219: Power Talk Friday: AJ Wilcox: LinkedIn for Your Interior Design Business

The guest for today's Power Talk Friday is A.J.Wilcox and he brings a brand new topic to the show. In the more than two hundred episodes that have aired over the past year and a half, we have never before discussed Linkedin and so A.J. has just become our Linkedin Guru. LuAnn has never considered Linkedin to be a particularly hot platform for the Interior Design Industry, because Interior Design is a very visual industry, which makes use of platforms like Instagram and Facebook, and Linkedin seems a little serious by comparison. LuAnn does have a Linkedin profile, however she does literally nothing at all with it. In fact, she recently told a story on one of the podcasts about a Designer who reached out to her with a private message on Linkedin, complimenting her about the show and LuAnn knew nothing about it for almost three months! She knows, however, that every bit of social media and marketing is really valuable and if you're going to do something, you need to do it right, so she's really glad to have A.J. on the show with her today. Listen in to find out what you really need to know about Linkedin.    A.J.'s a tri-athlete and he lives in Utah with his wife and four kids.  He fell in love with Linkedin back in 2011 and he liked it so much that he started an agency which focuses on Linkedin ads only. When LuAnn found out that his company car is a go-cart, she knew that this was going to be a really fun interview!  Listen in to find out how Linkedin can really work for you, as Designers. It's a very good platform for being professional.   Show highlights:   A.J. explains some of the basics of Linkedin and where it's value really lies. Some really nice short cuts that you can take, when setting up with Linkedin, to get what you do out there and in everybody's minds. You can ignore the rules and work out of the box! About three or four months ago, Linkedin underwent a re-design and changed a whole bunch of stuff around. Now they've added a free form field, for your profile. Use that to explain what you're all about and why people should care about you and want to hire you. There are portfolio editions of Linkedin, where you can add video clips. This is very powerful to help you prove your worth. A.J. would not necessarily treat the resume section of the Linkedin profile as such. He would rather talk about the results you've had and why you're worth paying attention to. Linkedin seems a bit stiff and professional, so it's worth injecting your unique personality into it, to make you really stand out. Talk simply on Linkedin and assume that nobody has any idea of what it is that you do, so you'll be educating them. Try to be fun, because then you really will stand out. A.J. has a really cool hack, for getting yourself out there on Linkedin. Linkedin bought a company called Pulse, which is a news app, with the goal to bring people to their platform more regularly and to get them to spend more time there. They've made it socially interactive, so you can comment and like- and even go viral. If you post your status on a project on  Linkedin, all your contacts will see it. This is a really great opportunity to connect with some powerful business people with a great deal of disposable income. A post on Linkedin can even stay up on your feed for a day and a half. This can really save you time. You want to generate a reaction. Ask for feedback. You want people to comment so that your post spreads.  Run a quiz or ask a question, to get people to react. You can now tag people on Linkedin. Endorsing for skill sets- This is to provide social proof of your most proficient skill sets. Be very targeted about who you want to have relationships with and who you want introductions to, on Linkedin.  Once you're connected to someone on Linkedin, you have unlimited free messages between the two of you. You also then have access to their email address.  The benefits of upgrading to the paid version of Linkedin- their Premium Profile.  The Influencers on Linkedin.  If you write an article that gets a lot of response, it could be kicked up and get to reach a huge number of people. How to write an article on Linkedin. It's just like writing a full blog post, with features and all. Use Linkedin to drive traffic to your website. You can also find specific groups on Linkedin and interact with people there. It's a great way to grow your network. Connect with AJ: His website http://b2linked.com  His twitter @B2Linked   His LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/B2Linked