How LinkedIn Can Benefit You As A Business with John Espirian

This week’s episode is another interview, this time with John Espirian. After hearing John speak about LinkedIn at a local conference, I knew I wanted him to be a podcast guest as I was able to learn some valuable tips and tricks from his talk and as someone who has been in the industry for a long time, it’s always so refreshing when that happens. With lots of actionable advice when it comes to LinkedIn, this is definitely an episode for those that have been looking to maximise their profile.KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCASTThe simpler your message is, the more people will remember it and take action.When it comes to LinkedIn, you need to trial and error what works best.Even if you talk about a variety of different topics, you need to ensure you have that ‘one thing’ that everyone knows you for. This should apply to all social media platforms.Invest in relationships as much as you possibly can. Although you need to put sales content out, building relationships is much more important when it comes to LinkedIn. Whether it’s publicly or using direct messaging.LinkedIn doesn’t just have to be for those that are B2B.You have a smaller reach on LinkedIn so the organic reach is better than any other platform.LinkedIn posts have a lifespan of around 2-3 days.If you write an article on LinkedIn they will be indexed by Google. You should be aiming to create both short-form and long-form content on your platformDon’t put links in your post right away. Post your content, wait a few seconds and then edit your post to include the link. This is known to give your post much more reach.Document posts are more likely to be boosted by LinkedIn, so make sure you’re using these every now and again. If you use document posts, you need a clear call to action.A great statistic to monitor is how many people are visiting your profile page, as this is a one big sales page for you and what you do. One of the best ways to do this is to switch to follow first.When writing your headline you should follow a 40, 60, 20 rule in terms of characters. The first 40 characters should be interesting, the next 60 should be informative and intrigued. This will get more people to click through to your profile.Don’t use more than three hashtags. Make them a mix of personal brand hashtags and popular industry hashtags. Put them at the end of your post.Tag yourself at the end of your post for up to 28% more visibility.THE ONE THING YOU NEED TO REMEMBER ABOVE ALL ELSE…You have to be in the conversation long enough for people to start remembering your name. You can’t just start posting on LinkedIn and expect it to work. You need to show up and have clear branding.HIGHLIGHTS YOU SIMPLY CAN'T MISSIntroducing John Espirian – 04:59Becoming Seen as A LinkedIn Expert – 12:30Investing in Relationships - 20:30Why Should You Bother with LinkedIn? - 22:56The Basics of LinkedIn - 24:53How to Ensure Your Posts Are Seen – 30:00Using ‘Follow First’ – 39:50Other Important Points to Consider – 45:19Transcript below Hello, and welcome to this week's episode of the podcast. How are you? How are things going? At time of recording this episode, it's a very rainy February day, so I'm hoping by the time you're listening to this, it's kind of mid-March and the sun might be shining. Let's hope so. I am desperate for the spring to come and to have some nicer, warmer weather. That's why, in Episode 100 when we talked about we wouldn't want to move to the States. That's one of the reasons. Wouldn't it just be lovely to wake up every day and the sun to be shining? Honestly, I think it puts us in such a better mood, so much nicer mood. Okay, this week's episode is an interview. It's with the really, really lovely John Espirian.John and I had followed each other on social media for quite some time, but we met properly for the first time at Cambridge Social Day when I was keynoting Cambridge Social Day and he was speaking there as well, and he talked about LinkedIn. I love it, and I don't know about you, but I love it when I do an episode of the podcast or when I meet people or I see people and they teach me something. Because, obviously, I'm in this world a lot. I do a lot of stuff in this world. I know lots of it. Obviously, or otherwise people wouldn't pay me. You wouldn't pay me to do the academy and you wouldn't listen to the podcast, so I obviously know lots and lots of stuff, but I do enjoy learning from people and them telling me things that I don't know. This is exactly what John did.John describes himself as the relentlessly helpful technical copywriter and author of Content DNA, formerly a Microsoft Mac MVP and director of The Society of Editors and Proofreaders. Gosh, that's a mouthful. And John writes business-to-business web content to help clients explain how their products and services and processes work. Basically, he's a technical copywriter. Now, that in itself is a hell of a skill. Well, first off, copywriting is a real skill. Then to be a technical copywriter so that not only to do you have to understand technical elements of things, but you then have to translate it into a language that basically anyone can pick up and read. That is a phenomenal skill.What John has done, that is his business. That's what he does. However, in order to prove and show how he is good at writing technical copy, he's been putting together content around LinkedIn and it's really helped him stand out. He uses LinkedIn as his platform, so he's not, although he's very well-known as a LinkedIn person, John's long-term aim is not to become the LinkedIn king. His long-term aim for his business is to keep doing his technical copywriting and to grow his business that way, but he's just using content and LinkedIn as a really good tool in order to get that out there. John knows some amazing hacks and tricks that he uses on LinkedIn and, like I said, things that I haven't heard before, so I had to have him on.He is relentlessly helpful and is a super, super lovely guy, so I think you're going to really enjoy today's episode. I would highly recommend, and obviously I'll link to this in the show notes, but I do recommend that you go and follow John on LinkedIn just because he does put so much content out there and some really smart, clever things. A bit like me, we test things. I did the five day challenge. By the time this episode comes out, it's done, but by the time I'm recording it, I haven't even started it. The whole point of doing anything is I can then come back and tell you what worked, what didn't work, how to do it, how not to do it, how not to waste time, how to do it efficiently, how to get best results. That's basically what John does.He does that for LinkedIn. He tests his own things himself. Then he'll write a very well-written and straightforward blog post on what that is and how that works and whether you should do it. Like I said, highly recommend that you go and check him out on LinkedIn. But obviously, first, take a listen to this brilliant episode with John. Introducing John Espirian Okay, I am so excited to welcome today's guest to the podcast. Welcome, John Espirian.Thanks for having me, Teresa. Really excited for this one.No worries. I'm excited because you and I have been in each other's worlds for a little while now, and you have a very unique presence on social media so you're very easy to spot in terms of your graphics and things. We've been at some events, but we really got chatted at Cambridge Social Day, didn't we?That's right.Because we were both speaking there. John gives the coolest stuff away in terms of content that I just had to have him on and had to have him talking about all things content and LinkedIn. Before we jump into that, John, just explain to my listeners, if they haven't heard from you before, who you are and how you got to do what you do now.Okay, so I am a content writer. I work in B2B. I've been doing that independently for about 10 years, but before then, I was a software and hardware tester. I was the guy who was poking and fiddling with stuff and trying to work out why it was broken or why the manuals weren't as clear as they could've been. When I got made redundant from that job, I took that main skill that I had, which is understanding how stuff works and explaining it to people so that they don't feel stupid and putting that into writing. Yeah, it's been 10 years independent now. That's what I do. I work on websites and some social media content to help people explain how products and services and processes work. That is my service.I need to explain, John. That, honestly, would be my idea of hell. I'm so sorry. You obviously have a brain that I don't have because the technical side of stuff I would really struggle with, but also, as these guys know, because they listen all the time, I don't like writing anyway. Doing that, is it quite niche? Are there many people doing it?Yeah. It can be. I mean, there are a million and one copywriters out there, but there aren't so many who focus on explaining stuff as opposed to just selling stuff. I'm not really interested in the world of influence and selling. I'm more interested in explaining because the best feeling in the world for me is when someone's furrowing their brow going, "I don't get this." Then you tell them something and they go, "Why didn't someone just say that to start with?" I love giving people that realisation. It really helps them. Then I become the person of interest for them because I explained other stuff. They see what I'm doing and...