that and you're not posting and you're not you know you're not growing it then they don't really know enough about you to know whether you're for real and whether they should actually you know take that next step with you so you said it's easy to grow a following in twitter how is it just by being active by being using a lot of hashtags and being active you know like you know a show like this there's if you know hash tag princeton would probably get you a lot of followers because there's people in princeton that search by hashtag princeton so they're you know that brings your show to their attention so same as if you're a local business owner is there geography that we can talk about that we can use hashtags around and that can help show who you are jumping into conversations about the things you talk about that helps grow your platform following other people that do what you do following who's in who they who follow that i'm just really building up a following to of people that you think again people that you think could be valuable to your business right and that all of that helps you grow your platform more quickly ok that's good very good to miss so you mentioned instagram gets good results what are the results that you get instagram well you know what the results so with instagram you only have one place that you can put an active link and that's in your bio and i do think that that's changing they're starting to make some changes with that in stories but right now that's still the only place you can put an active link but if i put you know i have i mean i used an example about six months ago i posted fifth the amount of followers so it's just a more engaged platform you know my facebook group gets a lot of engagement my facebook page you know it's tougher but it but it's a great place to advertise so i use it and i'm strategic with it and and you everybody else can be too right but but instagram is just people love being there people on instagram often day in and day out they pop in to see what's happening and instagram stories is really popular now so just up it's kind of like the place to be so you need to be there if that's if that's your audience right right so tell us you know give us a case study of someone that you've helped you know someone who may not be digitally savvy what did they you know come to you to ask for you to do in the what did you do what would you go ok so so you know i can think of somebody that i'm currently working with she has a really popular business she's got a lot of followers on facebook facebook is really where her business is mostly growing but we are really businesses that rely heavily on facebook or rely heavily on any one platform or really a little bit at risk because we don't know what's happening so i'm going to i'm going to kind of give a blanket statement that says no matter what platform you are you're on you need to drive that traffic your e mail list so so regardless of the platform builder e mail us because there are businesses that went out of business when facebook change their algorithm i can think of one they built all of their business around their face k page facebook change their algorithm and within a month they were out of business and this is a business that was very profitable but you can avoid your eggs in one basket and you don't own that was this those platforms right so so so that's really the you know the first is she's got this big business on facebook she does those are email list but she knows that her clients are on linked in and she wants to get more partners she wants to bring she want to build more partners for her business so that she can get you know more exponential growth for clients so we sat down and we worked first we worked on her profile and again made it more client facing she was she really wasn't talking about wanting partners you don't need you can change at any time you want so i said if your focus for the next four months are going to be on finding partners let's say that write your headline let's say write your headline that you you know you partner with people in this industry so we change our headline we went through her profile we talked about the fact that she really needs more testimonials and recommendations we changed up her her you know her her skills and endorsements we really spent some time developing her profile just doing that people started to connect with her we haven't even done our second session next we've got another session coming up but then she started would be put together a connection plan what are the what are the words that people are using to to search for the things that she wants to be found for and literally within a day one person at that i know i've even talked to her you know we chat in between one person reached out to her and said they wanted to partner with her they want to they want her to check out their products they think their products  great in her suite of services and they have a gigantic audience that they like to partner with with her so this is just that's just somebody that i'm currently working with and that's one opportunity here and by the way that say the reason i know about that same customer is but it's from one share right but but you have to have all that other stuff in place right i would never recommend you you know think that there's a magic wand out there and that if you just put this in there and sit back the customers are going to come there's work right it's work that is work associates and so she's now she's building our network strategically and i don't know if you've noticed this karen but linked in is starting to embrace hashtags more yes they're starting to embrace hashtags more so now on the web video and video yeah so now you can actually follow a hash tag on linked in so for me i might use linked in quick linked in tip as a hash tag and if people are not following me they don't even know i exist but they're following the hash tag linked in tip my contents going to come up if i use that it's right so it's going to get my name in front of him so she's using hash tags so even though she's not really even proactively building her network anchors are still working on that for her she's getting people reaching out to her day in and day out to connect with her just based on the changes that she's making so it's and it is that easy it is that easy it's not you know but it's kind of scary to some people they feel like linked in is this like great unknown you know world and it's not it's just the place where you meet people you know who are just like you do any other any other place yeah yeah yeah so there's so many questions for trying to do is think of where to go in there so linked in what are some of the obstacles people find is it the branding of themselves or is it getting the endorsements or you know thinking that being too pushy is the biggest obstacle people feel like they don't want to reach out because there are so many people that reach out and immediately try to sell you when they don't want to be like those people you don't have to be like those people you know and i you know i there's so many ways to do this just if you want to get your name in front of people if you've done your job of building out your network proactively just going to go in don't look for endo going indoors people go in and spend a half hour and indorse and do an indoor sing spree and you can endorse probably thirty or forty people in a half hour and that those of those thirty or forty people now you're bringing your name back to their attention if you've done the profile work they're going to be intrigued by you and they're going to thank you and you're just providing value to them so looking at it from a providing value standpoint is going to get you so much more result positive results than if you are just constantly looking to pitch your services boosting you know their you know for you to buy ads which i think gets your name out there but i don't know if it leads to high conversion i don't know yeah yeah so so what i think is happening to a ready happening to facebook is that they want us to be more real right they want you are less likely to be a bought if you're on video right so they want their they're there promoting video over other content because it be king from your heart to your audience so what is requiring of us is us to be more authentic stop posting you know oprah quotes and you know tony robbins quotes and start telling us more about you and your products and your services and engage with your community they're asking us not only to have engagement on our page but they want our community to engage with each other right so if i make a post and you comment on it facebook likes that but they're not loving that what they want is for you to comment and joe to comment and you and joke to be engaging in a conversation on my page that's what their goal is for us business owners so as business owners we've to step up our game with a step up our game and that's only a good thing because as we dig out the people that are not serious about this race as far as are concerned as are space book ads are still the most powerful way to get your name in front of a biz a group of media all the targeting is insane the amount of targeting you can do in fact you can if you're building it's becoming more expensive and it's becoming harder to play with it yeah it's you know we really are getting to the point right now where we you know i know that for me and for a lot of my clients when we're doing our you know taxes this year and you're looking at the number of money money money that we spent on facebook ads in two thousand and seventeen you know in many cases seems astronomical when you look at the results so what that means is if i'm not playing with on that messing with them anymore i'm only hiring people to do it and measuring conversion you absolutely can still get a conversion with  ook ads but you have to measure it and you have to have money to play with yes you know there's a there's a there's a great strategy around facebook ads to targeting warm target warm warm people so by going out there and they be doing a video and then boosting video for fifty bucks or a hundred bucks and now maybe if you know now instead of twenty people or fifty people seeing that video maybe five hundred people saw the video now now you can retarget that audience of the five hundred people that watch the video right but you've already spent a hundred dollars and you all you really did with want more people to watch the video and right so you're overall cost of that campaign is going up but but we're learning more about how to retarget and be really getting our message in front of a warmer audience note can you take not today and i don't think that's can happen anytime you know i know they put it on the other why they're like and i you know listen i love that they're doing it i want i want you know that's my job is to have people step up their game right so it's weeding out the people that are getting a lot of business but really not you know gauging and being real and authentic and they're just you know they have money so that there are a lot of money at these bots and making all this stuff happen on the back and the authentic and they're going to get higher paying clients every time and then once you have the money coming in we can talk about how we can get you some systems to get you you know some more during and recover revenue roups or membership sites and things like that but first use that use the tools we have to get to get the money coming in right so what has been your big lessons from you know your clients of has anyone surprised you in kind of the choice that they've made maybe you've recommended this and they've you know done something else and what was the result of that you know what i'm a big fan of what i refer to as lateral learning i want i want to know what you're doing and if i you think there's a better way to do what i'm teaching i want to hear it i don't ever teach anything that i say this is the only way you can do this right so this is what works for me is what works for my clients i think it will work for you too but that doesn't mean somebody else teaching is wrong so what what what i mostly get surprised by is is the passion people have for their for what they do like i i always amazed by how how many amazing strong talented people are out there that can change the world and they don't have the confidence in themselves to do it right they they don't realize we they underestimate themselves you know an example is and i just i just did i have a pod cast called good girls get rich and in episode thirty two which i just recorded which probably is coming out right around the same time as this i talked about the fact that we if we when we were employees and employees we knew what we had to do we had honor our job we honored our paycheck we honored our boss we don't i would honor our if we don't have that same honor for ourselves in our own business right like we we and that kind of surprises me a little bit they feel like they have they don't have the confidence to be a real business owner and they they should because when they're when they're not making enough money healing the world then they're then they're doing other things in the world is missing out on that talent right so i really want people to honor themselves and know that honoring your business sometimes just to honor yourself and we're not always good at that yes so so understanding that we owe ourselves everything that we owed when we got that paycheck you know that corporate paycheck we still owe that same honor to our own business and we just have to remind ourselves of i'd remind myself of that sometimes no i agree i think any of us and i came out of corporate also there's a certain mentality and when you are building a business you know it's it's a major economic shift so i agree with you i think many people are you know they're they're not really sure and they like you know can do what i want meaning i can have the business that i want i could yes follow my passion and make money and maybe support myself so it's a big but it is it is but you have to understand that you you've got to you've got to create some structure behind it so that you can i was why i said in the very beginning i don't want to spend a few hours a week on this because i want you out doing what you love doing yeah but were you promoting yeah well you know what it's interesting so if you go if you're looking at linked in programs and products they're all very left brained it's all very it's very corporate i am in the process of developing a course that will be out in june so june two thousand eight right around when you're watching this that is approaching it from the other way it's approaching it from the right brain it's approaching about building relationships all of these people that we've been talking about that that think they don't know how to market when they see the results that they get from linked in one relationship at a time or so blown away that i want my goal is to help a thousand people in two thousand and eighteen that think linked in isn't for them understand that that's how they can grow their business and watch them grow their business that way the terrific we're fresh out