LinkedIn has a reputation for being dull, corporate and kind of ‘middle aged’ But according to John Espirian - aka the Relentlessly Helpful LinkedIn nerd - it’s anything but. 

In this episode of the Courageous Content Podcast, you’ll hear from technical copywriter John - who’s built a large and engaged audience on the platform. 

He’ll fill you in on some of the latest LinkedIn features like short form video, Carousels and watch out TikTok and Instagram) and how you can make your mark on the platform - including creating a LinkedIn headline with impact (and why this is super important) 

John is a keynote speaker at my annual content marketing event Courageous Content Live which is happening in Newcastle on Nov 1 & 2 - so this is a chance to find out more about him, and what you can learn from him at Courageous Content Live. 

You’ll also hear us talk about how I begged him to speak at my event - and by the end of this interview, I think you’ll know why. 

Key Links

Janet Murray’s Courageous Content Planner

Janet Murray’s Courageous Podcasting Content Kit

Janet Murray’s Courageous Planner Launch Content Kit

Janet Murray's Courageous Blog Content Kit

Save £30 on my Courageous Email Lead Magnet Content Kit using the code MAGNET67.

Save £30 on my Business Basics Content Kit using the code PODCAST67.

Save £30 on my Courageous Launch Content Kit using the code PODCAST67.

Janet Murray’s Courators Kit

Janet Murray’s FREE Ultimate Course Launch Checklist

John Espirian’s website

John Espirian on LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, Facebook and Instagram

How to create viral YouTube videos (withouts spending hours on key word research) (podcast)

How to build a thriving Facebook community around your business (podcast)

Instagram growth advice you probably don’t want to hear (podcast)

Why I'm fed up with LinkedIn polls (and why it matters - even if you don't use LinkedIn for business) (podcast)

Stop being boring on LinkedIn (and make more sales) (podcast)

Janet Murray’s website

Janet Murray on Instagram

Janet Murray on Facebook

Janet Murray on LinkedIn

Janet Murray on Twitter

Janet Murray on TikTok

IMPORTANT: THIS TRANSCRIPT IS AUTOMATICALLY GENERATED. WE GIVE IT A QUICK CHECK THROUGH BUT WE DON’T CORRECT EVERYTHING AS IT’S INTENDED TO HELP YOU FIND PARTS YOU WANT TO LISTEN TO AGAIN - NOT AS AN EXACT TRANSCRIPT. SO THERE MIGHT BE A FEW QUIRKY WORDS/PHRASES HERE!

:: 00:01

I think we remember people once we care about them, you've got to give people an opportunity to care about you. That means turning up on a regular basis and not just being a hundred percent about business. LinkedIn has a reputation for being dumb corporate and kind of middle aged. But according to John Experian, AKA the relentlessly helpful LinkedIn nerd it's anything. But The way it looks like it's going is that LinkedIn is trying to attract younger gen Z creators.

:: 00:31

And so they want to arm them with as many creator tools as possible. In this episode of the creative content podcast, you'll hear from technical copywriter, Joel Experian, he's built a large and engaged audience on the platform. He'll fill you in on some of the latest LinkedIn features like short-form video, carousels and documents, watch out textbook and Instagram and share tips on how you can make your mark on the platform,

:: 00:56

including creating a LinkedIn headline with impact. And he'll also explain why that's super important. And you've got to increase the amount of comments that you leave on relevant posts for your industry, because that is the fastest accelerant for visibility on LinkedIn is to leave comments on relevant discussions Is a keynote speaker at my annual content marketing event, courageous content live, which is happening in Newcastle in the UK on November the first and second.

:: 01:23

So this interview is a chance to find out more about him and what you can learn from him at courageous concept live. You'll also hear us talk about how I begged him to speak at my event and by the end of this interview, I think you'll know why. So a lot of people say that LinkedIn isn't for small businesses and they tell me it could never work for their small business.

:: 01:47

What would you say to that job? Yeah, this is a familiar trope that, but I don't really think it's true. I think loads of businesses, big businesses, B to B small businesses, B to C everything in between solopreneurs, small business owners. They're all able to get success with LinkedIn. And I think LinkedIn actually is attracting more and more younger content creators who don't have a career path.

:: 02:10

They'll just be working for themselves. Maybe all of these people can succeed so long as they know how to use the platform. So this idea of it being a boring platform that only works with big businesses. I don't think that's true anymore if ever was true. So you obviously are an expert in LinkedIn, you know, everything that is to know, and there have been quite a few new features that have come on board in the last year.

:: 02:32

We'll say, what should we be paying attention to? And what do we not need to worry about? Yeah. So the way it looks like it's going is that LinkedIn is trying to attract younger gen Z creators. And so they want to arm them with as many creator tools as possible and anything that's new and shiny on LinkedIn tends to get a boost in visibility.

:: 02:52

So for example, recently LinkedIn started rolling out audio rooms, so you can start your own audio space, kind of Twitter spaces and clubhouse. So look for that to become popular. They are currently rolling out a new format of content called carousel posts, which is a mix of images and videos that you can upload and that it smooshes them all together and presents it as one video.

:: 03:17

That's the kind of thing that's really going to appeal to. I think the Instagram and Tik TOK generation. So those things will be popular. And all of the new features that LinkedIn are releasing are for people who are in this new creator mode. So if you haven't turned that on, on your profile, I would recommend turning it on so that you've got the best chance of getting those new features first.

:: 03:39

And are you using those features done? Well, I don't, I've only just got audio rooms in the past week, so I would start my own, but I've been a guest on several and they work pretty well on desktop and on mobile, the carousels feature I don't have yet, but I will be trying it. So I'm just keeping in mind that the images and videos together are going to be big in the future.

:: 03:59

And I think LinkedIn is prioritizing super short form video. It's kind of the creeping Tik TOK realization of LinkedIn. So if you've got videos that are sub 20 seconds, they will automatically loop on LinkedIn. And I think that kind of content is going to be even more popular in the future. So I guess if you're already creating content for Tik TOK or Instagram wheels,

:: 04:20

potentially you could repurpose for Absolutely. You should be, you know, make your content go as far as you can so that you don't have to redo it for each new platform. Are there any features that you're not so keen on or you think that maybe we shouldn't pay so much notice to? I think LinkedIn live video has been disappointing in its performance.

:: 04:40

A lot of people are reporting low viewer numbers and traditional image posts as well. Don't seem to perform as well as things like document posts, which are potentially really funky and can pack in a lot of information and reinforce your visual brand. So document posts are cool. These new carousels will be cool, but I think maybe traditional image posts and live videos,

:: 05:04

maybe not quite so much. And can you explain what document pays staff for those people who don't a, Yeah, so LinkedIn allows you to create word documents, PDFs, or PowerPoints, and embed them into a post. And these things can be up to 300 pages long. If you imagine a really catchy visually branded PowerPoint that has just a few words per page,

:: 05:26

you could get a lot of people spending a lot of time clicking through and looking at all of those slides and LinkedIn is able to measure how much time you spend on each post as a kind of proxy for how good the quality of that post is. And obviously the more time you spend, the more valuable it seems to be in there for the more likely it is to get accelerated through the network.

:: 05:47

So documents are really a powerful medium that over the last three years, they've been my most successful performing type of post. How would you suggest people used those sorts of posts? So if you've got, for example, a top 10 tips, you could create a template, maybe using something like Canva with a nice opening slide, a nice call to action on the final slide.

:: 06:08

And then the guts of the post would be tip one, this, that, and the other, using a combination of some visuals and some texts you could do the whole thing in Canberra. If you wish that's much more compelling than just a text list or doing a rambling long video, it's more accessible and is a chance to reinforce your, your visual brand.

:: 06:28

So not many people use them either. And I think that's one of the reasons why when they do land in your feed, they tend to be a bit more popular. Another type of post that has been downplayed recently as polls. So when they launched, they were just all the rage. You can ask people to three or four options. These days polls are appearing in my feed a lot less than the view counts for those things are a lot lower.

:: 06:49

So they've kind of had their day and I wouldn't recommend overusing that type of content. Well, I'm glad you've said that the case I made an episode on how much I hated LinkedIn polls, because I felt like every time I logged into LinkedIn, I was just saying, it's really pointless. And I'm somebody who likes to ask engagement questions. But when I ask the question,

:: 07:08

I genuinely wants to know the answer, but it felt like people were saying things like, should I make a cup of tea? Like, what should I watch on TV tonight? But not really genuinely. They were literally just asking anything. And I did a poll actually, which was LinkedIn polls. And it did get quite a lot of engagement, but it just felt to me like people were getting a bit lazy and because it was a newish feature,

:: 07:32

they were thinking, oh, well, I can just get loads of comments and likes. I'm glad that you've said that that's gone down because it was actually putting me off going onto LinkedIn. Cause it was just so banal, everything I saw she saw And that speaks to one of the tips I often give people is to make sure that you curate your feed as much as possible so that you don't get that irrelevant stuff because it will just put you off the whole platform.

:: 07:56

So if someone is consistently putting out something that you don't resonate with, there is an unfollow button and they won't get a notification. And that just tightens up your feed and make sure that if you're logging in for 20 minutes a day, you're going to see 20 minutes of quality per day. So for example, I've got almost 10,000 connections. I only follow about 700 people.

:: 08:16

So most of my connections, I don't follow because I want to keep my feed super relevant, entertaining, educational, and related to my enterprise and really nothing else. And it's interesting because I guess that's how things are going with tick-tock. And with Instagram reels, the, for you page is basically like if you watch a lot of stuff or you engage with a lot of stuff,

:: 08:35

it will show you more of that stuff. It's the same sort of concept really, isn't it. The more things that you interact with, the more the algorithm will learn, what you like. If you're spending lots of time commenting on a certain type of post, then you're more apt to see that kind of content in the future LinkedIn's algorithm, doesn't learn as quickly as tech talks,

:: 08:55

but the same basic principles apply. So you get more of what you interact with. So if you see something that you find objectionable, the best thing is probably to move on and maybe unfollow that person, if you were following them. The flip side of that argument of course, is that you might end up in an echo chamber where all you see is people who agree with you and say exactly what you want to hear.

:: 09:13

So there's an argument for saying that you should mix it up a little bit, but I'm too busy to be having lots of irrelevant stuff in my feed. So I try and keep it super relevant where possible. So what about diabet messages? Another thing that's really driving me nuts at the moment is every time I go to LinkedIn, I like every message I get is somebody trying to sell me something that doesn't feel like much in the way of genuine interaction and conversation.

:: 09:41

I think I messaged you about something. And I think this is the first proper conversation I've had with somebody what's going on with that. I think a lot of people have complained about this. I'm very picky about who I allow into my network. I do allow in males to come in and thankfully I don't receive very many salesy ones, but because I'm picky of who I allow myself to connect with,

:: 10:01

that kind of limits the opportunities for people to spam me off. I want to seen something good from you on your profile or through your content. That gives me a way of sending you a personalized message. And then I always try and start a personalized conversation afterwards. It might be text. It might be a voice note. It might even be a video and that's a lot of effort,

:: 10:21

but it means that people are much less likely to spam me back and I can build my relationships that way. And that's really one of the secrets of most success, which of course, I'll be talking a lot more about pat for you soon. I just don't engage with the spammers. I don't give them an opportunity to get in front of me as much.

:: 10:38

And I think stemming that tide is probably my best advice. So a takeaway for me,

and I think for anyone else, who's feeling the same as me is have a cleanup. So you have a clean up of your feed and who you're following, and this is going to help you make the time that you spend on the platform or productive. I mean,

:: 10:55

it's not just about pure numbers, you know, you could say I've got this massive network, but if most of those people are disengaged or they're writing stuff, that's not relevant to you, you'd be far better doing a coal. So that the average engagement of who's left is high. That means that observers can see, you know, you getting your fans interacting with you and they want to then become fans.

:: 11:18

So the pure numbers on their own don't tell the story. The average engagement rate is a much more important measure of how hard you're punching on the platform. I did actually do the same with Twitter. Recent next, I started my Twitter feed back when I was an education journalist. So I had a lot of people following me who were education organizations, not for profits.

:: 11:41

And some of those people I still want to stay connected with, but I really had to go through it and think this is who I was and what I was doing for work quite a long time ago. And it took, and it took like a little bit of work every day to do it, but it's definitely worth the effort because I'm having much better conversations with people on there.

:: 12:00

I think sometimes we tend to think about the people that we follow, but we also have to think about sometimes we're moving people that follow us as well, because so that we're teaching the algorithm, the people that, that we want to interact with and he's content we want to say, Yeah, curation is really, really super important here. And if you can do it little and often,

:: 12:20

especially when you're early in your journey, it's kind of tending your garden rather than just letting it overgrow and then having this massive problem of how am I going to kill all of these weeds as it were so start curating as soon as you can. And if you're at the start of your journey, all the better, because you can grow mindfully and organically with people you're likely to care about and who are likely to care about you.

:: 12:43

So we're going to talk more about your journey on LinkedIn. I want to save a really good juicy stuff for your talk at courageous content live. We'll talk more about that later, but I want to talk a little bit about what you see working. So the accounts that you engage with, the ones that work really well, what are they doing? That's different to people who are just pumping the feed with useless stuff that nobody engaged with,

:: 13:05

with The ones that work best for me are the ones that have a very, very clear message, a very clear and simple, personal brand being built, where you've got consistent colors, consistent wording, and a consistent topic. And the people I remember most of those who turn up on video. So that's just a massively powerful thing because what I would call the content density of video is really high.

:: 13:30

You can pack a lot of meaning and emotional engagement in a video that you just can't in writing. So the people I remember those who turn up on video and beyond that, the people who actually reply to your comments and who get in the DMS with you, those are the ones that you build relationships with. And those are the ones ultimately who you're more likely to refer.

:: 13:51

And they're more likely to refer you. So a clear personal brand being known for one thing and actually talking to people through comments and DMS, all of this stuff takes time and you can't really automate any of that, to be honest with you. And that's why maybe a lot of people don't succeed, but those are the things that work best. And if someone was getting started on LinkedIn,

:: 14:12

I say, getting started for their business. What would be the four we've talked about curation. That would be one thing today, straight off, what would be the next thing you talked about consistency of colors and would it be sort of cleaning up your profile? I think the most important thing to get right is the opening bit of your headline, because that's the bit of text that follows you all around LinkedIn,

:: 14:33

along with your photo and your name. So whenever you drop a comment or make a post, that's what people see as their hook into your universe to got to get that right. And it's not easy to do so you've got to get that right. And then you've just got to increase the amount of comments that you leave on relevant posts for your industry,

:: 14:50

because that is the fastest accelerant for visibility on LinkedIn is to leave comments on relevant discussions. And the ideal world scenario is you go and find someone who's got an existing following. They've just posted something that you know about and that you drop one of the first comments with authority, supportiveness reinforcing your personal brand. And people will see that who would never have heard of you before.

:: 15:13

And if you've got a good hook on that headline, they will click through to your profile. And that's how you start building relationships and visibility on LinkedIn. Okay. It's a couple of things about that being so on Instagram, you can automate the, you can follow people so that you get an alert when they post new posts. Can you do that on LinkedIn?

:: 15:31

Yeah. Karen, there's a new feature called the bell so that if you follow someone already and you click the bell, then you'll get a notification every single time they post. All right. Okay. The other part of that was two parts. The other one is that hook or that headline. I find a lot of people tend to use very often quite technical language.

:: 15:48

Often quite, just jargon. Rarely though, like as coaches are the worst, the worst I should, especially to put it like that, but they say something like, you know, I help women to connect with their in a something, and it doesn't really mean anything, but it is really hard to find that killer one-liner, isn't it, As you need something that is going to peak people's interest while still grounding them in the environment you work in.

:: 16:15

So for me, I've boiled mine down to relentlessly helpful LinkedIn nerd, which is differentiated, but at least gives you an idea of what kind of work I might do. And getting to that, as I say, isn't easy, you know, you can't really read the label of the jar you're in, as they say, so you might need some help on that branding angle.

:: 16:35

But those first 40 characters also of your headline are, are privileged digital, real estate. So if you fill that with something like I help busy business owners to.dot, dot, well, you haven't told anyone anything, try and get to the point as much as possible. And if you can use strong verbs, strong adverbs, something that is differentiated, but still actually relevant that you could back up in a conversation.

:: 16:59

That's the point where you want to get to so that people remember you can go, yes. It's like, oh, who does that thing? And once you're in that space and especially if you can create something that people echo that that's really powerful. If you can do that, then you're really on the path to success. Well, the way then Leslie,

:: 17:17

helpful LinkedIn. I think everyone who knows you knows that. Did you come up with that yourself? Well, that was the relentless. The helpful thing was a bit of luck. I was on stage with Mark Shaffer and he was asking me how I was going to stay relevant in the future. And I said, I'm going to create relentlessly helpful content. I hadn't planned that then that never said that phrase before,

:: 17:36

but I said it. And then people in the audience reacted to it. And I just used on that for a few days. And that became my kind of brand identity. That is what prompted me to write my book because I thought I got lucky here. I came out with something, it just magically worked. I don't want others to have to go through that.

:: 17:52

You know, have to wait for a moment of inspiration. There is a way of working towards what your personal brand should be. So that's basically what content DNA's all about, but if you can get that and if you can get people to echo your words back to you, then as I say, that's really powerful And I'm putting you on the spot here and we will put a link to John's book,

:: 18:09

contact DNA in the show notes so that you can go and check that out. But putting you on the spot, Toshi here, he doesn't know what I'm calling asking. Are there any LinkedIn, what do you call it? Actually that, that first headline, the first few words, the LinkedIn headline, clever that isn't it. So are there any that you remember from other people that you can just realize?

:: 18:31

I can remember, like for example, my friend, who's a video content creation queen. She's the queen of video, easy peasy, Julian, Whitney. So she always talks about making video easy peasy. She always puts that in a headline, always reinforces it in a content. All of our content is about making video less scary. I'm always going to remember someone like that.

:: 18:51

So a simple message is much more memorable than something complex and fancy. And you know, you might've been taught in school to use big words and long sentences, but actually a simple message sounds more authoritative and it's more memorable. So simplify as much as you can and distill your message. And if you can get something that trips off the tongue and is memorable and differentiated.

:: 19:13

Yeah. I agree with you. I want you to talk about the commenting because I've got some people that follow me on social media and whenever I post something, I play something like, yes, content is very important or thank you for showing up and giving so much value. And I think, oh, why are you even bothering? But there is an art to commenting.

:: 19:34

And I think you do this very well. I want you to, if you could talk a bit about that. Yeah. You got to think when you're leaving a comment, could this comment have just been a like, cause if it could, it probably isn't enough value to be worthy of making it into a comment, but a comment is a chance to yes.

:: 19:50

Showcase some authority, but also to support and honor the thrust of the discussion to do anything else would be like going to a party and saying, oh, this party's a bit boring. Why don't you come over to my party? Here's a link to my website, by the way, you know that that is not good for them. So you have to understand what the post is about and whether you have something supportive and authoritative to say in a way that doesn't detract from the poster in any way.

:: 20:18

And if you can do that, then pick your spots wisely because a proportion of what you write will be seen by the people who follow you and by other people who aren't even in your network who are following the other person. So it's not just about the posts you put out, but also comments are content. And so you have to be careful about what you write and pick your spots wisely.

:: 20:39

And actually some of my best comments where I can see people are reacting to this comment and there's sub comments off the back, I've made a note of, and those are the things that are then informed future posts. And indeed, they've actually informed chapters of my book. So just remember the comments are content too, and they're an opportunity for you to see what resonates with people.

:: 21:00

And that can be an inspiration for future content ideas. It's really powerful stuff. And it's great for visibility. Yeah. It's got to be genuine and you've got to actually respond to the post haven't you. And the other thing I think that it probably leads us nicely to is about creating content that people actually want to comment on because your posts, sometimes they get hundreds and hundreds of replies.

:: 21:22

Yeah. So it would be good for you to talk about why they do in your opinion, but also like how do you create content that people want to reply to what makes hundreds and hundreds of people come and comment on your LinkedIn and post? Okay. So I won't give you chapter and verse on what's in the book, but there's a framework in there that I call chair,

:: 21:39

which stands for challenging, helpful amusing, interesting, relevant. That's the kind of content that tends to get hot meds on LinkedIn. But the top tips here are that if you have more conversations with your audience, so, you know, what's relevant to them in the first instance that will give you inspiration about what kind of content will serve their needs. If you end your posts by asking a pertinent question,

:: 22:03

that isn't just a fast aisle agree question, mark, you know, but actually something where people feel as though they're being invited into the campfire conversation to genuinely share their thoughts. That's a great way of engaging comments and also to make sure that you're around so that you can respond to any early commenters so that other people can feel as though, if I'm going to write a paragraph,

:: 22:27

he's actually going to reply because the worst thing in the world is when you actually think about posts and you reply and the content creators gone off on holiday or something, And Then you just feel disenfranchised by that. And the last tip I suppose, would be, if you can create content where perhaps, you know, that you're deliberately leaving something out. So the example I often give is maybe I'm talking about email platforms and I might say MailChimp versus convert kit.

:: 22:54

And then that deliberately leaves out. There were loads of other providers and people might go on, but what about this? And I've tried this and this is a good tool. And I tried that and I didn't like it. So it's a chance to just have more of a chat. And the more that you can support by replying to comments and also in DMS as well,

:: 23:10

if you can build relationships behind the scenes, people will be just much more apt to want to support you. And if you can go out and support them first, even better, it's that idea of reciprocity. You know, you give something first, a proportion of people will come back and want to support you. If you can do all of those things on a consistent basis,

:: 23:28

then you'll produce something that is common worthy. I guess some people would look at people with businesses like ours, where we are teaching. So you're often sharing content, which is that you might be talking about an experiment. Like I remember one of yours, which I think I've used as an example for my clients is when you've done an experiment on where the text posts were more effective than text and image posts.

:: 23:51

And it was really detailed. It spend ages on it and there were a stats and there were, you know, it was really interesting. It was really, really helpful. And people were really sort of getting involved in the conversation, asking questions, follow-up questions, sharing their experiences. And I guess I'm often creating content where you're educating and you're helping.

:: 24:09

Whereas I will get clients who say to me, well, yeah, I'm a dress designer. What advice would you have to those people who maybe it isn't immediately obvious how they might build a community on the platform. And I think I deliberately say community there because I think that's what we have to think about. Isn't it not just getting people to reply to us?

:: 24:28

It's like, how can I build a community on this platform? Yeah, Yeah. I suppose, first of all, don't underestimate the power of the curse of knowledge, where you're going to know a lot more about your subject than the person who's reading or viewing your posts. So don't be afraid to start with really simple subjects and get the ball rolling with that,

:: 24:46

you know, encourage as many comments as you can, and just make people feel heard so much of it as just people not feeling heard. And so if you can empathize with them, answer their questions, ask them, follow up questions, make them feel listened to that. Just makes people want to opt in. If you've got a product-based business, you've got such an advantage,

:: 25:06

honestly, because you can show how your product is made. I saw one guy who makes custom glass frames for reading glasses, and he just shows how his glasses are being made. And you never see that anywhere. And that makes you want to go and buy the glasses because he's showing behind the scenes. And anything that that goes behind the scenes is really powerful stuff.

:: 25:30

Like why have you made a certain business decision? Whether it's a product or service, you could say, here's my thinking behind this. Here's how this service is constructed. Here's you know how it really helps people here, the people that it's affected and they're just keep it as conversational and chatty as possible. And if you can do that, as I say,

:: 25:48

through comments and DMS, that that is really the secret to, to building your presence and getting people to care about you in the long-term. Yeah. And there's the other guy, the Shoemaker guy. Does she make a Simon Simon? What's the Sunday. Summer born. Yeah. So he spoke at my event last year, but he actually speaks a lot and this has just be something probably interesting to finish up on is he speaks a lot about his mental health journey.

:: 26:09

There's a young girl whose name I've forgotten, who has spoken a lot about her mental health journey and some quite personal stuff. And I don't see that as something that, that you particularly do in your own content, you feel the relentlessly helpful LinkedIn, but I see other people do it very successfully. What are your thoughts on that? Yeah, I think you just need to decide where you are on the spectrum of,

:: 26:34

I'm not going to tell people anything at all about my private life versus someone who just basically lives in public. And I think both ends of the spectrum are probably dangerous places to be you either not really revealing anything of yourself at all, in which case you're essentially a stranger or you're revealing so much that it might actually actively be putting people off. So you need to decide where on the spectrum you want to turn up.

:: 26:57

But I think wherever you do turn up, the important thing for me is if you've defined your brand identity well enough, you get a chance to layer your personality into everything that you do. And that means sometimes you can drop in a hint that, you know, yeah, I'm taking my daughter out for lunch today and it's just, it's not, it's not as if your posts are about that,

:: 27:15

but you can just give people hints about what you care about. You can mention football. If you like football, you can mention films. If you like films and just layer into comments and DMS and, and just convey some personality, some sense of humor without actually making things just overtly about those topics. Just so that the people who actually do engage and invest in following,

:: 27:36

you can get to know you a bit more. Cause I think we remember people once we care about them. So you got to give people an opportunity to care about you. And that means turning up on a regular basis and not just being a hundred percent about business. I think that you're leaving money on the table if you do that. Yeah. And I think sometimes people think,

:: 27:56

oh, sharing anything personal means I have to share everything. It's that one though, you get to decide if you're sharing something for clicks or likes or whatever. And there isn't a genuine intention there to educate or to help. I think that's when people fall on their face, I think. Yeah. So you don't, you don't have to live in a glass house,

:: 28:14

but the things that you do show off, you know, the windows into your house should be authentic views of, of what it's really like. So you shouldn't be making up stories just because you saw someone else do it. And it looks like that would work for me because people will smell out a rat pretty quickly. I think so. Yes. It's up to you to decide.

:: 28:32

But when you do show up with those stories, make them as authentic as possible. And finally, what kind of content do you think shouldn't be on LinkedIn? You know what, I don't really think that any content shouldn't be on LinkedIn, the whole LinkedIn police thing that doesn't get me at all. Cause I think in the future, all social media will converge.

:: 28:52

Like all the platforms will have all of the features and you'll be able to say whatever you want. And if people don't like that, there's another channel you can tune into. But the people who do like it will resonate with you. And I think it's okay for your content to be divisive. You know, some people really don't like you, that's probably a good sign because you're doing something interesting.

:: 29:13

The flip side of that is that there will be some people who absolutely love what you do. So this whole thing of, I don't want to see this on LinkedIn. Well to now then think there's anything that shouldn't be on there. Yeah. If people took more notice of the stuff that they do, but post on Facebook, like, you know,

:: 29:28

I had a missing half and everybody was interested in my missing cat and everybody was trying to find my missing cat. I'm not saying that you should be posting for your missing cat, but it's just reflecting on the things that you have posted about and people have cared about in your personal social media. And I think often people sort of feel like they have to switch modes,

:: 29:45

but remember these are real people just because they, you know, it's a professional environment. It doesn't mean that these aren't real people who have kids and families and cats and dogs. And for me, it isn't about necessarily replicating that, putting your lost out on LinkedIn. But it's more just thinking like, what are the things that people respond to and care about and how can I bring more of that into my professional content?

:: 30:07

I think. Yeah. But sometimes I was going to say as well that sometimes the post that you spend five minutes just ranting about over lunchtime, that you haven't planned at all, but something's really annoyed you. Or it's a high touch emotion kind of thing or something personal. Those things can absolutely bang on LinkedIn, you know, and they can make you memorable,

:: 30:26

you know, maybe potentially for the wrong reasons. But actually if someone remembers you and associates an emotion with something and, and resonates with what you're saying, you just become all that, more human to them. And that that's kind of the key to being remembered. And I feel a lot of the content I see on LinkedIn is I just don't really care that much about it.

:: 30:44

And I think, I feel like the people who've created it don't care about it either. So why would I care about it if you've got your VA just to write a load of crappy posts that you know, like, like everybody else says, oh, you know, don't make sense. Like there, it's not clear what the point is. It's not clear what the call to action is.

:: 31:00

Like, if you don't care about your content enough to really spend time and try and create engaging content, like why would I care? And I think that can be quite hard, hard lessons learned. But anyway, we can talk about this stuff, but what can people expect from you and courageous content live? Cause you're gonna be speaking at my, as my annual content marketing the band.

:: 31:18

And I should say at this point, but I, I begged Sean to, I actually did send John a LinkedIn messages. So John I've asked you so many times now it's getting embarrassing. I'm like, but I'm not going to ask you. Like, I guess it's like, it's like asking someone out and then they'd like, keep rejecting you. But I had asked Sean a few times and he,

:: 31:36

and I think you were making a few books to come out or whatever it wasn't the right time. So I did actually beg John to be a speaker. So yeah. W what can people expect me having begged you to speak? Yeah, well, I think I'll talk about what I've learned about building a presence on LinkedIn over the past five years from going from someone who is just really trying to get a few more leads for a copywriting business through to someone who is now actively running a monetized community and teaching small business owners,

:: 32:05

how to do the same sort of thing themselves. So I'll be giving you my history and the lessons that I've learned and sharing tips about how much time I spent creating content. What kind of content really works, how you build relationships in an organic and ethical way so that people care about you and just defining a personal brand that people can you remember. I hope you found this interview useful,

:: 32:33

and you now understand why I begged John to speak at courageous content life in 2023. I think you'll find it so useful to hear how John has monetized his investment on LinkedIn via, and then the Xi community, and in a number of other ways and how we balance the, as the public facing content he creates for LinkedIn. Whereas the content he creates for his membership,

:: 32:54

if you've ever been to any of my live events before you'll know our speakers are basically part of the community. We ask them to stick around for the full event to attend all the sessions and join us at our socials and drinks. So if you want to ask me a question, then there should be plenty of opportunities to do so if you haven't heard about courageous content live,

:: 33:13

it's my annual content marketing event. As far as I'm aware, it's the biggest event of this size happening in the UK in 2023. And not only will you get your 20, 23 content plan created at the event. Yeah, we absolutely do that. And you'll also be the first to get your hands on my 2023 courageous content planner. You'll also get to hear from some of the world's leading content marketing experts,

:: 33:35

some of whom have already been interviewed on the podcast. And I will add links to those in the show notes. So you'll hear how to grow and monetize a YouTube channel with David Bennett, how to find a content niche that makes you stand out from the crowd with metaphors while black podcast host Karen Arthur, you'll hear how to create viral and trending social media content from lad Bible,

:: 33:55

senior writer, Dominic Smithers. And I'm really not underestimating when I say that lab mobile really do no. I think we'll tell you about creating, engaging social media content. You'll learn how to stop worrying what people think and just bloody waste it with podcast hosts and Instagram specialists, Helen Perry, and has a build a thriving Facebook community with being freelance found it,

:: 34:15

Steve performance, whatever you need to know, content wise to grow your business in 2023 and beyond, you'll be able to find out more about it at courageous content, live social media, email marketing, blogging, live streaming, YouTube launch planning, launch strategy. If it has anything to do with growing your business on line, it's covered at courageous content live.

:: 34:40

So if you'd like to be part of the UK biggest content marketing event, at least to my knowledge in November, then I will put a link in the show notes. It's courageous content live, and I would love to see you there.