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- [00:00]
Nicole Lapin
Since 1981, Justin has been producing world class Bordeaux style wines from Paso Robles on California's Central Coast. With a rich history of accolades, Justin produces exceptional wines and is proud to be America's number one luxury Cabernet. Whether you're a first time wine drinker or a wine aficionado, Justin has a wine for every celebration and occasion. Visit justinwine.com and enter Help20 for 20% off your order. Get celebration ready with Justin Wine.
- [00:26]
Jason Pfeiffer
Enjoy exceptional wine all season long with Justin. Whether it's for seasonal celebrations, festive dinner parties or gift exchanges, Justin Wine is sure to make your holidays memorable. Justin offers curated gift sets, library wines, magnums and even custom etched bottles. Personalize the gifts with a custom message icon OR logo. Visit justinwine.com and enter HELP20 for 20% off your order. Justin offers the perfect holiday gifts for clients, colleagues, friends or family. Be sure to check them out@justinwine.com to receive 20% off your for a limited time over the years I've spent a lot of time thinking about what it takes to build a great business and my personal area of expertise is in being really forward facing, about being out there, about being the personal brand and being the person who can grab the attention and pull people in. But you know what? That's just the most visible part of business. There's also the equally important but very invisible work like legal paperwork and website security and state licenses. Your business deserves the best foundation possible. So to get more for your business. More privacy, more tools, more guidance you need. Northwest Registered Agent Northwest Registered Agent has been helping entrepreneurs launch and grow businesses for nearly 30 years. They're the largest registered agent and LLC service in the US with over 1500 corporate guides. These are real people who know your local laws and can help you and your business every step of the way. For example, protect your identity and keep your home address private by using Northwest's address on your state's formation documents. With Northwest, privacy is automatic. They never sell your data and all services are handled in house because privacy by default is their pledge to all entrepreneurs. Don't wait. Protect your privacy, build your brand and get your complete business Identity in just 10 clicks and 10 minutes. Visit www.northwestregisteredagent.com paid help wanted and start building something amazing. Get more with Northwest registered agent@www.northwestregisteredagent.com paid.
- [02:54]
Nicole Lapin
Help wanted we always hear about why buying a latte or ordering avocado toast is keeping you poor as long as you're budgeting for them. Small indulgences are totally fine. Treat yourself. You know what small costs are holding you back?
- [03:10]
Jason Pfeiffer
Fees.
- [03:11]
Nicole Lapin
Now when it comes to investing, these can take a big chunk out of your gains. But even the small fees associated with banking really add up. At least when you order a latte you have a nice drink. With banking fees, you get nothing in return. They've already got your money, what more can they want? That's what I love about today's sponsor, Chime. Chime isn't like old school banks that charge you overdraft and monthly fees and the benefits from Chime keep stacking up. In addition to fee free banking and overdraft coverage you can count on, Chime helps you build credit history stress free. Not only that, but you can earn up to 3.5% APY on savings that's 8x higher than a traditional bank and they're rated 5 stars by USA Today for customer service. Real Humans 24.7Chime is not just smarter banking. It is the most rewarding way to bank join the millions who are already banking fee free today. It just takes a few minutes to sign up. Head to chime.comhelpwanted that is chime.com helpwanted Chime is a financial technology company, not a bank. Banking services a secured Chime Visa credit card and MyPay line of credit provided by the Bancor Bank NA or Stride Bank NA. MyPay eligibility requirements apply and credit limit ranges $20 to $500. Optional services and products may have fees or charges. See chime.com feesinfo advertised annual percentage yield with Chime+status only. Otherwise 1.00% APY applies. No min balance required. Chime card on time payment history may have a positive impact on your credit score. Results may vary. See chime.com for details. And.
- [04:37]
Jason Pfeiffer
This is Help Wanted, the show that makes your work work for you. I'm Jason Pfeiffer, Editor in Chief of.
- [04:43]
Nicole Lapin
Entrepreneur Magazine, and I'm money expert Nicole Lapin. On Tuesdays, Jason and I answer the.
- [04:47]
Helpline and help callers solve their work problems.
- [04:50]
Jason Pfeiffer
And on Thursdays, I give you one way to improve your work and build a career or company you love.
- [04:56]
Nicole Lapin
And it starts now. All right, Jason, today I am calling the helpline.
- [05:01]
Jason Pfeiffer
Ooh, I am here to answer it.
- [05:03]
Nicole Lapin
I am super stumped by LinkedIn. If you put a gun to my head right now and asked me for my LinkedIn password, I would be dead. I never log on. I never look at the messages, I never see the friend requests or whatever and for whatever reason this is the social platform that I should be a fucking rock star in.
- [05:26]
Jason Pfeiffer
Yeah, you should.
- [05:27]
Nicole Lapin
And I am totally neglecting it. I've always neglected it. I don't know why. It's just not been my thing. Even though for the brand, it should be the number one thing that I do. But you are the king of LinkedIn, so please help me get into the castle.
- [05:46]
Jason Pfeiffer
Yes, well, so for context, I post every single day on LinkedIn. I'm. I think I just crossed 95,000 followers on LinkedIn.
- [05:57]
Nicole Lapin
Okay.
- [05:58]
Jason Pfeiffer
I am in regular conversation with the team at LinkedIn and I have found an incredible amount of value in being active on that platform. So I am very happy, Nicole, to help you with this.
- [06:11]
Nicole Lapin
And you're like one of those top voice people, right?
- [06:14]
Jason Pfeiffer
I am. Oh, yes, yes. They gave me one of the top voice badges.
- [06:18]
Nicole Lapin
What does that mean?
- [06:19]
Jason Pfeiffer
It's their way of identifying the most valuable creators on the platform. Basically. Like, they had this thing before that was called, like, the influencer. They have this, like, influencer badge. But that got oriented around people with the most followers. And the people with the most followers, as everyone knows on every social platform, are not always the people who are the Most valuable. And LinkedIn is very focused on being a platform where people share insights and advice. They want it to be of career value. So they shifted this program to instead just rewarding people for having a lot of followers. They are editorially, they kind of do a class every year where they, like, you know, they inaugurate a class, a class of top voices where they just choose. They just. The people at LinkedIn are constantly consuming LinkedIn content and they're identifying people who are useful and are not BSing, and then they call them top voices. And so anyway, I'm a top voice. But Nicole, before we dive into it, I'm just curious. And also I think that it would be helpful to hear you articulate. You on other social platforms have lots of followers, lots more followers than me. But you also tell me that you like, totally hate engaging on social. It exhausts you.
- [07:42]
Nicole Lapin
So I hate all of it.
- [07:44]
Jason Pfeiffer
Tell me about that. And then does any of that apply specifically to LinkedIn? Like, did you see things on LinkedIn you were like this in particular exhausts me, or is it just the one that you never got to.
- [07:55]
Nicole Lapin
I. It's a great question, of course, from a LinkedIn top voice. I wouldn't expect anything else. Yes. I hate all social media. If I could not be on it, I 100% would. And to give a peek behind the Curtain to our listeners. I do have a lot of help feeding the social beast. I am rarely on, really doing a lot myself, and that's for a lot of reasons, mental health reasons. And it just. I don't know, I'm not into it. LinkedIn, I think, started around the time where I just felt like I had enough friends and it felt networky. And this sounds super obnoxious, but you know me, like, I don't know how to lie. So I. I never had a resume because I just got jobs in my career on it through broadcast, so I didn't even know what to list. Like, I've never had a cv, I've never used one. I talk with other people about using it. So it just felt like I. I had enough work, people that I knew and couldn't keep up with, and I didn't want another platform. And I think it's been the one that's been the hardest to outsource, probably. And maybe I just haven't gotten to it because, you know, if I fuck it up with people that are important to me in business, then that's a bigger deal than fucking it up with, like a random person who's commenting on my Instagram post.
- [09:21]
Jason Pfeiffer
Yeah, okay. That was an incredibly helpful articulation. And the reason for that is because a lot of what you said echoes old impressions of LinkedIn. And then I think a lot of people, like, tuned out because if you rewind far enough back whenever you would, whenever somebody would sign up for LinkedIn, it had this sneaky way of getting all of your contacts and then emailing all of your contacts to say that you were now on LinkedIn. Like, it was so obnoxious. It was the reason I didn't join LinkedIn for a long time. And then when you would get on there, it was a lot oriented around job searching and resume building.
- [10:04]
Nicole Lapin
Yeah.
- [10:05]
Jason Pfeiffer
So that's another reason why it didn't interest you. And then as they developed more as a social network, it became very showy. And for a while people were just bragging about their professional accomplishments, which just makes everyone else feel bad. It became like the professional version of the way that people just show off on Instagram that people hate. And that was not good. And people didn't like that. And so there was a lot of reason to not be involved on LinkedIn a long time ago. It is different now.
- [10:34]
Nicole Lapin
Okay.
- [10:34]
Jason Pfeiffer
I would really think of the LinkedIn audience as pretty much the way that we think of the help wanted audience, which is to say it's literally everyone who is trying to better themselves from a work and even life perspective. Because I know, you know, on this show we're reaching people who are very accomplished and people who are just starting out. And I hear from that range and more on LinkedIn too, because at this point, LinkedIn has become this place where people go to improve in some way professionally. And they are there because it gives them access to a very broad network. And it also gives them, and this is the most important part, a visibility across a very broad network. Just a state it plainly for, you know, people. I can reach a lot of people in business because I'm the editor in chief of Entrepreneur magazine. But once I started taking LinkedIn seriously and posting every day on LinkedIn, that is actually when people started to say to me, oh, wow, you're really blowing up, or, oh, I really love following your work, or I like, oh, you're doing such interesting things. It was because all of these people are all looking at LinkedIn. And now when I meet people professionally, in any context, oftentimes the first thing that they tell me is, I love your LinkedIn posts. Like, they're all there. They're all there in a way that they're not necessarily on other social platforms. It's really, really interesting. Whenever somebody asks me, how can I find my first clients? How can I establish myself as an authority in some space? My answer is always, you should start posting on LinkedIn. And then they come back to me months later and they tell me about, oh, this person saw this post of mine and they reached out and now I have this client. Or like, there's always some interesting thing that comes out of it. So I'll tell you, my own LinkedIn journey started similar to yours. I dismissed it for a lot of reasons. Then I decided to join it, and I treated it the way that I treated Twitter for a long time, which is that I would just would post links to my work sort of promotionally, and it would get me nothing. Nobody would engage, nobody cared. And so I lost interest in LinkedIn. But then I figured out how to do it. So this is now what I'm going to share with you. We've gotten through the why LinkedIn. Now let's do how LinkedIn. Here's how to do LinkedIn. A LinkedIn post should feel like a little lesson. It should feel helpful. It should feel kind of a little earnest. It's the social media representation of the kind of thing that we do on this show. Or if you are listening to this and you don't have a podcast, of your own. What you do when you walk into a room and you want to be helpful, which is that you share something you learned, you share something you observed, you share something you heard from somebody else. That's what I'm constantly doing on LinkedIn, and that is actually what LinkedIn is now optimizing for. They just shifted their algorithm this year and I talked to their editor in chief, Dan, about it. They shifted their algorithm now to reward insights and advice and to dampen anything that the algorithm thinks is you trying to just do something to go viral or do something to get a lot of likes. Like, they don't want that, they don't like that. The thing that works on Instagram and Facebook and Twitter, like, expressly doesn't work on LinkedIn. LinkedIn wants you to come and think of yourself as a professional who's there to help other professionals. And when you do that, what you find is this audience of people who, like, engage. They leave comments, they offer their own insights, they start to follow you, they start to DM you. It's really interesting. There's a lot of thirstiness on LinkedIn. Let us be clear. It's not like all utopic. It can be annoying, but there's a desire, an appealing desire that everybody on that platform has to grow something, to improve in some way, to make connections that are going to be useful. That, yeah, fine, not all of it is useful, but, like, generally speaking, I think that the intentions are right and outwardly and regularly engaging with it brings rewards.
- [15:15]
Nicole Lapin
Okay, so when you say thirsty for LinkedIn, the equivalent of thirsty is not a bikini shot. It's like, I'm so cool. I went to this award ceremony, I spoke at, blah, blah, blah. Like, I'm looking at it right now. I figured out how to get into it.
- [15:31]
Jason Pfeiffer
Oh, good, you found your password.
- [15:32]
Nicole Lapin
And I see, like on this feed part, you know, people are like, I was at this women's conference. Look at all these pictures of me. That's the thirsty that you're talking about?
- [15:44]
Jason Pfeiffer
There's some of that, yeah. But not every post is amazing, right? There's going to be posts that are just kind of whatever, boring, professional updates or sharing things. When I talk, when I was thinking, when I said that was your DMs in a way that DMs and Instagram can be filled with horrible, horrible things. DMs on LinkedIn are often filled with horrible, horrible sales pitches. Right? Just a lot of people who want to sell you something or get attention for something and that. Like, that can be annoying. But let's talk about posts, because posts are really where the action is. Again, I'm seeing LinkedIn as a really useful business tool, and I want to maximize that. In the same way, whenever I post on LinkedIn, I end with a CTA, a call to action. I write a complete post that could live on its own. I'm not driving people towards anything. I'm not saying you have to click on something to get the value here. It's an idea.
- [16:45]
Nicole Lapin
So let's look at Jason's.
- [16:47]
Jason Pfeiffer
Yeah, let's look at me page. Let's look at me. So, like I said, I post every single day. Usually what I do is I write it first thing in the morning. As soon as the kids are out the door, I will sit down and I will bang out some posts. It takes me maybe 10, 15 minutes. I usually keep a little list of them sometimes in my reminders app where I'll see something online that I think I could comment on and I'll. I'll email it to myself or whatever. So today, actually, today, Nicole, I did a thing that you love, which is that I commented on a bad pitch that I got.
- [17:27]
Nicole Lapin
Oh, this is my favorite. Yes.
- [17:29]
Jason Pfeiffer
So here's what. Here, I'm just going to. I'm just going to read it to everybody. So what I did is I took a screenshot of a. Of a pitch that came in to my inbox. It was a very bad pitch. I blocked out the name, and I'll just read you the pitch. The pitch says, good afternoon. I hope all is well. My name is G. I blanked the rest out. And I am reaching out to you. As the founder and portfolio manager of Blank, a long short equity hedge fund based in Blank, I am writing to inquire if you would be interested in featuring Blank company and myself in an upcoming story for your newspaper. If you find this proposal intriguing and would like to like more information or to schedule a conversation, please let me know. So, okay, so here's what I wrote. And note the structure of how I write it. Okay. The first lines that I write are, would you accept this pitch? And I do all caps. You would you accept this pitch? And then there's a line break. And then I write, watch out, EM Dash. Because you might actually make some of these same mistakes in your own work.
- [18:26]
Nicole Lapin
Love an EM dash.
- [18:27]
Jason Pfeiffer
I love an EM dash.
- [18:28]
Nicole Lapin
Oh, wow. And then you click on it. It's super long.
- [18:31]
Jason Pfeiffer
That's right. Because here's the thing. LinkedIn will show people the first, like, two to three lines, depending on how it's structured, of whatever you write. So you have to write your posts with a cliffhanger right at the top because you want to get people to click more and expand the post. So all my posts start with some kind of quick hooky thing that drives them. So, like in this, in this particular instance, I wrote, would you accept this pitch? Which I think hopefully gets people to think, ooh, I don't know, would I? Let me take a look. And then I've got the hook. The next thing, which is, watch out, because you might actually make some of these mistakes. And at some point, I know LinkedIn's actually going to break that. Like, you're not even going to be able to read that whole sentence because it's going to say, like, read more. And you're going to have to tap it. So my hope is that you will. Right, so I'm writing watch out because you might actually make some of these same mistakes in your own work. All right, now, if somebody expands it, they will see the following I wrote. Here's the big problem. G, the person pitching thinks it's enough to just show up. His email basically says, hello, I exist. Are you interested? That's lazy. But haven't we all done some version of it? We've asked someone for help or applied for a job or attempted a partnership, and we thought that just reaching out was enough. As if people see us and magically understand our value, but they do not. If G wants press, he'll need a different approach. No bccing a bunch of people with zero interesting details about himself. Instead, he'll need to identify an individual who's likely interested in his story and then tell them something so compelling that they'll say, my readers must know about this. Nobody comes to you. You must go to them. And better yet, figure out exactly what they want and then bring it. And then after that, that's, that's. That is what I consider to be the full content of this post. And now, like I said, there's a CTA at the end, which is the next line here, says, want a better way to reach people? My newsletter, One Thing Better, can help. Subscribe for free@JasonFeiffer.com Newsletter that works. That thing works really well. Like, that is my number one legion for newsletter subscribers. It's that it's posting every day. And do that. And I do this sometimes with our show too. Like, I'll. I'll do a cta, which is to listen to a Help Wanted episode. And it works.
- [20:48]
Nicole Lapin
Oh, great.
- [20:49]
Jason Pfeiffer
Morgan has texted me to say how many clicks it got.
- [20:53]
Nicole Lapin
Excellent. I haven't seen it.
- [20:55]
Jason Pfeiffer
Well, just because you're not on LinkedIn. So this really works. And you don't have to write this long. Some of mine are much shorter. I just try to go for like the complete idea and feeling useful to people. Also, I'm always mindful that the LinkedIn audience is a very self development y audience. Like they want to feel supported. So you don't want to just go and like crap on someone, you know, like that. That's the reason why I make this turn, right? Which is, haven't we all done some version of it? I want to be like, understanding. And so this thing got 98 ENG engagements of some kind, right? Like, some people said it was thumbs up, some people said it was inspirational. And 58 comments and 3 reposts. Now that's, that's actually not that good. It got, it tells me how many impressions it got. It got 14,198 impressions. That's, that's okay. This is a problem. And now we're getting into like LinkedIn advanced, which I'll just tease and then we can come back to, which is that the LinkedIn algorithm change has actually really depressed post reach. So like a post like this earlier this year would have gotten a hundred thousand impressions easy. Now I got 14,000.
- [22:09]
Nicole Lapin
Okay, big man on LinkedIn.
- [22:11]
Jason Pfeiffer
You know, I'm just out here humble bragging about LinkedIn, but I still do it because the quality of engagement is still really high. Like, I got a couple people today who signed up for my newsletter and then emailed me and said they did so because they read today's LinkedIn post like it still works even if you're not reaching the maximum number of people. And the way that I see it for myself is my job isn't to reach the maximum number of people. My job is to be meaningful to the people that I reach. So even if you're not hitting as many people as you'd like, if you're doing it right, you're still hitting some people. And that can be really valuable. I've gotten really well paying speaking gigs because people followed me on LinkedIn and then my name was top of mind when they were scheduling their event. I've had interesting business opportunities come my way because people follow me on LinkedIn doing this kind of thing, even though it takes work. And like you said, it's harder to outsource to, to make this work, you would really need to either do it yourself or find someone who can either speak in your voice or you have books worth of material that could be drawn from and podcasts that could be drawn from. But you know, the average person who is not Nicole Lapin. Like, if you're a professional, you have ideas, you have experiences. Something came up in a meeting yesterday and you could easily turn that into a LinkedIn post. Something came up at coffee that you could turn into. Like, there's infinite ways to take something that has happened in your world. And like, once you start to think of yourself as turning experiences into content, like capturing ideas in the moment and setting them aside for later, you end up with this well of things that you can share. And it becomes pretty easy once you systematize it. You can also schedule posts. So sometimes I'll write a post at night and then I'll schedule it to send out at like 8:30 the next morning. You could do that too. So it's pretty easy to stay on top of.
- [24:14]
Nicole Lapin
Okay, so let me ask you some questions that you're gonna make fun of me.
- [24:21]
Jason Pfeiffer
Stick around. Help Wanted. We'll be right back. Welcome back to Help Wanted. Let's get to it.
- [24:32]
Nicole Lapin
Okay, so let's do some LinkedIn 101. Like you even started a little bit more advanced.
- [24:39]
Jason Pfeiffer
Oh, okay. Yeah, right. That's true. Okay, bring me back.
- [24:40]
Nicole Lapin
These invitations are like these friend requests. I have 337. Is that a normal amount to have?
- [24:51]
Jason Pfeiffer
You mean like waiting for you?
- [24:52]
Nicole Lapin
Yeah, it has an X or it has a check and I don't know, like some of these people maybe I know or maybe I met somewhere or some of them look weird. What do I do? Do I accept the people that I really know? Do I accept the people that sound cool? Like, what's the thought process behind the X or the check?
- [25:10]
Jason Pfeiffer
So LinkedIn would say accept someone if they are a part of your professional network, however you define that. I take a different approach, which is this. This, this is probably going to make me sound like the thirsty people I was just describing as thirsty. But you know, like I said, LinkedIn to me is, is a great tool. I accept basically every connection request unless it looks like a spammy fake person. And then I have a virtual assistant send that person. As soon as I, as soon as my virtual assistant accepts the request, sends that person a message. And that message, I'll read it to you.
- [25:53]
Nicole Lapin
Okay.
- [25:53]
Jason Pfeiffer
Hey, Keith, I'm just reading the last one that was sent out, which was to Keith. Hey, Keith, thanks for reaching out. I love connecting with people who do work that excites Them. In that spirit, here's the latest thing I'm proud of. As editor in chief of Entrepreneur magazine, I get access to so many amazing people, and I started distilling their insights down in a newsletter called One Thing Better. Each week, I share one way to build a career company you love. I hope you'll find it useful. It's at. And then a link to it. Interested to hear what inspires you these days? Thanks, Jason. Now, that sounds annoying.
- [26:24]
Nicole Lapin
Yeah, if you sent that to me, I would be annoyed.
- [26:26]
Jason Pfeiffer
Yeah. But you know what? Guess what? Most people are not annoyed. A lot of people actually sign up to the newsletter that way. Like, a lot.
- [26:31]
Nicole Lapin
Oh, okay. That's a cool hack.
- [26:32]
Jason Pfeiffer
And I've had occasionally, I'd say once a month, somebody. Somebody responds, and they're a little snippy about it, but, you know, whatever. You can't please everybody. A lot of people also respond and answer that question.
- [26:43]
Nicole Lapin
Ooh.
- [26:44]
Jason Pfeiffer
Well, what inspires me these days?
- [26:46]
Nicole Lapin
They tell me, okay, so your virtual assistant, they just accept everybody and send that message. That's the extent of what they do for your LinkedIn.
- [26:54]
Jason Pfeiffer
Correct.
- [26:54]
Nicole Lapin
Okay.
- [26:54]
Jason Pfeiffer
Yeah.
- [26:55]
Nicole Lapin
So, like, I'm in here. Are we connected on LinkedIn?
- [26:58]
Jason Pfeiffer
I have no idea.
- [26:59]
Nicole Lapin
I don't even know. Like, I've been to some conferences where people are like, oh, I'm connected to you on LinkedIn.
- [27:05]
Jason Pfeiffer
Yeah.
- [27:05]
Nicole Lapin
Like, we must know each other. And I'm like, cool. Oh, my God, my boyfriend is in here. Sorry, babe. Okay. I just accepted it a month ago.
- [27:18]
Jason Pfeiffer
You and I are connected. We are already connected on LinkedIn.
- [27:21]
Nicole Lapin
This is a big milestone for us. Wow.
- [27:23]
Okay.
- [27:23]
There's a lot of people that I do know in here.
- [27:25]
Jason Pfeiffer
There you go. They're all on LinkedIn, Nicole. They're all there.
- [27:28]
Nicole Lapin
Yeah.
- [27:29]
But, like, if I had this virtual assistant and I sent my boyfriend message that I just accepted, she wouldn't know the difference, right? She wouldn't know. Like, don't send him a. Hey, as the founder of Money News Network, I love my newsletter.
- [27:44]
Jason Pfeiffer
He'd be like, right, so here's. So here's how you manage that. I mean, look, you're zeroing in on. On the unusual right now, right? Because, like, most people are not going to have hundreds of connection requests. But just to tell you how I resolve that exact problem is that my VA does this every few days, and I look at my new connections on a regular basis and will scan for anybody who I know or is notable in some way, and I'll take some action. I'll just approve them and not Send that message and then I just leave everybody else for my VA to take care of.
- [28:19]
Nicole Lapin
And are you engaging in the comments? Like, I'm in this one where you put this glamour shot.
- [28:24]
Jason Pfeiffer
Oh, yes, I did. Yeah, I know. It's a nice photo of me.
- [28:27]
Nicole Lapin
Okay, you just wrote thanks to this person for the photo, but you're not responding to all the comments, right?
- [28:35]
Jason Pfeiffer
I try. You can tell if anybody wants, if anybody really cares, which I don't know why anyone would. You can tell how busy my day was based on whether or not I engaged in the comments. Like, it's a goal of mine to engage in the comments, but I can't do it every day, so sometimes I just don't. But, yes, I do. I do try to go in there and reply to a lot of people.
- [28:55]
Nicole Lapin
Damn.
- [28:56]
Okay, so what I'm scared of is that I'm gonna wake up and I'm gonna scroll, email and text and all the other things and maybe Instagram. And now I'm.
- [29:06]
Jason Pfeiffer
There's another thing to do.
- [29:08]
Nicole Lapin
What's the behavior?
- [29:09]
Do you scroll.
- [29:10]
Do you scroll LinkedIn in the morning?
- [29:12]
Jason Pfeiffer
Oh, no, I. I don't. No. No, I don't. I really would encourage you, Nicole, and anybody who is thinking about using social media for more professional purposes to separate in your mind, like, Nicole, break these two things apart in your head right now. Hosting, consuming. They're different things. I do not scroll LinkedIn. I post on LinkedIn. I do occasionally look at. If I open LinkedIn, I'm going to post. I'll look at maybe like the, the, the. The top three posts that I see. And sometimes I'll leave comments because I want to engage with people and show that I'm part of the community. But no, the. Really, the only time that I spend on LinkedIn is writing the post, replying to the comments that are always thoughtful, but, you know, people aren't. People aren't jerks on LinkedIn and also engaging in DMs because people respond.
- [30:14]
Nicole Lapin
All right, I'm on my page. I thank you to Sabrina on our team. I've never made a post, but there are some video posts that are here. All right, I'm going to make a post with you.
- [30:27]
Jason Pfeiffer
You're going to post. Great. I'm very excited about this.
- [30:30]
Nicole Lapin
This is my first.
- [30:31]
Jason Pfeiffer
So what are we going to say?
- [30:32]
Nicole Lapin
I don't know. What are we going to say?
- [30:34]
Jason Pfeiffer
I have an idea. I have an idea for a post. The post that I'm going to give you is. Is a piece of advice that I often Give people when they are trying to wrap their head around how to engage with LinkedIn. Because I know that what I have laid out here can sound like a lot, right? Like, I tell you, I post every day. Don't worry, it's only 15 minutes. Right? But, like, that's because I do it all the time. And also because I write professionally. And so I'm faster writing than a lot of people are. So I. Nicole, do not expect you to post every day. I don't think that it's a good idea for you to aspire to post every day. It's too much. It's too much.
- [31:13]
Nicole Lapin
But I like writing and I like EM Dashes.
- [31:15]
Jason Pfeiffer
Right. No, you. Again, you could do it more easily than many people because you also can write really fast. But here's what I. Here's what I'm going to propose that you do right now and that you then maybe share with others, which is don't set the goal at posting every day because it sounds too overwhelming. And you'll feel like, well, I can't do that, therefore, I'm a failure. Therefore, no LinkedIn. Instead, you should set a very manageable goal. Maybe it's post once a week. Maybe it's post once every two weeks. You could write, I want to Engage More on LinkedIn, but I'm intimidated to start a new habit. So here's what I'm going to do. Instead of making a goal to post once a day, I'm going to make a goal to post once a week. It's more manageable. It's more approachable. This is how you build towards big things. You start with small things. That's it.
- [32:03]
Nicole Lapin
Wait, that's the post?
- [32:04]
Jason Pfeiffer
That's the post.
- [32:05]
Nicole Lapin
You write that?
- [32:06]
Jason Pfeiffer
Yes. You write all that? You can write it word for word. I just wrote a post for you.
- [32:10]
Nicole Lapin
Okay, that.
- [32:11]
Jason Pfeiffer
Right.
- [32:12]
Nicole Lapin
What about if I do? Okay, how about this?
- [32:15]
Jason Pfeiffer
Yeah.
- [32:15]
Nicole Lapin
So I need your help.
- [32:18]
Jason Pfeiffer
Okay.
- [32:18]
Nicole Lapin
Jason Pfeiffer is telling me I need to post more. How many times would you like to see me post?
- [32:26]
Jason Pfeiffer
So you hate it. I liked the start of it. But here's the thing. You don't want to think of your LinkedIn audience as fans, right? Like that. What you just did there is kind of like how you would talk to an Instagram audience. But. But LinkedIn audience, the LinkedIn audience are professionals. So they're not here because they're like fans. They're here because maybe they're trying to do the thing that you're trying to do. Or they might want to work with you, or they might want to work with somebody like you. So they're looking more for your insights than they are for a relationship that's more like, you know, talent fan.
- [33:08]
Nicole Lapin
So I've been fucking this up all along. Should I delete the other posts?
- [33:13]
Jason Pfeiffer
No, just start with this. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter.
- [33:16]
Nicole Lapin
All right, so say it again.
- [33:18]
Jason Pfeiffer
Okay. Think about it this way. Think about it this way. You know what the people on LinkedIn Nicole would love from you? What do the people hunger for from Nicole Lapin? I will tell you.
- [33:28]
Nicole Lapin
I'd love to know.
- [33:29]
Jason Pfeiffer
They want to know how you got that gig. They want to know how you did that thing. They want to know how you structure your day or how you thought about this or a thing that you learned from that other person or. Right. Like, that's what they're looking for. They want to succeed in their own way. Like, you have succeeded in your way, and they want to learn from you. That's what they're looking for. Like, I. It's. I know. It's a mind shift about how to post on social media, whereas, like, Instagram is. Is all about kind of, like, showiness. LinkedIn is not. You have to come into LinkedIn like you're walking into a classroom, and you are for 30 seconds at the front of the classroom, and you have something to share with everybody.
- [34:13]
Nicole Lapin
Okay?
- [34:14]
Jason Pfeiffer
That's the way to do it. That's why I like structured when I said the LinkedIn post the way that I did. Because what I want you to do is take some kind of insight and. And share it. I mean, you know what would be a killer LinkedIn post is, for example, I'm just thinking about things that I've heard you say a lot. Is the difference between being nice and being kind, which has come up on the podcast a bunch of times. That's a killer LinkedIn post. The distinction between being nice and being kind, the start of it could be, are you nice or are you kind? There's an important difference. And then you explain what that difference is. That would kill. People would love that.
- [34:47]
Nicole Lapin
Okay. Since you're my work husband and you know me and you're the best writer in all the LinkedIn land, would you say? And there must be an em dash, obviously. So are you nice or are you kind? Question mark. And then space. Yes, there's a difference. Because that's all people are gonna see.
- [35:06]
Jason Pfeiffer
There's a difference.
- [35:07]
Nicole Lapin
And then. Can I be done. Listen to this podcast?
- [35:16]
Jason Pfeiffer
You know, Nicole, we're gonna baby step our way into this. If you want to say there's a difference and post it. I endorse that. It's not the strongest LinkedIn post in the world, but we're not going for strongest baby steps. We're just going for doing it. We're going for. For crawl, walk, run here.
- [35:32]
Nicole Lapin
All right, I'm posting it.
- [35:33]
Jason Pfeiffer
Post it.
- [35:34]
Nicole Lapin
Okay, I just posted it. Will you like it?
- [35:36]
Jason Pfeiffer
Of course I'm gonna like it right now.
- [35:37]
Nicole Lapin
It's up.
- [35:37]
Jason Pfeiffer
It's up. Look here. Here's the takeaway. Like, if for anybody who has just survived listening to US craft a LinkedIn post, here's the thing that I think everyone should remember. It is worth figuring out where your people are. And if you are aware of a place that they might be and you haven't figured out how to engage there, it's worth trying. And you're not going to get it right the first time. Maybe set a goal for yourself. I'm going to post 10 times. I'm going to see what happens. I'm going to try a couple different kinds of things, right? Maybe I'll do a poll and I'm going to do a post a photo and something, and I'll do whatever, like, just try a bunch of different things. And what you may find is that you like that kind of engagement and there's value to it. And you don't have infinite time, Nicole. You do not have infinite time. Neither do I. So maybe, maybe if you need to shift your resources or your team's resources towards LinkedIn, maybe you can steal those resources from something that's a little less valuable. Because I would argue that, like, Facebook, if you have anybody working on Facebook, is less valuable these days. And Instagram, I think, is really even of questionable value right now. So you experiment and you find out where you connect and do not not go there just because you haven't already. Like, in a way, that's kind of how we started here. You're like, I'm not there because I haven't been there. And that's not a. That's not a good reason to not be somewhere. So I am now expecting to see you on LinkedIn.
- [37:18]
Nicole Lapin
Now I'm in. See what I did there? You're in.
- [37:23]
Jason Pfeiffer
Help Wanted is a production of Money News Network. Help Wanted is hosted by me, Jason.
- [37:27]
Nicole Lapin
Pfeiffer, and me, Nicole Lapin.
- [37:30]
Our executive producer is Morgan Lavoie.
- [37:32]
You want some help? Email our helpline@helpwantedoneynewsnetwork.com for the chance to have some of your questions answered on the show and follow us on Instagramoneynews and TikTokoneyNewsNetwork for exclusive content and to.
- [37:45]
See our beautiful faces. Maybe a little dance?
- [37:48]
Jason Pfeiffer
Oh, I didn't sign up for that.
- [37:49]
Nicole Lapin
Alright, well, talk to you soon, Sam.