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If you're someone who wants to be a little bit more engaging on LinkedIn, but can't get beyond shyly liking a colleague's post about their recent promotion or sharing those dull as dishwater company updates.

If you can’t figure out what to write, who to write it for, how to write it, what to start with, or who's gonna care and it all feels way too complicated, then you'll want to tune in to this Joy at Work conversation with Mel Booth.  

In this conversation, Mel Booth, a digital marketing consultant and co-founder of the Marketing Lab, who is also a self-proclaimed LinkedIn enthusiast, gives practical ideas on how to be more human on LinkedIn while presenting yourself to your current and potential future employers in ways that don't appear robotic, boring, or just bleh.  

Let's dive in.

[00:00] Introduction to Engaging on LinkedIn

[00:53] Common LinkedIn Challenges for Mid-Career Professionals

[02:29] Finding Your Sweet Spot on LinkedIn

[03:45] Effective LinkedIn Sharing Strategies

[05:38] Actionable Tips for LinkedIn Engagement

Next Steps:

If you enjoyed this, you might also enjoy my Life Satisfaction Assessment. It's a 30-minute program where I guide you through a deep dive into 10 areas of your life to assess what's bringing you joy and what's bringing you down. I call it Derailed and it's a fabulous place to begin a joy-at-work redesign.

If you're someone who wants to be a little bit more engaging

on LinkedIn, but can't get beyond shyly liking a colleague's post about

their recent promotion or sharing those dull as dishwater company updates,

you'll want to tune in to this Joy at Work conversation with Mel Booth.

I sought out Mel because she's a digital marketing consultant and

a co founder of the Marketing Lab, but more importantly, she is a

self proclaimed lover of LinkedIn.

In this conversation, she gives practical ideas on how to be more human

on LinkedIn while presenting yourself to your current and your potential

future employers in ways that don't appear robotic, boring, or just bleh.

Let's dive in

Mel.

Here's a story I hear all the time from mid career professionals.

They've been lurking on LinkedIn for a long time.

And by lurking, I simply mean occasionally pressing the like button

on a colleague's promotional post.

They feel they should be more visible on LinkedIn, but when

faced with a blank post just stuck.

Yeah, they can't figure out what to write, who to write it for, how to write it,

what to start with, or who's gonna care.

So it all feels way too complicated, so they just give up.

Is that level of discomfort something you've experienced in your clients?

I think there's a real mixed reason as to why

people feel that on LinkedIn.

And I think it's that element of, it's a personal profile and

yet it's a professional space.

They are often getting feedback from, might be the marketing, might be business

company updates about, can you reshare?

So it becomes like it's not their account, but actually is their account.

By the time people are mid career, we don't want to be necessarily just

sharing what we've been told to share.

We've got more to say, but equally we're not a generation that are really au fait

with social media and what to share and what's personal and what's professional.

And I think all of those things, as you say, reach a point where you look

at it and go, this is too complicated.

And it's scary.

And it's a real shame because I think there is such an

opportunity on there to be visible.

There's so much you can do in terms of your career and how you become known.

There is a sweet spot for everyone, which is that point of, who do they work for?

What industry are they in?

What's the company messaging around that?

And then it's them and their role and what feels authentic to them.

And to describe it as a Venn diagram, there is an overlap where those two

things you Actually are the sweet spot.

That's about what you can talk about.

And it's where those aspects of your professional life and potentially some

of your personal values come into play.

And actually, when you say that, people say, what do people care?

Do they care what I share?

No, they probably don't if it's another company update.

But they do when it's that sweet spot of you sharing just enough of your

experience and knowledge and wisdom.

And that insight, because we're all human beings, we're all a bit nosy

but that it sits well within the company and sector that you work in.

And that sweet spot that we try and help people find, because once

you do you literally bypass that staring at a blank page thinking,

what do I share, what do I do?

Okay, so let me ask you more about that.

So let's say you're thinking yes, I've got my business persona, I've

got my human persona, and something in the middle is what you're saying.

What sort of sharing, can we be a bit more specific?

What sort of sharing really works that hits that lovely sweet

spot that you've talked about?

I think people get very hung up on content and about sharing

because that's how all of the other social media platforms work.

It's about your connections.

So it's about making sure the people that you're connected are relevant.

They're not just people you work with or alternatively, they're not just

people you worked with 30 years ago, which have nothing to do with what

you do now and aren't interesting or relevant to what you're doing.

So it is about making sure you've got those connections

and it is about commenting and engaging in that way because it

is a social networking platform.

It just happens to be for business more than, your social life.

And then when it comes to content, the more you engage, And the more

you see what the industry are talking about, what other connections that

actually you're influenced by talking about, suddenly that idea around what

can I share becomes so much easier.

And, a good performing post on LinkedIn, when it does come to saying, actually,

yeah, I have got something I want to share, a text post with a single image.

will do really well for you in terms of engagement.

Yes, it's interesting if you can do video, most people don't

want to go down that route.

So as simple as that, just keeping it nice and simple.

Okay.

All right.

So we have lots of mid career professionals just listening to

us at this moment in time, and I know they want to take action.

And you've made it really simple in understanding who and why, but I want

to get even clearer on where to start.

Can you share maybe two or three ideas on what they can do next week to start

showing up in LinkedIn in ways that will benefit their future career.

So for first, for a really quick win, I would encourage

people to comment on a post from someone outside of your organization

and don't sit on the fence.

Okay, so make sure it's something that you're genuinely interested

in, a topic that you can add value to, and actually put a comment in

there that gives an opinion, that adds some value to the conversation.

And if you can, look to actually engage the person that shared the post.

So when you put your comment in the same way you would do with a conversation,

often a comment leads to another question is in that comment include a further

question that then pulls more information from the person who's done the post.

This literally can take two to three minutes because if it's something that's

authentically of interest to you that making that comment and engaging that

conversation is a really quick win.

But take the plunge if you haven't done that and definitely do that.

The other thing I'd say is work on your connections.

People worry a lot about unconnecting, defriending, whatever

word you want to use people.

People do not get a notification of this on LinkedIn.

They won't know.

So it really helps in terms of the quality of what you see in your

newsfeed to have relevant connections.

So if all you can do is spend five minutes deleting some connections and

five minutes actually looking at who can I connect with in my industry?

Where are the people that actually we have real synergy in terms of what we're doing?

It might be that it's personally of interest to you.

Is there someone who is that little bit further in their career in another

organization that actually this is a great person to be connected with.

So just a really short splurge of working on your connections.

And my final one would be if people can take the jump and share some content.

And I don't mean about a company award or about somebody that's

a new joiner in the company.

Exactly, because there are enough of those and actually those are the

ones that often do switch people off.

So I would encourage someone to share something for example,

could they talk about if they were giving advice to someone

starting their career 20 years ago?

What's their best pearl of wisdom that they could share about

someone starting off in their industry that they've learned from?

So it's relevant because it's relevant to the sector to their audience,

but also it's providing insight that people will find invaluable.

And that might prompt someone else, wouldn't it?

That might prompt someone else to say, Oh, here's mine.

And then someone else, here's mine.

And that's a lovely post to read.

And what I really like actually is often when people go, I'm going to

share this, for example, with a group of students, or my child is thinking

about going into that as a career, I'm definitely going to share that with them.

So it really genuinely sparks.

conversation.

Or if something like that, that feels a bit too scary could they address a

myth about the industry they're in?

Is there something that actually when they're sat in meetings or they go along

and potentially dealing with clients or other organizations, is there a

myth about their industry that actually they could do a bit of myth busting and

say, we don't spend all day doing this?

This is, what we actually do because there's so many industries that I think

are, misconstrued or that people just don't really understand enough about.

So is there something that they could share that is a bit of a myth buster?

And I would say all they need to do is think about sharing something

short, two or three short paragraphs.

And if they can share a picture of themselves.

I'm not talking about their professional headshot.

Ideally not a security pass photograph or anything like that, but a really

simple photograph of themselves.

Any faces that are included when you share content, you'll see the content, you'll

see the engagement absolutely rocket.

really.

That is brilliant.

If you enjoyed this, you might also enjoy my Life Satisfaction Assessment.

It's a 30 minute program where I guide you through a deep dive into 10 areas

of your life to assess what's bringing you joy and what's bringing you down.

I call it D Railed.

It's a fabulous place to begin a joy at work redesign.