This week's episode dives deep into the evolving landscape of LinkedIn and how small businesses can leverage it effectively for content creation and lead generation. Shannon Kuykendall, a seasoned entrepreneur with 18 years of experience, shares her expertise on utilizing AI tools like ChatGPT to enhance content while maintaining a personal touch. She emphasizes the importance of consistency and authenticity in building connections, advising against cold outreach tactics that come off as spammy. Listeners will learn practical strategies for creating engaging content that resonates with their audience, whether through video, carousels, or personal storytelling. Join Brett Deister and Shannon as they explore innovative ways to navigate LinkedIn and boost your online presence, all while enjoying a unique blend of Mexican coffee with chai spice.

Takeaways:

• Shannon Kuykendall prepares her coffee with a unique twist using chai spices and heavy cream.
• For effective LinkedIn engagement, create valuable content and tell authentic stories about your experiences.
• Utilizing AI tools like ChatGPT can significantly enhance content creation and maintain your personal tone.
• It's essential to build genuine relationships on LinkedIn by engaging first before pitching services.
• Posting consistently on LinkedIn requires a blend of value, storytelling, and occasional promotion of your services.
• Having a business page on LinkedIn is important, but it should be connected to your personal profile for better visibility.

Links referenced in this episode:

• linkherin.com

Companies mentioned in this episode:

• LinkedIn
• ChatGPT
• Jasper AI
• Canva

💬 Want to get involved? Leave us a comment, give us a 'like,' and follow us for more insights. Join our Locals for lively discussions, and if you've got questions, email us at bdeister@digitalcafe.media!

👕 Check out our merch: www.digitalcafe.store

🌟 Review the Podcast if you loved this episode and share it with fellow marketers who could benefit from a treasure trove of podcasting wisdom. Tune in to "Digital Coffee: Marketing Brew" and let's brew up some success together!

That's good.

And welcome to a new episode of Digital Coffee Marketing Brew.

And I'm your host, Brett Dyster.

And this week we're going to talk about mostly about linking, maybe a little bit about small businesses because everybody needs to know how to do that better, especially LinkedIn.

I always feel like it's the long forgotten social media of the professional side that doesn't really get utilized as well.

But with me I have Shannon here and she is an inspiring female entrepreneur to empower female founders.

She's also founder of the Link her in llc and she helps bridge gaps between small business owners and their marketing needs.

She's also LinkedIn Hike for and trainer, lead generation strategist and a digital marketing partner, Jean.

The perfect mix for this for any startup, plus this episode as well.

So welcome to the show, Shannon.

Thank you, Brett.

Thank you for having me.

Of course.

And the first question I ask all my guests is are you a coffee or tea drinker?

I am a coffee drinker for sure.

We haven't.

Do you have any like specific coffees that you actually like to drink?

Anything at all?

Yeah, it's the, it's actually a Mexican brand of coffee that's really.

It's in a yellow can and of course I can't remember the name of it right off the top of my head, but it's nice and strong, which is what I like.

And then I'll add a little bit of chai spice mix to it and heavy cream.

That's how I like my coffee.

Gotcha.

No worries.

I gave a brief summary of your expertise.

Could you give our listeners a little bit more about what you do?

Absolutely.

I've been in business for 18 years, 18 +, and I provide content creation and lead generation services specifically focused on LinkedIn.

And so I help businesses find ways to leverage that so that they can stand out and shine.

Got you.

I feel like I've tested out their premium feature.

Now they're all about AI.

Is that like the major thing that's going on with this?

It's like AI everywhere.

Yeah, no, they, their AI still needs work, so I would not use it.

I would continue to use ChatGPT or Jasper AI.

And then actually the newest thing just got notice of it yesterday.

So about two years ago, LinkedIn rolled out what's called Creator mode.

And Creator Mode was meant for the creators and so they were able to see their KPIs and analytics on how their content's performing.

And actually one of my lead gen questions when I do outreach is do you have creator mode turned on?

They are basically getting rid of the feature.

Everybody will have access to creator mode now, so it doesn't matter whether you turn it on, you will no longer need hashtags, which LinkedIn came late to the hashtag game anyway.

And they never ever really figured out how to really optimize them for people.

So you don't really need hashtags on your posts.

They're not going to, they're not doing you any favors.

They're also not doing you any favors, but you don't need them.

So everybody will get access to that and then they're going to be moving the about section up front and center.

So you've got your above the fold and then right underneath it will be your about, which I really like.

I appreciate that because the about section, which is what I tell people should be.

If you're doing lead generation and you're looking for clients, your about section should be a representation of your website.

Got you.

And I've tried it out a little bit.

But those questions that AI asked for you to be like experts in, are those good to do as well?

I try to do them every once in a while, but I don't try to go crazy with them.

What do you think about Those?

So the LinkedIn top voices.

So how people are getting to be a top voice is they'll go, they provide their information and then they send a link to all of their friends to like their con, what their addition was to that AI invitation and that's how they're getting the LinkedIn top voices.

I personally, it's not, it does not generate income for me.

I like to do income producing activities on LinkedIn and so being a LinkedIn top voice and then asking all my connections to bump me up just is not a good use of my time nor theirs.

So it's not something I chase.

But if it's something that other people want to chase, more power to you.

Those little yellow notices that you're a top voice do not last forever and you have to keep the activity up in order to keep it.

Got you.

Is it good for like people just starting out or anything like that, trying to build that expertise or know how or is it just like a waste of mostly a waste of time?

I personally think it's a waste of time.

And honestly, if you're just getting Started out, you're not like you're going to hear crickets for a while.

LinkedIn really requires a very one patience, but you need to be consistent and you need to be persistent with it.

What I typically will tell my clients, pick a schedule and stick to that schedule.

You don't have to post content every day.

I don't personally think that the LinkedIn top voices, if you're just getting started, is going to really make you stand out.

And so what specifically should they actually be doing if they want to build maybe their personal side of LinkedIn?

Should they post some content?

Should they comment on other people's stuff?

Should they find connections relevant to them and not spam?

Because, like, I get like podcast producers all the time and annoys the living.

Daylights at them because they're not approaching you in the correct way.

The way that I look at it, when you're just getting started, it is, again, it's about the consistency.

You want to do a combination of one, you're providing value, all right?

The second is you want to tell stories.

If you're an entrepreneur, the road to being an entrepreneur isn't very easy.

There's a lot of ups and downs.

Write about your experience because people are interested in that, and then throw in some promotional, don't be afraid to promote, but don't promote every day, all right?

Because then people are going to become tone deaf to it.

So value, personal story promotion and everything should be a reflection of your brand voice and who you're targeting on LinkedIn.

So that's the other thing too, is make sure you've got your foundational work done.

Like, you've got your brand message, you've got your brand voice as well as who is your target audience.

So that way you're not just throwing spaghetti to the wall and hoping that.

It sticks and finding those new connections.

Like I said before, I get those annoying podcast producers or I get the upwork people, or I get people trying to sell me something and I'm like, I don't even know you that well.

How, why, why are you selling me all of a sudden for no reason other than I should pay you?

Because you reached out to me and.

They didn't nurture the relationship with you.

They.

When you're, when you're connecting with somebody, you should not be pitching your services right out the gate.

That's just really unprofessional.

You've got to think of LinkedIn as like you're actually at a physical networking event.

When you go to a networking event, I'm going to say, hi, Brett, tell me about your business.

I'm not going to tell you about myself.

I'm going to wait for you to ask, but I'm going to try and think of questions to keep you talking, all right?

And that's how people should be approaching their outreach on LinkedIn.

All right?

Ask a question and then wait.

Don't send me 10 messages right in a row or day after day, because, one, I'm going to block you, and chances are I'm also going to report that you're spamming people, because that's essentially what you're doing.

Wait for the response, all right?

It's like the person who sends you a text and they send you 10 texts before you can even respond to the first one.

Don't do that.

Wait for the reply.

And if they don't reply, move on.

Even a little bit.

We found each other on Pod Match, even.

Sometimes I get people like, yes.

Like, oh, I see a message and I haven't gotten to it yet.

Then all of a sudden I get an email.

Then all of a sudden I get a LinkedIn message and I'm like, whoa, let me, like, give me time to respond.

Like, you can't just come at me with full force and think it's, oh, my gosh, I never saw you before.

Like, I should book you as a guest because you're bugging the living daylights out of me.

How is it measured?

Is it like, hey, I like, first said my thing.

Hey, I met you on Pod Match.

It'd be great to have a LinkedIn connection so we could share our content together.

Would be something like that.

Like, fosters a relationship other than, hey, I really want to be a guest.

Hey, I really want to be guest.

Hey, I really want to be guest.

I'm like, okay, I don't really want you to be a guest.

And I have denied one person before.

Because of that, because they're a little too hungry.

All right?

It's.

It's the analogy that a lot of marketers use about the first date and going from the first date to getting married or not even dating at all kind of thing.

It's that analogy.

It's when you send your first message, you shouldn't be pitching anything, all right?

It should be very genuine, and it should allow the fostering.

I know that my very first message, when I reach out to connect with people, but the thing is, I'm doing activities before I even reach out to connect.

I'm letting people know that I'm around Without being intrusive, I'm viewing their content, I'm engaging with their posts, I'm viewing their profile.

And all of these are things that LinkedIn will notify them that I'm doing before I ever send them a message.

And then when I do send them a connection invitation message, it's really just, hey, we're founders.

Let's support each other, let's lift each other up.

And then I wait two to three weeks before I send my next message.

And then my next message is a question.

So I do LinkedIn work.

So the questions I'm asking my audience are things that are relevant to LinkedIn.

Do you have creator mode turned on?

Are you posting content regularly?

Those are really simple questions to answer.

And I get engagement that way, and I'm fostering that engagement because a conversation typically starts and then I can share more information with them about ways to leverage LinkedIn.

And not once do I ever say, hey, book a call with me.

All right?

There's plenty of opportunity for them to do that because LinkedIn has request services.

It has, Visit my website, it'll.

And those are premium features.

There's plenty of, there's plenty of ways to get people to do what you want them to do without bugging them and basically saying, come work with me.

Book a call.

You don't have to do that.

Gotcha.

So, I mean, is getting the LinkedIn premium, like, really important for LinkedIn users?

Because I know they do have additional features.

Features.

Is it that important or should we.

Or is it okay to not use it and maybe wait out to see if you're actually going to use this?

Because it is expensive, it's not cheap.

LinkedIn Premium, it's a hundred dollar investment a month.

But for me, it's worth it.

If you're doing any form of outreach, cold or warm outreach, I highly recommend that you get it, because if you don't, if you use the free version of LinkedIn, LinkedIn's going to come in and say, hey, I'm going to shut your account down, because I see weird activity.

All right, you really don't want to be doing any cold outreach on a free LinkedIn account.

And this is carrying over from last year.

LinkedIn.

LinkedIn is really honing in on giving people who are paying for a subscription a lot more bells and whistles for us to do outreach, because it looks at us as okay, we're not going to bite the hand that beats us.

So you've got to take those things into consideration.

Are you willing to risk getting Your account shut down because you don't want to invest.

And they do have a premium version which also has some capabilities and tools, which is only about like, $70 a month.

But that's.

If you're choosing to use the free version and you want to do the outreach, then you are putting yourself at risk for getting your account shut down.

And LinkedIn, LinkedIn has no problem saying, nope, you can't have your account back.

And then you've got to start over from scratch.

Got you.

So for outreach, like, how do you do that with a cold outreach?

Maybe you.

You have LinkedIn Premium that has a sales Navigator or whatever.

So how would you approach somebody from that cold email?

Because you're eventually going to have to do it.

You can't just not cold email somebody or cold message somebody.

So how do you do it properly where they just don't ignore you and then you think, oh, I should do it again just to remind them that I'm here?

So what I typically do is I'll think about the different pain points that I know that my ideal audience are dealing with when it comes to LinkedIn.

And that's what I focus on.

And I keep my messages short, all right?

And that's where the asking of a question comes in.

And you're going to ask the question so that it's not a yes or no.

You're gonna.

They're gonna give you a little bit of an explanation.

And it really is just that simple.

All right?

If you go in and you say, hi, my name is.

This is what I do, this is my business, and blah, blah, blah, me, me, nobody cares.

And you're going to annoy them, all right?

They're not going to respond like you, like right out the gate, you've basically severed that relationship because that's how you approached it, all right?

When it comes to LinkedIn, you need to be intentional and the approach needs to be holistic, all right?

Like, you've got to really be thinking about who it is that you're reaching out to.

Gotcha.

So let's say you try to do that and still nothing.

Should you remind them with the email?

Because sometimes people just forget.

Sometimes, oh, I remember that.

And then I forget.

And then I'm like, oh, wait, where was that?

Should you like maybe a week later or something like that?

Remind them.

Is that okay to do?

Just in case they may have forgotten?

The best practice would be to wait at least two weeks.

All right?

Don't pile one message, because when you send a message, you want to give them at least 48 hours to respond.

All right?

Then you're going to wait at least 10 to 14 days before you send a follow up.

And what I typically will do is I'll ask a different question for a different pain point.

And then my campaigns usually are about four to five messages.

So by the time.

So if they've gotten to the end of my campaign and haven't engaged at all, then I push because by then they have seen my content in my feed, they've likely engaged with it.

They just may not be interested in the direct messages, which some people aren't.

And that's fine.

But by the end of my campaign, it's very much a, hey, this is what I can do for you.

Please book a call.

But yeah, that.

But they don't get that message for probably a good month and a half.

Gotcha.

And for small businesses, is it required to actually have a business page on LinkedIn?

I know, like we all talk about, like the personal page and how you need to curate your personal page.

What about the business page?

Because it is something LinkedIn tries to work on to make it useful, but not everybody tries to use it.

Yeah, it's so in the past I was, I don't even know why they have it.

It's pretty much useless.

Like they don't drive traffic to it.

Like you could put a post up and hear crickets.

They are working on that.

I have over the last four or five months been not only posting on my personal profile, but I'm also posting on my business.

And I am over time I am getting people to engage with that.

So they're getting better about it.

The big thing is that I see people do is they'll create or they'll have their profile and they put in their business information, but it's not connected.

All right, you need to create a business page and then connect it to your personal page so that everything stands out.

There are also areas where if you've got case studies, put those case studies up there front and center.

I have certifications from digital marketers, so my digital marketing certifications are right there, featured.

Think of the stuff that you've done.

Make sure that you're showcasing it on your profile.

And again, like your business page too should also be a reflection of your website so that everything is cohesive, brand cohesive.

Sorry about Chico, by the way.

He seems to like to do this whenever I'm on a podcast.

Make noise too.

So we both got dog problems.

Content is the other side of LinkedIn.

You don't have content when nobody really cares about what you do.

I think that the carousels work the best on LinkedIn.

The carousel right now.

Yeah.

Focusing on.

Or should they just stick to the carousel picture content and then not do video?

Not do anything else, Just the carousel, picture content.

Video actually still works the best.

It still gets more attention.

All right.

I think last year the focus became on carousels because the year prior to that it was so video focused and so LinkedIn was balancing out the feed.

So what I've been playing around with are no images altogether.

It's just good content.

And I get a lot of.

I get a.

My engagement and my impressions are much higher without an image.

So if you're a business looking for more clients, I recommend doing video, keeping it short.

Or if you've been on a podcast, do a restream of the podcast in your feed.

Doing things like that.

Because that does.

And carousels.

The thing about carousels is yeah, they're great and you can download those, but the problem is they take more time to consume than a video does or reading long form content.

And I personally just don't have the time just sit there and scan through 32 pages of your content.

And I don't think most people do.

So they're popular.

Also the time it takes for you to create that slideshow or if you're paying someone to do it.

All right, that is it, is it generating income for you?

And that's.

I think that's what some people need to think about is income generating activities.

Or just some industries because I'm pretty sure other content plays with other things like for example, podcasts.

Obviously video would be the best because that's all I really, that's all I really got because audio doesn't really play as well with it.

But what, let's say B2B would B2B be better for the pictures or the case studies or the Picture Carousels?

So B2B, which is primarily what LinkedIn is, the carousels will be fine, but it doesn't have to be everything.

Your content just should be really well rounded, all right.

And offering value.

If I know that personal pro like pictures worked.

I did a bunch of travel for a couple years and so I've been using my travel pictures, but it doesn't relate to my content.

All right.

And for me, and for.

So for me it's just, I did it, it works well.

You can do it too.

But I think that's going to change eventually.

I think that LinkedIn is going to get sick of Seeing that after a while.

And they're going to want either images that relate to the content you're posting or a video or the.

You got.

There's the polls and then the live events.

So it just, it, I think it just really depends also when it comes to producing content.

Produce content that feels good to you.

All right, if you want to do the carousels and that's all you want to do, then do that.

There's nothing wrong with it.

It's just really about what does your audience want from you.

What's getting you engagement?

What's getting people to hit your calendar link and book a call with you.

And on the side, should they be doing live streaming or should they just do the produced content or the.

Yeah, produce content first.

Because live streaming is a little bit different beast than it is doing a recorded and editing it out.

Plus you can only do 15 minutes of video on LinkedIn anyway.

So if you do, if you have restream and you upload a video to restream and set it to go live, it will actually play the entire video.

And I have put up 37 minute videos.

I think you get up to an hour when you do it that way.

All right, so I've been playing around with, I'm still playing around with it and I still have stuff to learn about it.

But if you're doing a live stream like something like this, then bring on a guest, have a Q and A and get.

Because as soon as you, as soon as you go live, it sends a notification to all of your first connections to come and watch.

So you have that audience with you right there.

And then with a restream of a video, it's a little bit different.

You have to invite people as it's playing because it's not live.

Truly live.

Everybody gets a notification as long as you're connected with them.

Not live, but live.

I just put a quotation marks live.

Then it's more of.

You have to convince people to watch that.

Is that what I'm saying?

Yeah, you've got to, you've got to manually send out that notification or boost the post because it comes up as a post.

So you essentially want to boost the post so that the people and it's so that it starts to get impressions and that LinkedIn will serve it in the feed.

But that's how you get past that 15 minute video.

Maybe people are don't really know what to post or they're having trouble writing the post.

Should they be using like ChatGPT, Bard or Gemini I think Google's changing the name again.

Gronk is another one.

Perplexity.

There's a ton of them, but should they be using one of those to help them write?

And then obviously you should probably look through it and then go, okay, I want to change a little bit of.

One of the cool things that ChatGPT has.

I use Jasper AI, but I have a friend who uses primarily ChatGPT, and he's really honed in on it, is he is able to upload any sort of content that he's written over the last few years so that it.

So that chatgpt gets his tone of voice, gets his writing style.

All right, so that's probably the first thing you want to do.

Gather up the stuff that's really good.

Upload it so that the tool, the AI tool you're using has your tone of voice.

And then you're going to start going through the prompts and saying, okay, give me A list of 10 topics to talk about related to my industry.

It'll give you 10 topics.

It gives you a blurb about each.

You're just going to grab one of those and you're going to expand on it and yeah, you're going to always want to edit.

I use a tool called Grammarly and it has a plagiarism tracker in it.

So everything that gets written for me that after.

And I'll go in and make my edits, but I run it through the plagiarism tracker just to make sure that the content that I'm posting is original.

You want to be able to take advantage of those tools.

But AI, AI is a productivity time saver.

Like, it's one of the best hacks out there.

And if you're not taking, if you're still in that space where you're scared about AI, don't be.

Because AI, the way that we're using it in business, is a productivity tool, all right?

It's saving us time so that we can get our content out there, we can get it posted, and we can move on with the rest of our day and take care of our clients.

But the content, the way that I look at with lead generation and content creation on LinkedIn, lead generation is you're taking from LinkedIn.

Content creation is your giving to LinkedIn.

It's the reciprocity.

And the two have to play together in order for your efforts to be effective and for you to continue to bring in new clients and grow your business.

Okay with that, does the person you're talking about use chat GPT do they use the payment one with chatgpt4 to upload a lot of that stuff?

Because there is a free version.

And so I don't want to confuse people and be like, oh, I could do all this stuff.

You've got to make the investment.

If you're not willing to make investments into your business, if you look at everything as, oh, this is so expensive, or why do I need this?

You're one, you're in the wrong mindset, first of all.

And you need to change the way you think about it, because a business requires investment to grow.

All right, are there tools out there that you that will help with that that aren't as expensive as some of the other ones?

Yeah, it's just requires some research.

All right.

To find those tools.

Like I actually just put in my course on canva.

I literally created course webpages using canva.

It's hosted by Canva and I've got an email drip campaign to manage my course.

And I did that because I didn't want to pay a hundred dollars a month for my course, which is brand new and doesn't quite have the people in it to support that $100 a month investment.

This way I'm saving myself money.

So there are ways that you can get around that, but a lot of it is get the right mindset with that and make the investments to improve your business.

What do you need for LinkedIn?

Do you see more videos being uploaded?

Do you see the call back to more written content?

Because that's how all of social media was started.

You had picture, you have picture albums, but everything was written.

There was no videos except for YouTube that eventually came, but even then it was still for most was mostly written.

Do you see that callback?

Do you see pictures carousels being somewhat popular, but not as popular?

Do you see just live streaming exploding on LinkedIn because they are trying to heavily probably promote them?

I think we're going to see a combination of all of it this year.

You know, last year was the focus on the carousel and the year before that it was video.

This year we're going to see all of it.

I think that with the changes that LinkedIn is making, they're really going to optimize the platform so that no matter what kind of content you produce, it's going to get the eyes that you want it to have.

And that's a pretty big thing.

It.

They're basically making it an even playing field with regard to getting impressions and for them to serve your post up in the feed and again it just comes back to what are you more comfortable with?

Are you more comfortable with short form content that offers a punch and some value?

Are you more interested in the long form?

Do you want to create the slides?

It really is up to you.

And where you're comfortable, it's because it's not a one size fits all.

It really needs to come from you.

And what are your intentions for that?

Well, a lot of knowledge about LinkedIn.

So where can they find you online to learn more about what you do and maybe some more tips on LinkedIn?

Absolutely.

You can definitely find me on LinkedIn at Shannon T.

Kirkendall.

And then of course you can find my website which is linkherin.com if you're not posting posting right now, get out there and post.

Play around with LinkedIn.

It's not a very scary place.

It just takes a little bit of, just a little bit of time.

Share the value that you have to offer.

Show your brilliance.

Just get out there and be active.

That's how your business is going to grow.

Thank you Shannon for joining Digital Coffee Marketing Guru on your knowledge on LinkedIn and content generation and lead generations as well.

Thank you Brett.

Thank you for having me and thanks for all the great question.

As always.

Please subscribe to this podcast with all your favorite podcasts you can see 5 star review with the ranking and join us next week because we talk to a great thought leader in the PR.

All right guys, stay safe.

Get to understand your LinkedIn how to optimize it well, pushing video content wise next week later.