How to Do LinkedIn Right with Anthony Blatner

Brett: Welcome back to the Corporate Escapee Podcast. I'm your host, Brett Trainor. Before I get to today's guest, I wanna remind folks that we have launched the Corporate Escapee Collective. It is a free online community for fellow escapees. Whether you're fractional, a consultant, freelancer, or even a small service business, all owners are welcome.

If you're interested in joining or know someone who enjoy it, please connect with me on LinkedIn or send me an email to bt brett trainer.com now onto the show. Today I'm welcoming Anthony Blatner back to the podcast. Longtime listeners will remember Anthony from episode 57 and I think Anthony, as I was looking back, it was June 30th, 2020, so we're almost three years since our last visit, which is crazy.

Um, Anthony's the founder of Speed Work, which is a LinkedIn only agency. He started back in 2016. We'll talk a little bit about why only LinkedIn, um, but first Anthony, welcome back to the podcast.

Anthony: It's good to be back. The world was a lot different back then when we, last time we chatted.

Brett: was. And, but the one thing that I think is consistent is the power of LinkedIn as a tool for, for B2B business owners. So before we get into what we'll call, uh, you know, we were joking offline, you know, LinkedIn masterclass, but I mean, I can't think of a better title for it. But why don't you give the audience a little bit of a background on, on what you're doing today.

The, would you call it an agency? Would you call it a service business? Where do you, where do you think that fits?

Anthony: Yeah. Uh, yeah, we're, we're an agency. We kind of have a, a couple standardized services that we offer for clients. Um, so, we work with a lot of clients and help them with their LinkedIn marketing. Uh, everything that we do is all B2B related. Um, and then a lot of our work in our clients tend to be in the tech, in the software space.

Brett: Now going back to 2016, was that all LinkedIn at that time, or did you at some point just convert to all linked.

Anthony: Yeah, so there, there was a point when we decided to focus just on LinkedIn. Uh, in the very beginning it was kind of try out a lot of, a lot of everything. Um, back in 2016, uh, Facebook ads was kind of the hot thing back then. So I've done a lot of Facebook ads. I've done a lot of Google ads. Way back in the day.

I've done a lot of seo, but I always found that LinkedIn tended to be the best performer for the type of work that I was doing. Um, with my background being largely tech and software. Um, and a lot of those like kind of, you know, tech focused, enterprise related type of campaigns, those always did best on LinkedIn.

So at some point seeing that over and over again, I decided just to focus on LinkedIn and kind of go.

Brett: Yeah, you definitely were ahead of the curve because I think, well, I've been on LinkedIn forever as well, but seeing it, once we hit the pandemic, we, I think we were already seeing a shift from, you know, being able to cold call people right. And get 'em to pick up the phone, which I think is, it still works at an individual level if you really want to put the time and the effort in.

But I mean, it's, it's, I'm always for. Work smarter, not harder. And I think post covid, when I think we can say that on the podcast now without getting dinged with it, with it, I think we're far enough while not removed, but, but, but the idea being right, when you used to have b2b, the B2B. Buyers were in offices that had office phones and those types of things.

But post pandemic, now almost everybody works off a cell phone, which I would think it'd be even more difficult. So, so I'm, why don't you, can you talk just a little bit about, you know, the business pre covid and, and how people are now using LinkedIn So kind of that little evolution when you start, cause you definitely were ahead of the curve and now I think it's, you know, obviously it's paid off, but, uh, maybe talk a little bit about.

Anthony: Yeah, so LinkedIn's always been like the directory where everyone, you know, even back in the day, most p most people had a profile, whether, you know, how up to date was it, or how often did they use LinkedIn. Those vary depending on the person. Uh, it would definitely used to be lesser used and lesser updated.

Uh, but it's always been the directory where you could. Find, you know, the professional director, you can look up, people find their title where they work. But you know, when Covid hit that, that was the shift. You know, everyone talks about the shift to digital, the shift to moving online, whether, you know, all types of online marketing when you're, when you can't go in the office, when you can't go to trade shows.

So, you know, the way I kind of see it is like that shift has happened and we've seen traffic, uh, kind of go, you know, increase a lot on LinkedIn over the last few years. Sure. As things open up. People start to go back in the office. You know, maybe that does taper down a little bit, but overall, it's kind of the network effect.

Like once a platform gets adoption, It gets, you know, it's a lot easier to maintain or like, you know, you, you continue to get a lot of activity because people are already on there, people are using it more. They see other people on there. So I think the adoption of LinkedIn has happened and that shift to digital has happened.

So we've seen it just like a huge increase. If you compare like LinkedIn today versus LinkedIn pre Covid, you know, those, those numbers are at a multiple now of where they used to be. So the shifts happened, people are using it. From a marketing side, you know, that gives a lot more people that we can reach and target.

Um, it also gives, you know, a lot more people who are using the platform, um, and a lot more people that are comfortable. You know, a as you run marketing campaigns, people are gonna be there to, to click on your ads, to respond to your messages, and people are updating their profiles more and stuff

Brett: Yeah, I think too. Yeah, that's a really good point. Cause it used to be you were updated LinkedIn when you need a new job. Right, or somebody who was, but I do, and again, there's still people out there that complained that LinkedIn isn't what it used to be. And I'm like, I don't know what it used to be, but maybe LinkedIn's doing a better job, but the spammers seem to be cutting back, or I'm just not seeing as much of it now.

The two things that the business I wouldn't want to be in as somebody that sets appointments for me or promotes podcasts because I. One of those a day from somebody, and every time I get one, I'm like, yeah, that's gotta be a tough business. Because like I said, it's everybody's pushing those, those two services.

But so with this audience being mostly, um, Folks that left corporate now are running either like a fractional type of a business. I think about it as expertise, as a service. I think John Arms mentioned that and I love that and I love that idea, right?

Because we are all small service businesses, whether we're doing consulting or fractional or, or small businesses. So I'm like, man, LinkedIn would be a perfect tool, and I'm guessing probably 95% of. Don't do it the right way. Right. So maybe before we get into some of the, the growth tactics, you know, is there just some fundamental or foundational piece that you recommend to, I mean, most of the time, I know you're working with companies, but we're all our own companies, so maybe what's some of your recommendations for, for best practices, just to make sure you're setting it up right.

Anthony: um, number one is the simple. Update your profile. Make it look polished. You know, it is, it is your business card, so people are gonna check you out.

They're gonna verify you, they're gonna click on your links. And, um, you know, somebody who's like, seriously considering hiring you, they're gonna do their research and that's what they're gonna go check out. So, you know, play, put yourself in that mindset. Go look at your profile. Are you selling yourself as best as you possibly? So that's number one is just updating your profile. There's thousands of good examples out there of like profiles that you could see to go get some examples. Lots of templates out there. So, you know, put a good profile picture, cover photo, write a good description, um, tell people how they can contact you, and then, you know, that, that's kinda like the starter point.

And then as you know, thinking about somebody who's maybe just starting their business or kind of just getting their legs under em, um, Lincoln's the best platform to. Showcasing your knowledge. So you know, day one is just start posting and there is that initial hur like mental hurdle of like getting out there and like being comfortable hitting post and uh, it's a real thing.

But the faster that you just, you know, just start simple, One liner is even like just reposting or narrating news, if that's what you need to do to kind of get you comfortable with posting. you know, a lot of clients that we work. They, they just have, maybe they just haven't posted at all.

They posted once the last couple years and it's, you know, it's funny, like the first couple posts you put out, like how many of their old colleagues comment and they're just like, Hey, I didn't know you were working on this. Now it's so good to like, hear from you again. And then that turns into a conversation and then they get something out of that.

Um, you know, but yeah, there's a lot of power in your network. kind of just getting started with LinkedIn. You know, step one is build your network. Start with who you already know. Um, there's still like the import your connections from like Gmail and Outlook. So import your connections so you can have your network there.

And then, you know, anyone who didn't import, go manually add them, so people that you already know. Uh, and then from there start posting and then, That just gets you comfortable with it. I'd say the biggest thing to watch out for when you post is don't put a link in every post, uh, any post with links gets really limited by LinkedIn, so just keep it, you know, keep it largely just texts and photos.

Those tend to do very well at the moment. you know, there's lots of tactics around, you do the PDFs and the scrollable things and stuff like that,

Brett: really good advice. Just, just go cuz one of the things I committed to the start of this year is I'm gonna post on LinkedIn six outta seven days. Um, sometimes it's been seven outta seven, so I think I posted 108 times. So I apologize for the folks that get my content every day.

But, and, and I did take that, the approach this year. Cause last year when I was posting, I overthought it, man. It was, Detailed in this. Now it's just, and, and literally I don't batch anything, which people, some people are probably cringing to productivity folks out there saying, but basically get up in the morning and like, what am I gonna write about?

And, you know, and I post it. Now I'm gonna tell you every time I think I have a really good one, there's like nothing. And then one, I'm like, that one's got 3000 views. What did it, what did I, so I, I can't figure it out. the other approach that I've taken is, man, if it's just, if it's good for providing value and it's good for my potential customers, then I'm gonna do it.

And I'm not paying as much attention to the algorithms and I'm not trying to game it. I figure good content with a simple format is gonna win over time versus the, the, the quick hits. Like I said, it can be a testimonial act. Just get started. It definitely gets easier. Um, probably need to do more video.

let me dig into that a little bit. So you'd mentioned the PDFs and the carousels and the, the short videos. Is there, you know, anything in your working with clients seem to. One received better by LinkedIn and two received better by the audience.

Anthony: in terms of formats, it is the simple text posts, image posts, and then those PDF carousels, um, videos still aren't standing out that much. And I think it kind of just comes to, you know, people don't sit around and watch longer videos on LinkedIn as much, um, as they would on like Facebook or Instagram.

If those PDFs do well, really it comes down to, it's so easy just to hit swipe once and then LinkedIn sees an engagement and then it's like the easiest engagement you can get is, is swipe. So that's why those are doing well because LinkedIn sees more signals on that. Uh, and, and it's kinda like just a way to offer more signals.

That LinkedIn that people can do. So, you know what, what's the easiest way you can have somebody interact with your posts? A lot of times it's liking, you know, maybe you ask a question that they're gonna leave a comment on. But the reason those PDFs do well is it's so easy just to swipe and then that's an engagement.

Um, so format wise, you know, that stuff's good. And then in terms of like content, I kind of, you know, the way that you mentioned it, I think is, is what I agree with is like, Don't overthink it. Um, write good content. Don't worry about the algorithm. If you think about, like, I don't know if it'll be the exact same way, but like Google and SEO content, like people ga try to game Google all the time and then Google like figures it out and changes the algorithm and then all their stuff goes to the bottom every time there's an update, People say, okay, now go back to making good content.

Or like,

Brett: Yeah. Go back to doing the right thing.

Anthony: even more important, that's what they always say. Um, that's never gonna change. So LinkedIn's, you know, probably gonna be the same too. They're gonna improve their algorithm and it's gonna be less, you know, click Beatty stuff and it's gonna be more of like, good content. So what are people actually reading?

What are they actually engaging with? you know, right now those are, are some of the strongest signals and probably will continue to be, is like, are people commenting on your posts?

Brett: just one. I wanna follow, the thought on tho those carousels and PDFs. It's actually really easy to create those. I thought it was gonna be hard, but you can really just use, you know, a PowerPoint and different things to create the slides and LinkedIn actually does a pretty nice job of creating it for you.

So, um,

Anthony: like whatever your tool is, PowerPoints are good. PDFs are good. Canvas's a great tool.

Brett: and then now going to. Thinking about it from, right, if we're personal and business, cuz this is still something I struggle with, right? So I've got kind of the corporate escapee as the brand and it's got its own LinkedIn page, but almost everything I do is from my personal, you know, the Brett trainer.

And so if we start to think about, again, Mo, I think everybody in the audience is kind of in the same way. So you're trying to balance the personal with the business. And like I said, right or wrong, I took the tact this year that I'm just going all personal and then link back to the, to the business. So just curious your perspective.

Am I foolish for going that way? Should I be spending more time on the, the brand name or continue to, to hit the, person?

Anthony: that's the right approach there. personal profiles are always gonna get more engagement for a couple reasons. Uh, the, the personal connection that comes out of it, people are gonna be more likely to engage with you versus any. Business, um, human to human's always gonna be stronger.

also you probably have a bigger network than you have followers for your company page. That's extremely common. Most company pages have like hundreds of followers versus most people have thousands of connections. So right there, you're 10 times, you get 10 times more reach because of of that. so personal's always good.

Post mostly from your personal, you wanna have some stuff going on on the company page, maybe your company page, reposts your personal things and, and vice versa. Um, people are always gonna go check out your company pages too. It's good to have activity there. And then for right now, company pages. Well, when we get into ads, company pages, ads can only be run from company pages at the moment.

Um, so if you're ever boosting content or boosting posts, you cannot boost your personal content at the moment. Um, that's changing soon. Uh, but right now ads can only come from company pages. You can only boost company page posts. So something to do. If you ever go to run ads, you need to, you know, it comes from a company page that said, coming.

Hopefully later this year, I want LinkedIn calls, thought Leader ads, and that is being able to boost your own personal posts. Um, so it's just in beta right now and it's only about like boosting posts from a personal profile. That's all you can do. Um, that's supposed to be rolling out to everybody later this

Brett: Oh, that'd be awesome. Okay. Yeah, I had kind of forgotten about that. That you couldn't do, cause I haven't obviously run any ads, so, Yeah. Let's dig into that first. Now I'm gonna come back to another thought I had on, um, commenting on other people's posts. But, so from a LinkedIn ad page, what are some of the, the best practices?

So, um, let me share with the audience what kind of mine is, and maybe you can critique it or say maybe this is what you'd do differently. So I created a a, an A. Company page for the Corporate Escapee, which is the podcast and the community. And it has a, an overview of what it is. I think there's 180 followers on it, so not, not huge, but, but not tiny.

And then created another one, which is kind of my, my holding company for the different. Things, but I rarely post off of that. So what's, what's kinda your recommendation again is these smaller businesses. Obviously we, if we want to use LinkedIn ads, we're gonna have to have a, a company page. Any thoughts?

Is it the same, same approach with company as it is a personal page? Or what are, what are some of the differences there?

Anthony: kind of my thinking for company pages gets more into like the marketing funnel and that. Ads run from the company pages. And it can be beneficial to have people follow your company page because, it's easy to connect with somebody and then they're gonna see your personal posts.

But there's, you know, there's not a way to send a connection request from a page. You, you have to get people to follow you. So you can invite people to, you can invite people to follow your page. You can also run different types of follower ads and engagement ads on LinkedIn, which will allow people to click a button to follow, and then that starts to build kind of your retargeting funnel from there.

So what's. A lot of companies do. And what we do for a lot of companies is, follow our company page here and then you can even run ads to get people to follow you. And then the thing about that, you know, this is just one tactic in the toolbox. One small portion that as people follow your company page, then they're gonna see those posts more from your company page.

So, you may or may not follow many company pages. In the grand scheme of things, most people are connected to a lot of people, but don't follow many company pages. So if using those follower tools, if you get them to follow your company page, then they're gonna see your organic post from your company page more so in the future.

So that kind of starts building out your retargeting funnel. If you get people to follow your company page, then they'll see those posts more likely. So it, it's still a good tactic to do because once they follow your company page, then they're gonna

Brett: Yeah, that's a good point. I gotta go back and revisit some of that. Um, and then now before we switched into some of the tactics with, with with paid LinkedIn and some of those other ones, cuz I'm definitely curious from my own standpoint, but I'd. Didn't want to not dig into like commenting on other people's posts.

You know, again, small sample size of me, um, I've got, that's where I picked up a lot of my followers is when I actually write something. Thoughtful, right? I don't believe in just being the con, you know, contrarian and, you know, just pick the complete opposite argument forward. Because again, it may not fit with my personality or what I believe in, but back to that, I mean, it's, it's actually kind of surprising how many people will actually follow you, um, or try to connect with you after posting on somebody else.

comment. So may any thoughts and recommendations on best practices there? I know it sounds pretty straightforward, but as we know, in social, nothing's as as straightforward as it seems.

Anthony: Yeah, this, this is like a pretty deep topic, but, um, and, and I'm not, I'm not like the organic social expert. I'm, I'm the paid so paid ads guy. but I do have some thoughts in this area that I think are interesting in that, you know, it's kind of like how, how networking works in general. Um, If you're just posting on your page and you're just posting on your page, then you're only relying on the algorithm's reach of who's gonna see that, and that's, that's a small subset.

That's what's totally available. When you comment on other people, you're kind of like building a bridge out to where you want to go in terms of like, you can choose who you want to comment on, um, whether you're choosing marketers or corporate people or stuff like that. And then they're gonna have their own networks of people who are gonna see that.

Based on who they're connecting to. So it's almost a way to kind of choose your own adventure for organic, that if I am gonna go after all marketers, I'm gonna comment on all marketers posts, people and their network are gonna see that, which are also likely more marketers. Um, so it's about like a way to kind of choose where you want to go, and then it's, it's like a bridge where it's, you're, you're, you're choosing to get more impressions on your comment and profile because you're, you're creating that connect.

First, if you're just posting, you're just relying on what's the algorithm gonna gimme. This is a way to kind of extend that reach by po by commenting in other places. Um, and then past that, yeah, it's just like, what, what are you, what are you saying? Are people interested? Did they wanna hear more? Then they'll follow you.

so putting, putting good, thoughtful things on people's posts, uh, that's a great way to, you know, get your name out there and then have people follow you.

Brett: Yeah, and it's, it's kind of interesting, and again, I don't know if there's an algorithmic backing to it, um, if they actually comment back on your comment to the poster. I haven't seen any, advantage or boost when. They actually do that. So I think just the, the act of convent, cuz you see if you haven't done this, if you comment on somebody else's post, you'll get updates on anybody else that comments on that.

So they're going to see that you did and then vice versa. So

Anthony: People appreciate when you comment on their stuff, like they most people know, like, you know, this is gonna help my post. It's gonna give you more reach. People appreciate comments if you do that over and over with a certain person.

Chances are they're gonna comment on your stuff too. And it's almost like making friends online.

Brett: Yeah.

Anthony: Like there's probably certain people in your feed whether, whether like you would a colleague or not, or just a friend or an acquaintance that you probably just tend to like a lot of their stuff just cuz you like them as a person.

Um, or maybe you just comment more often on them and it could just be simple stuff. you know, it's kinda like making friends online where if you do that with certain people, chances are they're gonna do it back to you. And people know comments are good, so they're gonna appreciate a comment. And if you do that a few times, then chances are that they're gonna comment back on your stuff.

Brett: It just slowly just starts to build, which, which is awesome. All right. I did think of one other thing before we get to the paid side. I promise we're getting there, Anthony. Yeah.

you know, I did a, I was on a podcast last week and she recorded it LinkedIn Live or we, we broadcast LinkedIn live and, and I've done a few of those. And again, I'm, I'm assuming LinkedIn as the algorithm likes when people do this right, because that's one of their shiny new toys.

But what was interesting is, We did it. She was in Australia, and so it, it went live here like at 8:00 PM right? Central time. It was crazy the number of comments and engagement I got from folks that I haven't heard from. You know, in ages and part of it was because of the time of night. Right? All of a sudden they, oh, LinkedIn lives going on Brett.

I'm doing nothing right now. We'll check in, I think. Um, so it's kind of two parts to that. One is one, I never thought about the after hours. I always thought LinkedIn is a business hour tool. But then again, Maybe I thought about that, Ron. So, so maybe comment on both those, like the after hour post or, and then more specifically, what are you seeing with LinkedIn live?

Is this a fad or is this, you know, what's, what's your thoughts on those two?

Anthony: I do think LinkedIn follows Facebook in a lot of ways for certain things. Um, and lives have become such a big thing on Facebook and I've seen that, how they're used, and I think, I think it makes sense for LinkedIn to keep developing that tool. you know, we, we've seen how people have used it successfully on Facebook.

So that success I think will happen on LinkedIn. So what you look at there, or like what I see there is that sometimes you look at like what are the notifications that the platform sends me And lives are one of them. So it's a chance to send out a notification to your whole network when you get on live.

That's why, that's probably why you saw a lot of response there is because. People might be getting a push notification, or at least they're on LinkedIn and they get a notification, Hey, Brett's live. and if it's after hours, you know, they're not at work, they're hanging out on the couch, they see that, they're like, oh, what's Brett up to?

They're gonna click on it and then they'll leave a comment. So that's probably why that was successful. that said, they haven't been huge for the paid side of things, but I think it's going to get there. Um, You know, that's the next step is once you see something work organically as even as a platform, they should develop the tooling to be able to promote that more and paid.

But what I do think is interesting for events on LinkedIn is you can invite people to events and you can invite a lot of people to events, and then when they respond to that, you can have a form there that they have to fill out to like, Request to attend or to like to actually attend.

So that's like an interesting feature functionality there is that you can create an event, you can invite a lot of people, and then if they accept it, they, they have to fill out that form to be able to accept it. So it's an interesting way to like, kinda like do a lead gen method through

Brett: Yeah. Interesting, interesting. That was just this recent topic, so I thought I'd hit you while we, we had it. So assuming that we've never done it, a LinkedIn, um, ad before, how to, how, how should we be thinking about this? How do we approach it?

Anthony: so I'll first preface and say that ads do tend to be. For bigger companies, and you know, most of the time if you're gonna set aside an ad budget, Ads are expensive and you need to have everything else figured out for them to be effective, to be most effective, you should have your sales process down.

You should know who you're targeting and selling to and all that. That said, there are some things you can do as a small company or just getting started that I, that I would recommend. So, kind of getting into, you know, the small side of things is the, the easiest thing to put in place and, and the most effective is gonna be your, your retargeting ads.

So if you're just getting your business started, if you're starting to figure out some of those pieces, kind of the, the nicest thing to put in place is just retargeting ads. So people who have been to your website, who have been to your company page, um, and stuff like that, you can put ads back in front of them to push them back.

And, you know, organic, a lot of people say like, oh, my organic reach is dropping. Or like, as the platform grows, my reach is dropping. Well paid is a way that. You know, keep your content in front of people and ensure that that's gonna happen. So, um, you can create these retargeting audiences on LinkedIn. So you can say All my visitors to my company page, all my visitors to my website.

and LinkedIn needs to make this a better feature, but you can export your connections and then you can import them to the ads platform. there's not a direct connection between, um, personal profiles and paid. And there should be, I hope that's coming soon, but you can export them and you can upload 'em to the ads platform and then boom, you got that.

most people have some retiring audiences off the bat and you know, if someone's checked out your website, Or even just like your connections, it's nice to be able to push them back. Things that you might incorporate there are, you know, put some nicely branded ads in front of them so you present a good brand image, put some case studies in front of them.

Um, you know, it's like, what are all the angles and messages you need to. Somebody needs to understand before they're gonna purchase from you. A lot of times it's like, what do you do? Who do you work with? What are the results you've had in the past? And then how do we get started? So just think of those categories.

You probably want some ads that explain what it is you do. Put some bullet points in there, some details, some ads that talk about some case studies you have. Maybe they'll link back to your case studies page and then some ads that offer. What is that next step? Is it a free consultation link back to your website there?

Um, is it a free assessment or free demo or something like that? Adds for that as well. So, you know, somebody who's been to your website is a connection of yours. You know, you can put different layers on that. But then those are all the nice angles that you probably wanna put in front of them. They might see two or three of those along with your organic posts.

And then boom, you've conveyed all your message to them. If they're gonna buy, they're gonna buy. Or if they're not, they're not. But that's how you have the like, best chance of.

Brett: Interesting. Yeah, and I think, so I think I heard some, maybe it was you, I read one of yours. You know, it's LinkedIn's really good if you want, you know, paid seo, right? So if you, you're struggling to create awareness or brand awareness and maybe education, that's a much better use of paid ads, right?

Is to get in front of people, introduce the folks, provide value of some sort, um, to create. That relationship versus, you know, so if I've never done a LinkedIn ad, the odds are me going out and saying, come join, you know, a $1,500 a month. mastermind probably isn't gonna sell if they don't know me or who I am.

So is that, does that, is that logic still apply that, you know, create the value?

Anthony: Yeah, and, and it kind of comes down to general sales and marketing. I think a lot of people have a, a misconception that there's some magic bullet out there that I can run an ad and get demo calls for 50 bucks each and like, let's go scale that. That doesn't happen unless you're selling like QuickBooks software and you have a killer deal for it.

If people already understand all those pieces, there's a lot more that someone needs to understand before they're. Purchase or even just get on a call with you. That's like such a big ask for people. So, the lowest hanging fruit is people that already know you already been to your website, who just need a little nudge to take that next step.

You know, if you think you're, if you're funnel just naturally, there's probably people you've talked to who are on the fence. You know, start by pushing those people over the, or helping those people over the fence. once all that's running very well, that's when you wanna start opening up cold targeting past that.

But yeah, people need, you know, probably to see you quite a few times to hear you quite a few times before they're ready to even get a call. give their time to get on a call. So use, use ads to develop that relationship along with organic. Um, and then those people will move forward.

Brett: Interesting. right, because the, the, the videos I watch are from, definitely from folks I know. If I don't know you, I'm probably not watching the video. I may look at the image. Um, obviously you wanna make these things personal, right? As much as possible. this is what I want to ask you. So looking at how targeted you can get with these ads, right? Because LinkedIn's the only platform where they've got work history, title, job, all those types of things.

And so, the podcast. So if I wanted to drive listenership to the podcast, you know, paid LinkedIn ads, isn't it?

Anthony: So there's a lot of facets there that you can use and the time you wanna like choose LinkedIn ads over another platform is. who are you looking to target? An example I give a lot of times is like, if you sell HR software to people who, in hr in the finance industry, it's like almost impossible to find those people on Facebook or with like a Google ad, unless they're searching for something very specific.

Lincoln's the only place that you can do that. You can select industry, company size, job title, so that's like, that's when LinkedIn shines is when you have a very specific person you want to target. So, yeah, all the different facets or like some of the most common ones are like industry, company size, job title, um, and then there's like some additional things on top of that, like skills and interests and groups that you can start to get more niche into.

Like what is this person interested in? What groups are they joining? Um, what skills are they listed on? Their profile skills are good for, like, the example of like software developers, there's a million of them out there. They all do different things. If I want a Java, Software developer that I'm gonna use a skill to find that person. and then there's, there's some other interesting facets that LinkedIn has in terms of like company growth rate that you can target companies who are growing faster, or, or companies that you can have negative growth rates. And a lot of companies are in negative growth rates this year. So,

Brett: Yeah.

Anthony: for you, you might want, there's facets for, um, recently changed jobs.

Um, so you might do, uh, founder. And recently changed jobs, meaning they just changed their job to being a founder. Chances are that they, they just left corporate or

Brett: but again, I think to, to your, again, my entire audience is LinkedIn, right? So I did, the other thing I didn't mention is I'm not. Posting. I'll do a little bit on Twitter just cause I like Twitter.

Um, but anything that I'm putting effort in is this year is gonna be LinkedIn just because it, it doesn't make sense if I'm gonna put the, the time and, and the effort in. So, um,

Anthony: I am interested by Twitter. Like all the stuff going on over there, Elon Musk and all that. rolled out what they call verified organizations and I don't know, I kind of see this as like, this could potentially be like their versions of companies of, you know, that's what LinkedIn has that no one else has.

Is, is that the concept of companies, um, if Twitter can do. That could be interesting. Although their, their first rollout of this verified organization, it's like, it's like a thousand bucks a month to verify your company. So most companies are not gonna do that if they have, like, I mean, they should, they should do something to have more company profiles or like that, that, that'd be something interesting if they did do.

Brett: Yeah, no, that's actually really interesting. And even, you know, tying back to what you said with the influencer or, um, solo business, I mean, we're moving more and more to a small solo business type of approach. We're all gonna be our own little independent companies. And so I think the, the, the platforms, Twitter or LinkedIn, that figure that out first, right?

You should be able to run. Ads. Um, Yeah, so I think it's gonna be super fascinating. So we're gonna have to have you come back for part two once LinkedIn rolls out some of these new tools and or you know, you just let me know when they're, they've made some changes and there's some things that we should talk about, we'll have you reoccurring as our, our LinkedIn expert to come back.

Cause again, I, I'm all in on this platform and I think my entire audience should be all in on this platform. And you know, I think the more comfortable you get, the easier. It is to work with. So, anything else we didn't cover today that you would, um, recommend to the audience?

Anthony: Um, yeah, there's a few steps you can go through on LinkedIn. It starts with organic. Uh, we didn't talk much about. What I consider, like the step in the middle is the sales navigator step, um, of like, that's where you can build a list. If someone listens to this podcast, they probably have a good understanding of it.

You build a list, you reach out to people that way, um, it can get spammy, but you know, maybe like if you're just getting started, that's also a good tool to just, just start messaging a few people. You can, you know, find who you want to target, reach out and just like start those exploratory conversations with some, with someone. You know, if you're just getting started, you're probably testing out a few different segments, figuring out what exactly you wanna do. Sales navigator's, like the best way to like, just start that on a small level. So that's what I consider like the step in the middle. It's like organic posting, sales navigator ads.

Brett: so I do have sales navigator and I'm not using, I know I'm not using it effectively as as I should, because I guess previous life in corporate it was more of a crm, you know, salesy type of a tool, which now makes sense.

So if I'm thinking about it from, again, a small business owner or a solo business, Give us the, the, the 1 0 1 version of, of Sales Navigator. Not the how to use it, but what's, what's possible with it, I think, cuz I'm not even sure, I know a hundred percent what's possible with it.

Anthony: Yeah, so the ways you use it are, number one, to build your network in a better fashion. The, or the, the free search is just limited. There's just like, you know, limited number of fields, limited options you can do there. Um, you know, some of the fields that I've mentioned since, like, some of those are only available in sales navigator.

And being able to layer a lot of those on. So in b2b there's usually a very specific type of person you wanna target. Sometimes you can only, So number one is being able to build that list of the right people.

Uh, and then number two is, you know, it does give you some nice options. You can save lists and the recommendation, I usually give people, you know, save, save a couple lists, and then. Every day just sit down or even have a VA do it, sit down and go connect with 10 to 20 of those people. And then you're starting to, you know, intentionally build your network with the right people.

Um, that's just one basic step to get started. And then from there, then it gives you some additional messaging options in terms of like, um, in-mail messages and stuff like that you can send. So when you're ready to actually start prospecting, you can use those

Brett: Got it. Well, that's gonna be my homework for the weekend. It's been on the list, but I'm sure now that you see that step two and I'm. Paid ads. So I'm like, well, maybe I need to revisit my, uh, my, my step stool here before I go. So, um, no, that's awesome. So thank you for the, the recap in correcting me too.

That's why you're here is, you know, I wanna learn, um, as the audience is too, so I, I love that. So, recap, go organic, then look at Sales navigator. And the third is, is paid once you get those foundations built, which I love cause I'm not a quick hit or hack growth. From those you mentioned earlier, it's, it won't last very long, so you're better off just building the foundation for the long term.

And if this is the path you're going, you might as well take, make the time to, to learn it so well, awesome. And I'm dead serious about bringing you back on, so you let me know when there's changes and things that we need to know about and we'll do a, uh, we'll do another episode to bring you back on.

Cause like I said, I think this is your tool. If you're listening to this podcast, then this, you need to become, I'm not an expert, but at least comfort. Right. And then go to the expert when you're ready for paid ads. just let the audience know the best place for them to, to find you, reach you.

obviously the LinkedIn, I'm guessing, but.

Anthony: You can find me on LinkedIn. I'm the only Anthony Blatner on LinkedIn. and then our website is speed work social.com. We try to post some, some good blog posts with some tips and tricks for LinkedIn. Um, so feel free to check us out

Brett: There's actually some good case studies. I should mention that too. Yeah, your content on your website's good. So follow, definitely follow 'em in on LinkedIn and then go check out the website because I think again, there's some good case studies as well that to help you see how this works. So Awesome Anthony. I appreciate your time and uh, have a great rest of your day.

Anthony: Thanks. You too. Thanks for having me on.