Do you ever wonder what LinkedIn actually does or why it matters for your business? You’re not alone. Watch as Payge Gillig from the Jack Laurie Group shares how you can start using LinkedIn to get the word out about your business.
Here is the transcript from the presentation:
Jamie: Alrighty, So what we’re going to do now is go ahead and move on to our speaker. I’m gonna introduce, I, I met Payge last year through a group we’re involved with called Synergize, and she’s been a huge blessing to many of our lives. She is just a light in this world and you’re gonna see that here very soon. Why don’t you go ahead and dive in?
Payge: Alright, well I did kind of put together a slide show for us here, so let me go ahead and share this.
Payge: So, my big thing is, what is LinkedIn and what can it do for you?
Payge: So, I think the main thing is what, what can it do for us is, it basically shows our resume at all times. It’s kind of hard to tell people what are, what do I do? What am I good at?
Payge: And so, it’s a way that, not only are you maybe presenting yourself in that business realm with what your skills are and what your experiences are, but also people are able to review you. They’re able to say yes, you did this skill really well when you worked for me at this company or when we worked in a group. You did a really well job of, of communicating.
Payge: So actually, you know awarding those skills and experience is, so I think the main thing here would be that, you know, what does it say about you.
Payge: I think the biggest thing that LinkedIn first says is this background.
Payge: I work for Jack Laurie Group. Our tag logo is making spaces better places to work and live and I have our, our website on here. That’s just something that definitely is a must on everyone’s banner and those banners I’ve found are very easy to use on Canva, but you can get the sizes based on Google and you can make your own if you’d like.
Payge: That’s basically like your first impression, and then what is your statement here? What, what does this say about you?
Payge: So, making sure that there’s an action. So, what do you do? Where do you do it and how do you do it?
Payge: I’ll say that again, what do you do, where do you do it, and how do you do it, should be answered in this, so I act in the Indianapolis area to connect people together and provide a unique perspective to accomplish company and personal goals. That’s definitely what I do, where I do it and how do, I do it. And, then we definitely want to make sure that our contact information is on here.
Payge: So, when people are trying to get a hold of you, you know is this an old e-mail? Is this a newer e-mail? Is this a junk e-mail and I went away from it, my bad, go away.
Payge: So, that’s kind of what our first impression is, and so we want to make sure that we stand out.
Payge: I guess along with this is our About section, so knowing that, down here would be the about you. So, what are they going to have to go through?
Payge: They’re going to have to go through your recent activity. What are you doing? You know, in your day-to-day, you know? Have you posted recently? All of those things are going to impact what people think of you.
Payge: And then you’re going to get to the About section.
Payge: I have heard a lot of great things about maybe using emojis in this. I just personally don’t. That’s just not my way of doing business. I deal a lot with construction people on a daily basis, and so they’re not really emoji people, but I, I know for, maybe people that are trying to get their headshot taken and stuff like that, maybe you want to use the emoji with sunglasses, or you know the money symbol, if you’re dealing with money.
Payge: So, I kind of wanna reiterate, you know, my, my previous statement of who do, who do I help, how do I help them, things like that and what do I stand for?
Payge: So, you kind of want to give your more personal story here, so like, I believe in actions speaking louder than words. That’s something that I believe in personally that has nothing to do with my company.
Payge: I think a lot of times people want that about page to kind of be their one pager for a business. And that’s not necessarily what we would be trying to do here. The About section would be how are people going to connect with you. So, marketing manager, or, you know, what my values are. These are my values, so being able to even put in my, my specialties. These are my biggest specialties that I tend to work on or, but those are my skill sets. So, that’s kind of the About section in that, in a nutshell, is kind of like your story. And everyone has a story.
Payge: Then we go to Experience and a lot of times people think of this as like their resume almost, so like what is your experience? What is your education? So, those types of things?
Payge: And then we would be going down into the Skill Sets and I definitely recommend adding more and finding out, like, maybe what that job title that you have is and what do you do really well. And making sure that, you know, people are able to also endorse you.
Payge: And what I mean by endorse is, when someone else visited, visits your LinkedIn page, they have an option to say yes, this person is really good at communication, and they can endorse that, and so the more endorsements that you get, the better you look.
Payge: It’s and it’s kind of just validation, so I would recommend, you know, after doing a job with somebody, send them your LinkedIn, ask them to, you know, evaluate you a little bit more. So, that’s kind of more about how your profile would stand out and set you apart.
Payge: Do we have any questions on that?
Payge: OK, so I think the biggest thing is, like, how are we going to research companies.
Payge: And, and some of the big points about researching companies in particular is, you know, you want to get a hold of a company that needs headshots or something like that.
Payge: So, I’ve just kind of pulled up Purdue University, and if you pull up any company, they should have employees off to the side here and this is where you can click on the employees and you can search them. You can go to all filters, if you’d like, and then here you can say that I would like them to be in a specific department.
Payge: Maybe the title is director. So, now these directors also work for Purdue University, and so they’re able to, you’re able to connect with them. You see who else is connected with them, that maybe you can ask for a warm intro, that sorts of things, you know?
Payge: That’s basically how you search within a company and whoever you’re looking for. If you want to be even more specific, you just go to ‘all filters’ and you keep adding in here.
Payge: The connections, I should really touch on here, so, first connections are connections that you personally know, so I you’re already connected with them.
Payge: 2nd connections are, someone else knows them that you are connected to, and 3rd connections are people that you do not know and don’t have a connection to.
Payge: So, most of the time you want to put either second or first, but since we’re growing, we want to put second. So, then we also still have the current company as Purdue University. And then we also still have their title should still be director. And then, now I have 144 results. So, it’s gonna get less and less and then, this is when I just connect with them, and say hey it looks like I also know Don or, or Dora and I’m able to even kind of click into them and see, oops, I don’t know why that happened.
Payge: Let’s try someone else. So, all filters, let’s try second. We can just try Kevin, so I like to even, kind of, look at their, their, like, what do I have in common with them? That’s why I like to look at, like, ohh you went to Western Governors University. You, you were, uh, MBA, you are living in Lafayette, you know, do I have anything in common with this person? Or, maybe is there a different contact that would be better, you know, that I can connect with? So, that connection is very important.
Payge: Or you see in the, in their About section, they put a quote, quote, and your role as a leader is to bring out the best in others when they know more than you.
Payge: So, Sonia, I could be like hey, I really enjoyed that quote by Doctor Wanda Wallace. I believe that bringing out the best in others is something that I do. You know, that way that you have something to talk about when you do connect with them. And you send that.
Payge: Something else that I’ve kind of learned over time, just that this came up here is, there is the follow button. And that’s not the connection button, in the more is when you can find that that connect.
Payge: So, make sure that you do know the difference between following, would just be that their content comes up on your feed, whereas connect is, like, you’re actually connecting with them, and I guess befriending them in a way.
Payge: So, that’s how I do research within companies.
Payge: Now, if you’re going to just do a regular search, I recommend using these three words: and or, not and they are in all caps for a reason, and this is a way to just, kind of, maybe you don’t have a specific company that you’re going towards, but you do have a specific title.
Payge: So, for instance, maybe we are looking for, and we, and we use quotes for this, as well, so maybe we’re looking for a director AND a manager, director AND Indianapolis, let’s say. And you can use all caps if you want, and then you could say director AND Indianapolis.
Payge: That kind of makes sense, we’re looking for a director or a manager, that’s has to be in Indianapolis. That’s what we’re searching for.
Payge: So then when we get here, that’s when we can go to our ‘all filters’ and find that second connection that we’re looking for, you know, and we did say the location as Indianapolis, IN, but I’m just going to go ahead and make sure.
Payge: And then if you wanted to, you can do, talks about, you know, if there’s a certain specific, you know, maybe you need marketing for photos, I don’t know.
Payge: Is there a specific company? We didn’t have one. Past company? We don’t have one as well. You know, is there a specific school or are you trying to get close to? Somebody that you went to school with, there’s industry language, those types of things, but I kind of leave this open.
Payge: So, there’s 27,000 people that are a director or manager, that are in Indianapolis. So, you, kind of, want to, like, limit it. So, maybe we don’t want, or they’re not an owner or something like that. So, it went down only 1000 extra, but you end up using the and, or, and not as a way to specify who you’re looking for.
Payge: So, here’s where then I can dive into that research. Specifically, you would want maybe something a little bit smaller, so maybe we just want a manager in Indianapolis, but not an owner.
Payge: And see what those results are and make sure you go to ‘all filters’ and go to that second connection, that would be my number one hint for everybody.
Payge: And there’s 23,000, and it, it looks like, you know, this is an office manager. She may need headshots, you know something like that.
Payge: Another thing that I want to tell you is, when you do go to ‘all filters’, and down here with the title, if you insert their title here, it means that it has to be their current position.
Payge: Sometimes, if it says manager up here, it could mean that they were a past manager. So, there’s a difference between going to ‘all filters’ and typing that in up top.
Payge: So, this, kind of be can, can be a little tricky.
Payge: Does someone want me to do a trial run for something that they’re thinking of right now or is this pretty good? You’re able to kind of use that and, or, not in your own way. OK.
Payge: Just make sure to use- yeah?
Tanya: I have a question, but it seems appropriate. I started another business, but I’m still running the main business, and in my LinkedIn profile, my smaller business that I’m just starting is at the top of my profile and I’d like to push it down below what I do most of the time, so that I don’t confuse anyone about who I am and how I spend most of my time. So, is there a way to put the different businesses that somebody owns in a different order?
Payge: Yeah, so when you add that experience, are you saying when you added that experience, it went automatically to the bottom?
Tanya: It went to the top. So, Midwest, yeah, my, my main, this went to the second place and I want it to appear first.
Payge: Gotcha, I do believe that these are, are time sensitive, so noticing that it is to the present. So, if you wanted to you, you could always maybe change that time frame a little bit, because that’s what it’s kind of, it’s trying to put it in chronological order for you.
Payge: Umm, so that would be maybe something that you would put in the About section. And, I would maybe put it in here, where the first thing is that, hey I, I’m, I’m starting this new business, and then you’re able to. Ryan, do you have a trick?
Ryan: Yes, so when you’re looking at your work experience, if you hit the up down arrows, and, and so you don’t have it because you just have your, your one job experience there, if you have multiples, it’ll be just to the left of the plus, and if you click on that, it then opens a menu or you’re able to arrange them.
Payge: Ope, you’re on mute Tanya, I’m sorry.
Tanya: So, I found that arrow that you were talking about. And I tried pushing the down arrow and it still shows them in the same order, even though it says reorder in the left upper left corner.
Ryan: So, Tanya now you should see 4 horizontal lines at the right side of that pop up box and if you click and drag, you can reorganize them.
Tanya: I see OK, thank you that helps.
Payge: Mm-hmm always learning something new, trust me.
Payge: Yeah, I’m like there could be a way, but I would always also put that information in your About section, because I think that would be a really great way that people can learn more about it than just seeing it in your experience.
Payge: And of course your About comes before your Experience, so if you want to capitalize on that, I would definitely recommend putting that as well in your About section, and you could also do something where, up here you could have something where it has a line and has both businesses on each side.
Payge: You could, you could make this banner have both businesses on it, if you wanted to.
Tanya: Thank you.
Payge: Awesome, any other questions that have come up so far? OK.
Payge: Oh great, now, so, I definitely use a lot of LinkedIn for its involvement. I do love their webinars. I love reading articles. This is where you can repost a lot of old articles that are industry news and that kind of helps, like, make you a point of contact for that.
Payge: So, for instance, if you are in any groups, they should be listed off to the side over here. So, I mean, you may be a part of a group right now, but if not, you can always type in Indianapolis business. You don’t have to type that in, but, maybe it’s because it’s on all caps, because I’m spelling it wrong. Oh, because I’m in my group, right now, haha. There we go.
Payge: Through here up in the top, instead of going to ‘all filters’, you can click on groups and that’s where you’ll find the groups that you can involve yourself with. I’m sorry, I have pop-ups, I am not very good at figuring stuff out sometimes, one second. Here it is.
Payge: So, once I click groups, these are all the groups that are just known as being in Indianapolis. But, I’m also a part of construction, so construction. And then I can go to group. And these are all of the construction groups that you can be a part of, and again, you can go to ‘all filters’ and you should be able to do by location.
Payge: But, here I can always do this as well. I can always do construction and then do AND in groups, so there’s 9 results on construction and Indianapolis.
Payge: Maybe you want to do finance. And there’s 18 for finance and those that are in Indianapolis.
Payge: So, these are groups that I would opt in to join. And it does normally take the admin, like a day or two maybe, to add you, but I would recommend you see how this one has four members, maybe that one’s not as, as good as maybe 159 members. Maybe 366 might be too many. I don’t know. 61 is pretty good one here. That’s a pretty good group and then you get to read about them too. You can click into them, see what they’re all about, about this group.
Payge: You can maybe ask questions. So, the admin is always going to be up here in the right corner so you can always message them specifically. You can look into them, who they are, and then you can message them, or you can connect with them first.
Payge: And that would be what I, I would do to get into some of these groups.
Payge: For instance, maybe like webinars and, and other groups, that you’re wanting to be involved in those. I mean, if you wanted to look into webinars.
Payge: Hey Sonya, I see you.
Payge: I really enjoy just to kind of be involved in what other companies are involved with, like putting on certain webinars. So, I see, like, CLA is putting on a webinar February 15th and that’s when I go, I do need this for nonprofits or, you know, something like that. That’s kind of my, my go to.
Payge: There’s also this learning tab up here that I sometimes click on to, and so, learning would be other webinars or courses that I could take. So, I kind of use LinkedIn in that way of mastering communications as a leader. Like I said earlier, I love communication.
Payge: Of course, that’s going to pop up on my first thing here, so I just go to the learning tab or I just start searching. Those are my two big things for webinars, groups I, I get involved in and join and then I also, let’s see what else I put on here, groups, webinar. I guess one other thing too.
Payge: If you own a business is, like, this, work tab as well. Here you can post a job, if you’re, if you’re looking to do that for your team. If you’re, if you’re wanting to visit even more groups, or, you know, services in your marketplace. This would be another great tool.
Payge: It’s in Work, I like learning 1st and then working, but if you like to work and just trial and error, those are those options.
Payge: LinkedIn also has other business services, so, like, Sales Solutions, this kind of walks you through like how to post the job. If you want marketing help, there’s that option for you as well.
Payge: So, those are just tools that I would recommend, like taking 10 minutes a day and just trying one, because you’re not going to be posting a ton of jobs, I don’t think at first at least, but it’s probably something good that you have in your pocket. Yeah, so that’s what I get involved with.
Payge: I think the other thing is, is, would be posting, that we’re really trying to get involved with right, and posting is super important, so, here we have it on our homepage, to start a post.
Payge: Things that do the best are going to be your polls, cause people really like to give their opinion.
Payge: Videos everyone loves a good video nowadays, because reading can be hard, but also even though reading is hard, writing an article is also very helpful. It can help with SEO, just, kind of, in general, where you’re trying to bring up important information so you can write in response to an article and you can always put the link in the article.
Payge: You could say hey, I read recently read this article. Please go check it out and then you can also put your thoughts about that article. And that’s like an easy way to get content is just kind of putting your opinion behind industry news. Things like that.
Payge: So, again, polls are, are really something that’s a great option, just because they are some way that people can get their opinion out there, and, you know, we can add a video. We can add a document, which I have heard where PDFs are definitely great. If you can download a PDF, LinkedIn really likes PDF files.
Payge: Those three dots is where you can get the create a poll, so let me do that again just in case anyone missed that. So, the three dots down here, it says add to your post.
Payge: So here you have some of the same options, but create a poll. You can even create an event, so if there’s anything upcoming, like, you know, free headshots somewhere, or you know, a free financial booth, or you’re going to be at a conference, go ahead and put that out there.
Payge: All right, so that’s how I would post.
Payge: And, and making sure that, you know, you’re able to give your opinion, because that’s the most important. So yeah, that’s kind of where I would go to post.
Payge: Are there any questions on posting? Maybe the groups that I talked about off to the side here? Or the webinars in the learning?
Payge: Let’s see, there’s a chat. OK.
Ryan: Payge not a question, but a comment. And I, I, consider myself fairly knowledgeable in LinkedIn, but holy crap, you, you showed me a lot of additional functionality I didn’t even know existed.
Payge: Yeah, I, I really enjoy it, but it’s also hard to really, like, go into a lot. I think, I know that, maybe it was Sonya or someone else, was also talking about, like, their different pages. So, here I can also post to my company page.
Payge: So, again, when I go into my regular posting, I can choose to be Jack Laurie Group or I can choose to be me.
Payge: So, that would be another way that you can easily just continuously post on both pages, something that, I’ve, I’ve heard like company pages might be a little bit harder to start out with just because you’re wanting to put the same content on your personal page that you do your company page and that might be something that, maybe, you choose to only have it on you.
Payge: People normally do sales with just you, but it’s also nice to have that company page, so I really wouldn’t worry too much if you’re like, Oh my gosh, I haven’t put anything on my company page or anything in a while, but make sure to like, you know, put, like, you know, people that you’re helping, companies and tagging them as well. You know, putting that @ symbol and making sure that certain people that are involved in your projects and that way it’ll get more, more publicity and then also, you can schedule the post.
Payge: Just, so here, start your post, there’s this little timer or clock button down here, as well next to the post button. That’s where you can then put the date and the time and then you can go ahead and, next, and to schedule your post. Or, you can view your other scheduled posts.
Payge: So, a lot of people are trying to get on that. I’m going to schedule all of my posts in the whole entire month. You can do that just through LinkedIn. You don’t need anything else.
Jamie: I didn’t know you could do that.
Payge: Yeah, it’s all there. I think a lot of the social media sites are trying to go towards scheduling posts, so.
Payge: UM, let’s-
Ryan: Payge, that features in current rollout mode, because not every LinkedIn user has it as of yet.
Payge: Oh, OK, so, if you continuously use LinkedIn consistently on a small basis, so, I’m not saying like go in here for an hour tomorrow and spend like most of your day on Saturday here. Like, if you just spend 10-15 minutes on LinkedIn every day, it will open up a lot of those features for you, so, thanks for letting me know about that as well.
Payge: So, these are the additional features, Advertising, Sales Navigator, LinkedIn Premium, Job Searching. These things aren’t always needed.
Payge: I would say LinkedIn Premium just shows you more about who they are before you, you connect with them.
Payge: Advertising and Sales Navigator, I have not purchased yet, so I wouldn’t be a much of an expert, but they are additional features that some people do find beneficial for, for business. I think as a small business you may be able to still get away with just getting on and doing these things manually, but maybe in the future, you’ll look more into those, and then just searching for jobs and applying through Jobs through LinkedIn.
Payge: That doesn’t seem like something that we would be using daily, but I know that the people that you are maybe looking at would, so making sure to keep up with LinkedIn for yourself, so that they do see that action and that positivity on your page is beneficial.
Jamie: How many of these features that you’ve shown us are part of the premium package and how many are part of the everyday package?
Payge: So, I, I do not. So, basically the only premium package or the LinkedIn Premium does is, when I search for, like, say I was searching for these people. You might not be able to see all of this information. You might only be able to see that they’re a Recruitment Consultant at Michael Page Indianapolis.
Payge: So, that might be the only thing, that my premium shows me is a little bit extra information and that’s why it’s not always a need that we have, to have, you know, I don’t need to know that they’re currently an associate and consultant, you know, because that’s up there.
Payge: And I’ve found that very interesting that, you know, a lot of people, like, I don’t need to know that they’re currently at the office manager of this advertising company. But if that does help you, then maybe premium is something that you would want to look into.
Payge: But again, if I go into this person, oh, it’s going to do this thing for me again, I’ll work on my pop ups, you know?
Payge: So here, here’s her information. Sometimes the contact information wouldn’t show up for people that aren’t connected with them, but because I have premium, I can see that information. And they could be on public where she just allows me to see it no matter what, but that’s what premium does, and that’s the only real difference.
Jamie: I like how it allows you to see who’s been keeping your profile.
Payge: Yes, you do see how people also view this profile.
Payge: Personally, I don’t recommend having that, so, you can go to more, Add profile section, nope, sorry, you have to go to edit or something here. I know it’s here somewhere. Add Profile section, recommended, additional…
Ryan: Hey Payge, the edit contact info visibility, if you click on your contact info and then hit the edit pencil below that below those fields you see where it says your network. If you click on that that allows you to change the privacy.
Payge: Oh OK, that’s not how I did it last time, but maybe it changed since I did it last time, because I know that there is a way to take off people have recently viewed you, so that might change your privacy, but when someone looks at your page, they wouldn’t be able to see the people also viewed you and I don’t know about that. But yes, if you want to do that-
Payge: Yeah, I just know that it was in one of these more. Oh well.
Payge: But there is a way to turn that off, and I’m not going to lie to you guys. Turn off recent be viewed on LinkedIn. This is how I answer most of my questions and see here, it says tap your profile picture. Tap the settings icon and then tap the privacy and tap search history and, you know, clear that out if you want.
Payge: So, if there’s anything that you can’t figure out how to do, like, I know a lot of people they don’t have their about section and they have to add that profile section, and on there is your, your About section.
Payge: Then sometimes you do need to add these on here, you know, add your license and certifications and add other things if you want. But yeah, if I, if I do find that, I, I’ll, I can show, I can share it with you guys.
Payge: But there is a way to turn off that people recently viewed.
Payge: I think one other thing that I did not get to share is about recommendations and I think a lot of our business models do have to deal with recommendations. So, I mean this would be something that’s really good to make sure to ask. So, if you want someone to give you a recommendation, please feel free to send them this. You can add it and then ask for recommendation.
Payge: I think, that’s it, everybody, like, I think that’s the main thing that recommendations are going to be super helpful for you since you all deal with customers and your About section is going to be the most influential to make sure to tell your story. And then having a very clear and concise banner that even if you do have multiple companies and things like that, having general information up here, something like that.
Payge: Thank you, Ryan, for putting that in there.
Jamie: Awesome, well they’ve just been very good information. We absolutely, absolutely appreciate it. I learned some stuff today and I’m excited that it’s going to be archived so I can watch it again.
Payge: You’re more than welcome to talk to me anytime. Let me know if you ever fix yours and you want me to look at it. I am more than free to do that for you as well.
Jamie: Awesome. Ken, if you have any questions feel free to put them in the chat, but let’s give Payge a round of applause. We appreciate it so much being here today.
