1557 – Linkedin Over Social Media with Karen Yankovich

0:28Hey there, thoughtful listener. million in revenue. Just head to upmyinfluence.com and watch my free class on how to create endless high-ticket sales appointments. You can even chat with me live and I'll see and reply to your messages. Also, don't forget, the thoughtful entrepreneur is always looking for guests. Go to upmyinfluence.com and click on podcast. We'd love to have you.

0:59with us right now it's karen yankovich karen you are the host of the good girls get rich podcast you are a linkedin strategist um you're also the founder of she's linked up you're doing a lot of work um linkedin strategy for women uh and you were found on the web at karen yankovich.com karen thank you so much for joining us. Oh, Josh, I'm so happy to be here with you today. Thanks so much for having me. You and I were chatting before we hit record and I was sharing with you. I'm like, there's just so much chaos. It feels, um, whether we're talking about, um, certainly Twitter, right. I have a hundred thousand Twitter followers that I don't know what the ever loving heck to do with.

1:44So I, yeah, yeah. Twitter is a, I love Twitter, but it's definitely in a weird place right now. Yeah. And you know, that Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, there just seems to be a lot of chaos around a lot of those platforms. And I just have to say like LinkedIn is, it's like a no drama just seems to continue. Like I don't have problems with things like, I mean, the, the, the, the community, the, like the guidelines are just so much simpler to work with. Like, it's just so rare that I'm talking with someone and they say, oh, uh, I'm, you know, I've been shadow banned or, oh, I've been, um, it doesn't do that.

2:26Yeah. Right. Right. Or, you know, or, um, you know, I've been deplatformed for a week or something like that for violating the terms and people are kind of shrugging their shoulders. Like I have no idea what I did. And it's just like, there's no support, but yet I feel like I get, I don't have those issues with LinkedIn. And I feel like, you know, LinkedIn has maybe just been this sleeping giant for many of us that we're really not using to the extent that we should be. 100%, Josh, 100%. I mean, I have so much to say already about everything you just said, but I think primarily I would say this.

2:57One of the things that LinkedIn stands firm in is that you be you, right? And like, they're not on Capitol Hill talking about, you know, trying to defend themselves because they're, you know, they've got all these fake, and of course there's fake LinkedIn accounts. I mean, nobody can, you can't prohibit that. However, if you do get banned on LinkedIn, you know why. And 99 % of the time, it is because you let somebody else log into your account or you've got, you know what I mean? You're violating the terms of service. Their terms of service are clear. It needs to be you and, you know, not a bot and very few LinkedIn, LinkedIn allows its algorithm to connect with very few outside companies.

3:34And, And therefore, how can you take advantage of it? Because it is absolutely our money tree if we water it properly, if we take care of it properly. Yeah. Karen, I kind of went through your bio really quickly. Would you mind just kind of, and then we kind of got right into LinkedIn, just an overview of your work and how you work with folks and what you do. Yeah. So, you know, I've been around a while, a little bit longer than social media. And my background is in sales and marketing, but relationship marketing, right? Like, you know, who do I need to talk to to make this deal? Who do I need to talk to to bring these parties together to come to a win-win situation?

4:14So that's my background. So when social media and digital marketing kind of came to be, I, of course, it took me a little bit of time to embrace it, but I started to embrace it and I started to see, wow, like this is pretty cool. But even though I was kind of helping people with their digital marketing in general, I was driving people to LinkedIn because what I know is timeless is that people buy from other people, people, you know, relationships. I mean, we know we've heard all the cliches. It's not what you know, it's who, you know, you're, you're the sum of the five people you surround yourself with.

4:44Like we know all of these things to be true. And then in our business, we're spending all this time, money and marketing dollars on all these other platforms. Right. So I was driving people to LinkedIn saying, okay, before we start branding your business, let's brand you, let's make sure you Josh are branded because the world we live in now we are listen you don't have to you don't have a well I guess if you have a Lexa in your living room you do have a camera in your living you don't have to necessarily have a camera in your living room but you get to choose people to know about you and they're going to search you they're going to throw your name in a google search and one of the ways you can control what comes up about you is how you show up on LinkedIn so so I started to just drive people there initially saying let's let's make this solid first, and then we can work on all the other things.

5:25And what I found was, you know, it still works, right? It's timeless marketing. You know, when you ask, if I ask a hundred people, where did you get your biggest client from? How did you sign your biggest contract? They're almost every one of them is going to say from a referral. Very few of them say, because they saw me on Twitter, you know, now that's, that wasn't always the case. I used to get a lot of business from Twitter. I mean, random people would reach out to me and say, you know, I call you on Twitter. It doesn't happen anymore. And not the way it used to happen. I think, I think, and I, so, so to get back to where I, how I ended up where I am, I started focusing people initially on LinkedIn.

6:02And then I just started being asked to speak about LinkedIn and talk about LinkedIn. So I started to niche my business down because one of the things that I learned, and I'm sure, and I know you learned, and hopefully your listeners have heard before, is that in digital marketing, you know, if you niche, you know, the more you niche, the more you're going to be known, the more well-known you'll be for what you do. Right. So so when I taught social media in general, if somebody needed a speaker for their conference for social media, my name would get tossed out with 100 other people. Now, when somebody says I need a speaker for my LinkedIn speaker for my women's conference, 100 people say you need to call Karen.

6:35Right. So so I started to niche my business down on LinkedIn, more specifically, just LinkedIn strategy in general. And then I even niche it down even further, which we really haven't talked about yet. I don't know if we'll have time to talk about it, but I also think when you're building relationships on LinkedIn, you want to consider building relationships with journalists, with the media. So I really focus on helping people create a strong brand and meet the kinds of people that can elevate their brand. And those people aren't always clients. Sometimes they're the people that write about what you do, the podcast hosts that talk about what you do.

7:07If you're back to throwing your name in a Google search, if you put my name in Google, 20 pages come up. And that is deliberate because I meet the journalists that write about what I do. And I deliberately build relationships, not just with people that I want to take their credit card from, but people that can elevate my brand. So that when I am talking to people about a service that I offer, it substantiates my credibility. So as years went on, I focused more and more on LinkedIn and then really dove even deeper into the LinkedIn and PR piece, because I think that that is just overlooked as we're building our brands.

7:41yeah that kind of led to where i am today you know and and just a quick second on you know link my podcast good girls get rich rich or linkedin for women i just feel like women are underserved in this market i think women need to feel more included so we don't exclude men i don't really care what your body parts are how you identify i just think i want women to feel more included on this on this platform and that's really why we focus that way yeah uh karen let's talk about the power of a really well-designed, written, formatted LinkedIn profile. It is the, I just commented on one of your posts there.

8:20I think, listen, I think LinkedIn profiles, this is, here's a little insider secret. As a host, I get all these media kits and stuff, whatever it's sent to me. I seldom look at them. I pull up people's LinkedIn profile. And the reason why for me is it gives me a, I know how to read a LinkedIn profile. I know where everything is. It's not fluff. It is generally a really good for most professional business leaders. It should be a great 411 about who you are, your authority, your background, your expertise, why I should get to know you personally, as opposed to just, just following your content. Like why should we personally connect.

9:04Like that's what I get from a LinkedIn profile, but I'll let you take it from there. No, you're, you're so right, Josh. You're so right. And it's so funny because I'm, I'm in a place right now in my business that I'm so, and this is not, does not apply to this conversation, but I'm almost at the point. I'm like, Oh, why are we still talking about? Do I need a great LinkedIn profile? Of course you need a great LinkedIn profile. Like, can we start talking about strategy? Because you know, like, let's make like, if this piece isn't done, so like to your, to your point, if I'm looking to do business with somebody or, or to interview them for my show or to, to partner with them in any way, shape or form, if they haven't done that work, I just keep moving.

9:40Do you know what I mean? So, so I guess right now, you know, I, you're, you're leaving money on the table. If you're not doing this, people are moving on to other people. So, so I think that, you know, one of the things we need to remember is that so many people to this day still look at LinkedIn as like their online resume. And your resume is all about who you used to be, right? Your LinkedIn profile should be positioning you as the person you're stepping into, right? The person you're becoming, like kind of dressed for the job you want. I don't want you to fake it, right? I don't want it to be, you know, I don't want it, I want it to be authentic, but also really project into the future, the person you want to show up as.

10:19And that's what I want to see there. I don't care if you know Word or Excel. Like, I don't care. like what I want to know is why why do I want to know you tell me why I should know you and I need to see that on your LinkedIn profile and I think that's one of the biggest mistake people make is that they focus if they make it very resume centric instead of brand centric and and in this really noisy world like I think kind of think what happened in the when the world went virtual is that the virtual world just the noise blew up and I think that's one of the reasons why LinkedIn stood the test of time and the other platforms got like, what the heck, right?

10:56So even more so your profile needs to stand out because while you're on, like, let's say you're in a Zoom networking meeting. If you were in an in-person networking meeting, you're not walking around with your phone, like checking people out, right? But if you're in a Zoom networking meeting, I bet you're doing, I mean, I know I am, I'm checking out some of the people. And if you don't check out, I just move on, right? So we have to do our jobs and show up the way we want people to see us. So your profile is not optional anymore. Whether or not you ever do an ounce of strategy beyond that is up to you, but your profile is not optional.

11:30Whether you own a business or you work for a company or it doesn't matter. We live in a world where we have a personal brand. You can either take control of it and have a great LinkedIn profile, or you can let the internet take control of it and get the luck of what comes up when people throw your name in. You know, and I think most people don't realize that, or maybe they don't think like, So vanity search results matter. If I, let's say that I'm listening to a podcast and then I want to Google the host. If your LinkedIn, I mean, unless your name is John Smith, sorry, it's going to be a little bit tougher, perhaps, unless, you know, again, people know that and then they anticipate adding some additional keywords in there.

12:12But if you search right now, I know to our friends listening right now, if you search Karen Yankovich or you search Josh Elledge on Google, I can tell you this for sure. Page one is going to include my LinkedIn profile. Absolutely. So if we think about sales and what are all the moves on the chessboard that your potential client or customer might do if you are involved in whatever, right? You know, having to do with that product service. Like, again, most sales and business is human to human. So I want to know who I'm working with. And so if you want to head them off at the pass, as they say, right, just anticipate that all of your customers are going to be looking at you.

12:59And you, Karen, let me ask you this. How much control does LinkedIn give you over what appears on your LinkedIn profile? 100 % control. 100 % control, right. They give you a free billboard at the top of your profile. You could put anything in that cover art that you want. and uh so like i love yours i go go to our friends listening go search me on linkedin go see what i do i don't know that it's the best but i know it doesn't matter it doesn't matter it needs to feel updated needs to go fresh you can update it all the time and i'm and i don't say that from a add more things to your to-do list standpoint i'm saying that from a if you're if this is what you're doing right now showcase that and if in six months you decide i just don't want to do that anymore, then you can shift it.

13:45It's not Mount Rushmore. It's not chipped and you can change it. So understand that it's the shifting dynamic of it is what makes it brilliant for us. What is it today that you want people to know about you when they search your name? And make sure that's what you've got showing up on your LinkedIn profile. And by the way, LinkedIn is doing a great job for us right now and helping us with that. They gave us LinkedIn creator mode about a year ago, where we can now shift our profile around and showcase our own content and they gave us the featured section so we can show up. What is it we want to feature on our profile?

14:16They've given us the ability to do short little videos in places. So LinkedIn's making it easier for us. We just have to take advantage of it and stand out from our competitors. And it is one way that we absolutely can do that. When we want to use LinkedIn to connect with partners, potential clients, that sort of thing, do you recommend getting Sales Navigator and you know, kind of doing an outreach approach in the DMs or a little bit more? So, so yes and no. So here's the thing. I still say I love Sales Navigator, Sales Navigator, because like I said earlier, LinkedIn does not allow many companies to partner with their, with their algorithm, with their API.

14:59So why not? Let's, let's, let's invest in whatever LinkedIn gives us, right? Because at the end of the day, if Sales Navigator saves me three hours a month, that's well worth the money I pay for it. Right. So, so I do love sales navigator. That being said, I think every time LinkedIn does an update to their free version, it makes sales navigator less, less necessary. Like a lot of the things that I loved about sales navigator in the beginning, LinkedIn is starting to incorporate into their, like, for example, giving you the opportunity to add a bell. Like if I want to know anytime you post Josh, I can ring your little bell under your profile and it'll post anytime you post, it'll show up in my wall.

15:31You used to only able to get that when you added them to a sales navigator list. now we can so we can do things with the free version I do still love sales navigator and for real LinkedIn users just for search parameters like for example if you're you know you're doing a conference you can you can use a zip code like within 50 miles of a zip code and do outreach as opposed to New York metro area which gives you you know 100 miles around New York City which is crazy right so there's a lot of things you can do that is with sales navigator you can't do with LinkedIn proper. The other half of your question, do I recommend doing cold DMs?

16:04Absolutely never, you know, because I don't think we ever need to. I don't think we ever need to. I mean, the coldest DM I might do might be, hey, we're both in the, you know, New York City area. And I see that we both do this. I'd love to learn more about who you are and what you do. But I would never be pitching them cold because I don't think we need to. I think that there's just so many places, you know, like if Josh, if they feel like you are a center of influence and as you are, right. What they might like, what I might do, and I'm just making this up right here, right now, I might look at your podcast and say, who has Josh interviewed in the last year?

16:38And now that outreach is, I heard you on Josh's podcast. And I loved when you said A, B and C, I'd love to connect with you here on LinkedIn. Right. So rather than like, everybody thinks they need to do this on in this like massive, like at a hundred a day level. No, I like five a week. In fact, I, students in my program, I spoke to one student this morning and she's like, she does like, she said, I can't even get to my five a week because what she's, the research she's doing, she's doing it in such a warm targeted way that she's getting a warm response to every single outreach she does. So, you know, that's what I want.

17:08I don't want you to spin your wheels with all this cold outreach. I would much rather you were really, really targeted in your outreach. I mean, time's what I just said to you by every virtual conference out there, every actual conference out there. When you go to conferences, do you connect with the speakers? Do you connect with other attendees? Are you tagging them in your posts and showing them that you show up? I teach this stuff at conferences, Josh. And I show up at conferences, so if you guys ever see me, you can ask me for one, with a stack of Dunkin' Donuts gift cards. And I give one to everyone in the audience that connected with me ahead of time.

17:39I promise you I am not going to go broke giving out Dunkin' Donuts gift cards. because people don't do this, right? But if you are the one doing this, if you're connecting with the speakers before the conference and saying, I'm really looking forward to seeing your talk, the speakers will remember you, right? Now you're going to get a lot more out of the conference. So, I mean, at a really high level, that's my answer to, should I call DM people? If you run out of all those people, sure, give it a try. But I don't think you're going to run out. If you flip it and say, how warm can I get with this outreach?

18:07I don't think you're going to run out. I love it. Karen Yankovich, your website is Karen Yankovich.com. And for someone that's listened to our conversation and they're like, okay, I want more Karen. What are their options? Obviously there's the podcast. This one's easy in your podcast app right now, podcast listener, just search for good girls, get rich podcast, Karen, you're the host. But then also at your website, what would you recommend people do? Yeah. Well, we have a free masterclass that's on demand. If you go to Karen Yankovich.com slash masterclass, or you just go to the website, you can find it there.

18:44And it basically just gives you, we're not selling anything on the website. I mean, on the masterclass, you can just, it just gives you an overview of the strategy that we teach, you know, and if it feels aligned with what you want to know more about, we give you an opportunity to book a call with us at the end of the, at the end of the webinar. But you can also connect with me on LinkedIn. If you want to learn more, DM me on LinkedIn, and I'm happy to, to chat with anybody that wants to learn more about how to do this. Yeah. Karen, wonderful. Thank you so much for joining us again, host of Good Girls Get Rich, the podcast.

19:18Of course, my recommendation, you could search Karen on LinkedIn, Karen Yankovich, or again, Karen, just go to your website, karenyankovich.com, where you have links to everything else that you do, one-on-one services, groups. If you're, you want to excel at LinkedIn and take advantage of the huge opportunity. Karen, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you so much for having me. I can, I'm I, anybody that wants to talk about this, I'm happy to talk about it with.

19:54Thanks for listening to the thoughtful entrepreneur show. If you are a thoughtful business owner or professional who would like to be on this daily program, please visit upmyinfluence.com slash guest. If you're a listener, I'd love to shout out your business to our whole audience for free. You can do that by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts or join our listener Facebook group. Just search for The Thoughtful Entrepreneur in Facebook. I'd love even if you just stopped by to say hi. I'd love to meet you. We believe that every person has a message that can positively impact the world. We love our community who listens and shares our program every day.

20:38Together, we are empowering one another as thoughtful entrepreneurs. Hit subscribe so that tomorrow morning, that's right, seven days a week, you are going to be inspired and motivated to succeed. I promise to bring positivity and inspiration to you for around 15 minutes each day. Thanks for listening and thank you for being a part of the Thoughtful Entrepreneur Movement.