← We Are For Good Podcast - The Podcast for Nonprofits
We Are For Good Podcast - The Podcast for Nonprofits
663. Working Session: LinkedIn Strategies for Year-End with Tania Bhattacharyya
00:20:43
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- [00:01]
A
So if you notice that LinkedIn is no longer just a tool for job seekers. Yeah. Amazing conversations are happening there all the time. And nonprofits are using it to not only just grow their year end giving, but also as a new place to storytell. So we've invited LinkedIn experts and one of our favorite humans, Tanya Bhattacharya of Lumos Marketing today to kind of unpack how we can use it to grow our visibility and also deepen warm connections right before year end.
- [00:30]
Welcome to working sessions on the We Are for Good podcast. In every session, we're tackling one essential topic and give you practical steps to take meaningful action within your mission. Today we're bringing you the experts and playbooks to help you move forward with clarity and confidence. Let's get to work.
- [00:46]
Tanya. Oh my gosh, I always love spending time together. It's good to see you. Thanks for being part of this.
- [00:51]
B
Oh, likewise. It's always so good to see your face. Thanks for inviting me.
- [00:55]
A
Well, I mean, audience of one, basically, when we're like, who is an expert at this? Who teaches us how to, to not just do LinkedIn, but to do it in a way that is like generative, that fuels us as the messenger, but also connects with people. Heck, I think we met on LinkedIn. We definitely met in the interwebs. But I love how you work with social impact leaders to figure out our niche, figure out how to connect online. And so today's working session, we just wanted to like tap your brain of like, how do we dig in and do LinkedIn better in the next few weeks in a way that doesn't burn us out, but they kind of build this up. So I'm just kind of kicking it to you. Like, what do you think we should tackle in today's working session?
- [01:32]
B
Yeah, there's a couple things I think we can tackle, you know, and of course I just want to say, you know, I feel like I should say to be true to my, to my like, ethos that, you know, LinkedIn thought leadership in general is usually more of a long time, long term burn marathon, not a sprint. You know, I just wanted, I do want to say that, but, but that being said, if you have had any sort of like footprint on LinkedIn, including just kind of lurking on the platform, having a profile, seeing what's out there, know, kind of sporadically adding people or being added to people, I think that there's an untapped opportunity for you during this year end fundraising season to get on LinkedIn and try a couple things so I've got, yeah, kind of three things in mind.
- [02:11]
A
One of the core values of we are for Good is play the long game. I mean, that already gives me an exhale that this is not the only silver bullet, but this is a, this is one thing that we can do to activate community and create better conversations. So such beautiful tone setting. Thank you, friend.
- [02:27]
B
Oh, well, I love that. I love that. And you know, I know this is not necessarily what folks want to hear, but everything that I'm sharing today is an investment in your brand, your visibility, your relationships. And so even if you do something that touches somebody and they don't give this year, maybe they'll give in March, maybe they'll give at next year's giving campaign because you did something today that connected and resonated with them, you know, so good.
- [02:50]
A
So I mean, if we think about like kind of the core post ideas, I mean, I think that's what at least I run into the blocks the most is like, what do you say? Like, we stare at these blank pages and we get very intimidated of like, what, what do we say? Do we have to like, come up with groundbreaking content every day? Like, what do we do? Kind of guide us through of what makes most sense.
- [03:11]
B
Yeah, well, as far as posting goes, I have kind of like two ideas of post post styles or post types that can be really good for you this year and fundraising season. And so, you know, this comes from personal experience just very quickly. I used to run a women's addiction treatment program. I did the fundraising there. I was there for 12 years. One of the things that we did, you know, during year end was do a little recap of all of the organizations, like all of the companies that came and did volunteer work with us and, and, and you know, it was a pretty robust group. We had people come and do baby showers for the women who were in, you know, in their third trimester of pregnancy. We had people come and do beautification projects. We had people come and do, like, you know, just beautiful things, you know, beautiful things with our women. And so one thing we would do towards the end of the year is sort of recap all of the different companies and give gratitude to all the different companies who came in and did stuff with us. And there's a couple reasons why I think this can be really good for year end fundraising season, especially on LinkedIn, is because of that ripple effect that LinkedIn has. And so often, you know, people from these companies will come and engage and maybe they'll get on your newsletter list. Like maybe you'll be able to connect with them, but sometimes you won't. But when you do a post sort of recapping that event, that experience, having pictures of the team tagging their co workers that came talking about how wonderful it was, the LinkedIn ripple effect, the algorithm effect, gets that post in front of people who maybe are friends with those individuals who came, but, you know, are no longer really involved. People who are passionate about your mission and work at that company, but maybe didn't come to that event in the first place. It just you get in front of this group of people, this network who you can't necessarily reach but are actually already warm to you, you know, and it creates some social proof too, like, oh, people, others, people like me give here. People like me are involved in an organization like this. It just creates trust and that top of mind awareness, you know what I mean?
- [05:06]
A
I am obsessed with this idea because we call it like stoking. I don't know if that's the right word, but it fits with your fire analogies all the time, engaging different tags of either people or companies. It really does change the conversation. And I think it decenters, which I think is powerful of like bringing more people in. You're also part of a community that made this happen and showing up in that way is generative. And people want to share that. They don't want to share your brand message. They want to share that they're part of the community that they believe in and that they got to have a meaningful role in this past year. So that's super sage. Love that.
- [05:41]
B
Yeah, 100%. There was an organization that had an international presence, but they had a local chapter. And that local chapter was really involved in our org. And what we found is as we would like share these experiences that they put together for our organization and our, and our, and our women, our patients. The headquarter organization started taking note and we ended up every year we would have a larger and larger check that would come from the corporate giving arm. Not just the people, but the corporate giving arm. And I think that's because, you know, we did a really good job of using LinkedIn as a space to uplift that work, you know, and LinkedIn is a space where these folks are wanting to be seen by their peers, by their community, be seen as a leader in the, in the social impact space too. So it just, it just really worked.
- [06:25]
A
Yeah, it's like giving them something value aligned to talk about too. You kind of are doing the work for them, but they get to ride the coattails of that interaction too, by being part of the conversation. Super cool. And I love that it translated into even some financial contributions in some way. So it's. It's hard to track this stuff back sometimes too, you know.
- [06:42]
B
It is. It's really hard. I know it's really hard. But, you know, when you put in the good work, you know, it always comes back to you.
- [06:48]
A
Okay, so definitely feeling the tag and ripple post. Like this makes so much sense. What was you. You alluded to a second post. What are you thinking for that?
- [06:55]
B
Yeah, so for that, I would encourage folks to try out a LinkedIn poll. For those of you listening, you may have seen these in your feed. You may have tried one. But the reason I love LinkedIn polls so much is because the majority of active LinkedIn users are actually lurking, right? They're lurking, they're scrolling.
- [07:11]
A
Like, creeps me out. I just feel like someone's watching me right now.
- [07:15]
B
See, I'm trying to reclaim all these words. Like we said, lurking, lazy. Yeah.
- [07:22]
A
But you're right. If you just look at like post engagement, you know, you can see sometimes it's fascinating how many more people see it than ever are going to click. Like, like that's just a thing.
- [07:31]
B
Oh, exponentially more so. And I have so many people I work with will go to a conference or a sector event and somebody will come up to them and say, oh my gosh, I saw your post about this, this and this. I talked to my team about it. Or like they actually, it made a big impact on them. And the per. And my friend or my client is like, what? I didn't even. You didn't even. You didn't like that post? You know what I mean? That happens all the time and you have a much greater viewership than you think. And so LinkedIn polls are great because they're kind of an easy way to get people to raise their hand and participate versus kind of like passively watching what's on their feed. And I think sometimes that's just because, like, you know, think about your own behavior, right? Having to think of a thoughtful comment, it can be hard. So you just keep scrolling, you go on to the next thing. But if all you have to do to participate in a post that you care about is just vote in a poll, it's just a little bit easier. And so I think one way to use the LinkedIn Poll function for this year end fundraising season is to think about, you know, most organizations have a mission, but there's like sort of subsects within that mission. So maybe your organization does like advocacy and legislation and direct services and alumni programming or maybe, you know what I mean, like there's different aspects to the work. And so you could say something as simple as, hey, you know what issue matters to you most this winter and put a couple different things that your organization does and you know, just see what happens. Let people vote in the poll. And this is helpful because then you can actually follow up with every person who votes because you know what's on their heart, you know, you know what matters to them. And little tidbit on LinkedIn polls. It's anonymous for the majority of the public. Like people can't see how other people vote, but the person who creates the poll can see. So you have that ability to send direct messages or follow up with people and start that conversation.
- [09:19]
A
I actually did not know that because I've never run a poll. So this.
- [09:24]
But it also. Now I may be a lurker. I'm like, oh great. Now on my poll, the things that I. The things that you vote will haunt you on LinkedIn.
- [09:34]
That is so. That's so good because I feel like there's multiple layers of. In that case you could also understand like what content are people looking to see here on LinkedIn? You know, is this audience skewed a little bit more that they want to hear this? And obviously the personal follow up, I mean, you're greasing the skids because I know we talked about this before we started, but I mean we're going to talk about the power of the DM and now you have actual data in platform of what somebody was interested in and it's like you kind of have an invitation to a next step. Like, this is so good.
- [10:06]
B
Yeah, that's right. And because they already voted in their poll, like there's a familiarity, you know, you're not just reaching out for no reason or out of nowhere. Not that that's a bad thing. Hear me? Like, I don't want to say that that's a bad thing either, but because they already like participated with you, it's just a natural next step.
- [10:20]
A
Yeah, yeah. Do you have other ideas of how we can use polls? I mean, in the next few weeks.
- [10:25]
B
In general, I love, especially on a place like LinkedIn which is all about like discoverability, visibility, community. I love putting out like your big vision. I think so often nonprofit leaders get stuck in the, like this is exactly what we do and like we served X amount of people and that's all good too. There's a space for everything. But I think LinkedIn is a really great place to be dreamy and visionary and inspire people. So one poll I think is really great, is like, what is the vision that makes you really excited about our work? Or what is the big dreamy future that you hope our work together can create? One example, I work with an amazing organization that does community development work. And so there's a lot of different dreamy visions about that. Maybe somebody loves their work because it means that small businesses are able to get spaces. Right. Maybe they love that work because families are able to retain their homes, their family homes. Maybe they love that work because there's like a climate element to it. Right. And a disaster preparedness element to it. Like, there's so many elements to the work. But instead of what I said before, like, rooting the pole in that dreamy future vision of what can actually occur as a result of the work. So that's just kind of another way of framing the same thing, but just giving people a chance to dream and get excited, you know?
- [11:44]
A
Yeah. And to me, it, like, speaks like building with community. We're centering people's voices. That it's not just one perspective. It's like, how do we use the power of community to, like, have a better perspective of this question? I mean, as you're talking about these different posts, I'm thinking is your mindset, you post this from a person, a human on the team, or like the company page? How do you kind of play both sides of that?
- [12:09]
B
Yeah. You know, this is a. This is an interesting thing that I spend a lot of time thinking about. And what I know for sure, like, you know, like Oprah says, like, something that I just know for sure is that, you know, you're going to have better results sharing from a personal page that requires you to have somebody on your team. Or maybe it's a board member, maybe it's a founder, you know, perhaps it's an ed. Perhaps it's you, the fundraiser. You know, somebody who is willing to kind of be out there as a little bit of a face of the organization or at least be willing to step into the limelight, because then that lights shines back on your mission. People give to people, people support other people. And so even though, you know, nonprofits have the most trust out of, like, any institution that exists, you're still going to be a more trusted, visible voice and reach more people. If you share from that personal organizational account, you know, you just will. I think there's a stat that an individual post will get 561% greater reach than a company post. And I've. And I see that.
- [13:07]
A
61.
- [13:08]
B
Yeah, it's kind of wild, but I see that. Like, I actually literally see that in the. In the nonprofit CEOs and founders that I work with. They'll post something about an event or an experience, and the organizational page will post about that same event. And the personal post always gets significantly, like, significantly greater engagement. And it just makes sense. Like, I get why.
- [13:30]
A
I agree. So I think that is, like, a really great hack if you've kind of just been leaning on just the organizational voice. Like, this is a chance to, like, step into, you know, sharing your voice, sharing your perspective. I think that's a huge unlock.
- [13:44]
B
I want to add one thing to what you just said, which is that, like, if you're listening to this and you're like, oh, like, none of our people are really visible online or I've been meaning to get on LinkedIn, I haven't done it. You know, think about people who are maybe outside of the four walls of your organization who are visible on LinkedIn. Like I said before, like, you probably have a board member who is pretty active on LinkedIn. You probably have a donor or like a volunteer who is active on LinkedIn. And people are always looking for stuff to say, stuff to talk about, interesting stuff to like, spark conversation. And so, like, you're giving people an opportunity to talk about something they're passionate about and just, you know, start conversation. So think about who in your ecosystem could maybe be a voice for you this year end season and just tap on them to. To share some things.
- [14:23]
A
Oh, my gosh. You just, like, threw us a lifeline. It doesn't have to be us. We don't have to, like, pile on one more thing at year end. What a great hack. And just a way to hand the mic to someone else also. Yeah, so I want to talk about the DM and LinkedIn, because my friend, again, I feel like we met in DMS on LinkedIn, but definitely know that I have built a lot of relationships. Just saying, hey, that was really awesome, like, what you just said. I'd love to get coffee or sending voice notes. Like, I just, I love this feature and I know you believe in the power of it. So what would you say is some ideas around how to use that to kind of build relationships?
- [14:58]
B
Yeah, Yeah. I mean, yeah, LinkedIn is so great because it's so much more than a social media platform. I think of it also as, like a messaging tool. And a place to, like, really build relationship. Because whether you realize it or not, like, there's just so many people who have LinkedIn, the app on their phone. And you and I were actually talking about this. Like, when I get a LinkedIn message, it shows up almost more to me than an email or a text. Like, I see it right away. And not everyone has that, but more people than you think will have that LinkedIn app and that and that thing right on their phones. And so, you know, I think this is really great, especially for organizations who have alumni organizations, colleges and universities, people who work with a donor base who is, you know, working professional, etc. Just making sure, first of all, you know, throughout the year and now, if you haven't done this, just go and make sure that you're connected with the people who are engaged in your organization. Right. Send them that personalized connection request so that your first degree connections.
- [15:54]
A
Tanya, can you just highlight this for a minute? Because I'm like, I'm pretty sure I did that zero times in my career. It's almost like it was two different things. And I just want to name that for someone listening, that's like, oh, that would actually be a really wonderful touch point that could be added, you know.
- [16:09]
B
Oh, my gosh. Yes, yes. Like, just maybe once a week, have like a little, like, block of LinkedIn time. It could be 10 minutes, it could be 15 minutes. But just think about the people you met that week and who came to your events who, like, volunteered for something and just send them that connection request. I know sometimes I know somebody out there is thinking, but I already got Adam to my CRM and I already got Adam here. And like, that's real. Like, that is real. But the reason I'm really encouraging folks to connect with me, people on LinkedIn is because it's that flexible Rolodex and people move around all the time. I would like, pretty soon after I left my fundraising job, I would, like, put on an old outfit and I'd, like, go in the pockets and I'd see a business card and be like, oh, X, Y and Z. I should probably, like, reach out to them. And I realized I'd email them. And I'm like, oh, this email doesn't work. They've left that organization. People move around so much. And so on LinkedIn, you just, you're able. When they move, you don't have to connect with them again. You can connect with folks through the span of their career. And that's just really great for continuity and stuff. Like that so. And the second piece of it is you can send that direct message to people. And so if you haven't played around with the direct message feature on LinkedIn, it's a little bit more. You know, I feel like people have this idea of LinkedIn as this, like, really old clunky, like this. The way that LinkedIn used to be, like five to 10 years resumes, you know, but it has changed a lot over. Over the last couple of years. And so you can send voice notes, you can send a video message. And there's just, you know, certain people who maybe they're very gatekept. Like, they have an. They have somebody who reads all their email for them. So you can't get an email to them. Maybe they just don't answer their phone. I would use LinkedIn DMS as just like a tool in your repertoire to try to connect with folks before December 31st and just build that personalized, direct, you know, line of communication with them and just check in, just see how they're doing, see how their year was.
- [17:57]
A
Yeah, I agree. I don't think they always have the same gatekeeping that an email does, you know, because I'll find that even with people we interview on the podcast, try to, like, you know, obviously go and find them on LinkedIn, and sometimes they're working through PR agencies to get on the podcast, and it's like, we don't actually have a direct line, but, man, on LinkedIn, they're responding in minutes. So it's like, it is a hack that's out there to just. It's a more personal way to engage. That's not somebody finding somebody's Facebook page or something weird, but, like, you know, exactly. Like, actually a professional way.
- [18:26]
B
That actually brings up a great point, because there's certain folks who, like, I would never just send an Instagram connection request to some person that came to an event. I just wouldn't necessarily do that depending on that person. But on LinkedIn, like you said, it's appropriate. Cause it's a professional platform. It's built for networking, it's built for building relationships. So nobody's gonna blink an eye if you. If you connect with them. It just makes sense.
- [18:46]
A
Yeah, we all love to lurk, apparently, because that's what everyone's doing. So everyone's very used to this. Okay. I mean, I feel like you've given us so much, so many ideas, so much encouragement. Thanks for, like, how you always ground what you talk about in. You don't have to do it all. You can do this in small time blocks that make sense. Like it puts it in perspective. Makes me have a nice exhale here as we close this out. Tanya, like what is a one good thing moment, maybe that we could take it as an assignment as this working session. Like, what's something we could really put in practice today?
- [19:19]
B
You know, the first thing that came to mind is really like just do it imperfectly. I think LinkedIn, especially out of any other sort of marketing tool or social media tool, whatever you want to call it, people feel like they have to be really perfect on there, buttoned up and that creates the conditions where, you know, if you can't get the, the word, the, you know, like, like the words that you use perfectly on the poll, you're just not going to post the poll. Like I see that happen so often and I just, you know, always come back to this thing of people don't necessarily remember the words that you use. They just remember how that, that thing made them feel and you know, you don't have to do it perfect. Yeah, just get out there and start and see what happens. You might be surprised.
- [19:56]
A
Just love spending time with you, my friend. Thanks for the way you show up in the world. How can folks listening find you, find Lumos and all the ways you show up? I mean, how does someone become a Firestarter basically? Isn't that what you call your community?
- [20:07]
B
Yes, yes. Well, of course LinkedIn is a great place to connect with me. You know that send me a connection request and I will connect with you back and maybe send you a little voice note and see what's, what's going on with you. But I would say LinkedIn is definitely like the primary place. And if you do want to get my weekly newsletter, there's a easy link to do that right on my LinkedIn profile page page.
- [20:27]
A
Okay. We will link it up directly in the show notes in the episode description. You can just one click over to Tanya's profile. Thank you. This has been so good. Really grateful for you.
- [20:37]
B
Thank you, John. Thank you for filling up my heart and I hope that this inspires someone to get out there and raise some money on LinkedIn.