CEO Group Call - LinkedIn Branding
Optimize your LinkedIn profile with actionable tips: create a custom URL, use a high-quality profile picture, write an engaging “About” section, highlight key experiences with logos, and leverage featured posts to boost visibility and credibility.
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LinkedIn Branding: A Step-by-Step Guide to Stand Out Professionally
In today’s competitive professional landscape, your LinkedIn profile is more than a digital résumé; it’s a dynamic tool for personal branding and networking. Optimizing your LinkedIn presence helps attract opportunities, build credibility, and position yourself as a leader in your field. Here’s how you can elevate your profile to maximize its potential:
Key Strategies to Enhance Your LinkedIn Branding
1. Customize Your LinkedIn URL
A personalized URL not only looks professional but also improves your discoverability through search engines.
• Navigate to your LinkedIn settings.
• Update your “Public Profile URL” to include your name (e.g., linkedin.com/in/YourName).
This simple step ensures your profile is easy to find and aligns with your overall digital presence.
2. Use a High-Quality Profile Picture
First impressions matter. A clear, professional photo increases trust and engagement.
• Tips for Your Profile Picture:
• Ensure it is high resolution.
• Choose a neutral or branded background. Tools like Canva can help you maintain a consistent theme.
• Avoid outdated or unclear images.
Your picture should reflect your current professional persona, making it easier for others to recognize and connect with you.
3. Craft a Compelling “About” Section
The “About” section is your opportunity to tell your story. Avoid generic descriptions; instead, focus on:
• Who you are: Highlight your key roles and expertise.
• What you do: Share achievements and unique skills.
• Why it matters: Explain how you add value.
Pro Tip: If you have a well-written bio elsewhere (like your website), adapt it here to maintain consistency.
4. Leverage the “Featured” Section
Use this space to showcase your best work and guide visitors to specific actions. Consider including:
• High-performing posts.
• Links to key resources or projects.
• Media files like PDFs or videos.
For example, you might feature links to book you as a speaker or join your professional community.
5. Optimize the “Experience” Section
This section should go beyond listing jobs.
• Add a logo for each position for visual appeal.
• Clearly outline your roles, responsibilities, and achievements.
• Include links to relevant company pages or projects.
The goal is to present a cohesive career narrative that reflects your skills and accomplishments.
6. Build Engagement Through Activity
Consistency is key. Regular posting and meaningful engagement with others’ content keep your profile active and visible.
• Post valuable insights 3–5 times a week.
• Leave at least 10 thoughtful comments daily on influential posts in your niche.
Engaging with a broader audience increases your reach and draws attention to your expertise.
7. Endorsements, Skills, and Recommendations
While not always prioritized, endorsements and recommendations build social proof.
• Highlight skills relevant to your current goals.
• Request recommendations from peers or clients who can vouch for your expertise.
Why LinkedIn Branding Matters
Your LinkedIn profile is more than just a static page. It’s a gateway to networking, career opportunities, and personal branding. By optimizing your profile and consistently engaging, you position yourself as an authority in your field.
Start implementing these strategies today to unlock the full potential of your LinkedIn profile!
Highlights:
00:00 Introduction to the Community
00:45 LinkedIn Profile Optimization
02:06 Importance of a Professional Photo
04:19 Creating an Effective LinkedIn Banner
05:45 Crafting a Compelling LinkedIn Title
08:28 Writing an Engaging About Section
11:20 Utilizing LinkedIn Features and Skills
14:07 Showcasing Experience and Education
19:12 Gathering Testimonials and Reviews
21:25 Final Tips and Q&A
26:44 Understanding Social Media Algorithms
27:19 Effective Posting Strategies
28:34 The Importance of Consistency
29:57 Engaging with Your Audience
32:43 Leveraging Different Content Types
36:52 Optimizing Your LinkedIn Presence
39:54 Practical Tips and Q&A
48:28 Final Thoughts and Next Steps
Transcript:
[00:00:00] So inside of our community, that's the desktop version of our community. You see, we are now live here. The
inside of the calendar, I've added the topics. So this week we are doing LinkedIn next week. We're going into videos and then we will do another one on 16th. And then maybe we will do a Christmas break. Let's see, but at least next week is video. So you see, I mean, at least the CEOs, you all have the calendar.
I'm invite in your Google calendar for those who are not part of the CEOs. You can have the look. Into what are the topics that are coming up so we can utilize them. So, LinkedIn,
I'm using my profile on LinkedIn as the example, because that's the one I'm most familiar with. [00:01:00] But in the end, we could do that on any of yours as well. So, LinkedIn, if we go to our page, there are a couple of key points. I will start with all the key points. Number one is, Every one of you should have only your name up there.
So there is a possibility that some of you might have numbers still. So for example, Jens and then different versions of Numbers. So you can change that somewhere in the settings off LinkedIn that you have your own URL. I think it's this one public profile URL. You can change that to your name. The beauty of that is if you search on the Internet again, SEO search engine optimization, it will help you.[00:02:00]
So the link is number one. Then number two is a picture. That sounds very simple, but it's not because I work with LinkedIn every day. There are a lot of people in LinkedIn which have a picture where people can't recognize you. So you're too far away. It's blurry. People can't see you. So having a high quality picture will make a huge difference when it comes to LinkedIn.
Super simple and easily done. You can use Canva any other tool to create different backgrounds? Like for example, I use Canva to create the same background that everything is in one color scheme But in the end is you just need to have a quality picture where people can recognize you on So it should not be too old.
It should not be too crazy so that people don't recognize you So [00:03:00] what's the what's the logic behind that? Um, I know it's, it's, it's, is it for the algorithm? Is it for, um, obviously you need a photo. And I'm not saying that's wrong, but, um, what's the, what's the reason behind needing, uh, let's say an up to date photo that, um, uh, people can recognize, um, especially within LinkedIn, right?
Because, um, mostly in LinkedIn, you just very tiny little, um, uh, icon in, uh, in the side of a, uh, of a comment, for example. Yeah. The key part is just the. Uh, in German it's called Wiedererkennungswert, that people recognize your face and associate your face with what you're doing. So as more clear a picture you have, as easier that is.
If you're like, I've seen pictures where someone is in nature somewhere and it's very far back. So if you would zoom in on a desktop, you could see that it's this person. But if you, if you just look at it on a phone, then [00:04:00] you would never recognize them. So it's just, if you have a clear picture, it's easier for people to recognize you.
And then in the end, associate you as the face with what you're doing, because that's the personal branding aspect of that.
So next, next part of the profile is the banner. Some people have zero banner on top. I think everyone should be using that functionality and uploading a banner. You can use, um, templates from, for example, Canva to create a banner. What I like to have here is again, a picture and a call to action. So I have used this call to action to get people into the free community.
I've used different ones in the past just to show people. In one picture of what you're about, [00:05:00] it's not the most important, but it's an easy way to convert people into your direction. As more clear you are of what you're about, as easier it is for people to associate you because that's, that's the thing you can see when you look at LinkedIn on your phone, just maybe open it while, while we're in the call.
If you open it and you click on your profile or on any other's profile, that's the first thing. People, people will see it's your face. It's the banner. And then the next one, which is the title.
What do you mean with title? This one. Yeah. Okay. So the title of your LinkedIn profile can be different than your job down here. Yeah. So if we, if we just go into this, if you click on editing it. You can [00:06:00] write whatever you want into your headline.
Yeah. So just being clear of what you are about and, and what you do as easier it is for people that can. So in my case, and I'm changing this because I'm testing quite different things, but right now I have this. Which is like, I'm the CEO of this company. I'm keynote speaker, which I'm always leaving because I want to do more keynote speaking.
And if you have keynote speaker in your title, then you show up in, um, different searches. If someone looks for it, the keynote, and then it's, um, but I have something that people can associate with what I'm doing.
And that's something we'll come to that in the personal branding topics when we have one on ones. But this is, this is a key part where you show. Like what you're [00:07:00] doing, because that's the number one thing people will see the picture. And then they will look at this.
And in my case, it's like thought leadership catalyst for CEOs. It's just a different way of saying that I'm working with CEOs. But for, for example, uh, you know, uh, to me, I'm just, uh, I'm, I'm built off this startup, but I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm on the first phase, would you change the title by now or would you, uh, would you change it when you, when I scale up the startup and not, not in the first, not in, in the earliest stage.
I would put it now. It depends. What, what, what, what, what do you, you can put founder as an example. Yeah. The beauty of that is you can change it every day and just figure out what is best for you. What feels best for you. And it's just [00:08:00] something to be aware of that this is triggering the search. So when people look for CEO and you have CEO here in your title, then you show up in the search inside of.
LinkedIn. If you have keynote speaker there, then they type in keynote speaker. Then they will like, you will pop up as keynote speaker. Do you can use that to your advantage?
Then next topic is about section inside of the, about section, um, right about yourself. Some people are writing about their company as more people are able to understand where you come from and what are you about as easier it is. So what I did here is I copy pasted the same story that I have on my website for simplicity because I have fine tuned that story over the [00:09:00] last years so that I know that it is dragging people in and it's a good use of it because what I want to, what I want here is to get, show my credibility, but as well as show that I'm, I'm a human, I'm a person.
And it's not just, uh, like a business perspective. So I'm combining this two in this for myself, at least it's something, um, just important for everyone to have something written there so that people understand what you're about. So what's the, again, what's the, um, what's the, okay, I know we're doing personal branding with this course, right?
Which is, um, part of it, but, um, what's the reason for there having it about specifically about you, um, over having about what you do for your, uh, your customers, your clients, your business? It's the combination of it, I would say. The, the key part is that this is a picture of you, it's not your company.[00:10:00]
So this is your profile. You have a company profile, which is all about the company. If you want, people are interested in people. As more you go into hard sales, as less people will be interested in, in exploring you as a person. And, and what this personal branding is all about is make attracting people to you as an individual and to your business.
So if you only talk about your business and you don't give anything about yourself, then it is limiting the opportunity for people to explore you. So what I do here is I'm combining this in this story. Do you use the paid version of LinkedIn or make this a difference? I'm using the paid version, but I think it does not make a huge difference.
I think the paid, the paid version is really where you get into like sales navigator or lots of stuff. Yeah, exactly. [00:11:00] Yeah. It's almost like a different app. Like you have different things that you can do with it. But let's say if we talk about your profile, there's no difference. If we talk about posting, it's no different.
I think you have more analytic stuff and so on, but it doesn't matter too much. Then another thing, top skills. I'm not sure if that's only for, um, premium, but I guess it's for everyone. This top skills that you add to your about section, they are also part of search. So they're preferred over all the other skills that you have in your, like say experience section below, just to be aware of that, that you can change them.
And then you can cater them to what you want to be fine through inside of LinkedIn. Like if you look at mine, I have leadership development, career [00:12:00] development, organizational leadership, business innovation, and personal branding. These are my key top skills that I featured there. The next section is featured.
Featured are different things. So featured, you can feature posts from the past. We just click here and plus you can have a newsletter. You can have articles, you can have links, and you can have media, which is PDFs or whatever. What I have seen, and I have copied that from one of the top LinkedIn coaches, um, who has, I don't know, 250, 000 followers on LinkedIn.
What he's, he did cleverly. And I copied that from him is using links only. So links to where you want people to go, because LinkedIn tries people to stay on LinkedIn obviously. So with this, it's, it's one of the easy ways to get people into your world. So [00:13:00] in, in my case, I have here book a call with me and then they're going, getting to a booking, um, page.
Then I have keynotes like book me as a speaker and then they go to my speaking page. Or the third one I have decided to have is like, join the personal branding community, which is. the free community. So I have three possibilities to direct people into my world. The, the other strategy is you show your highest, um, engaged, um, posts as an example, um, works as well.
I have decided against it because what I've seen from the super Uber LinkedIn coach that that's not converting towards you. It's converting to people liking that post or engaging with that post, but that is not necessarily helping you someone booking a call with you or a client connecting to you.
That's why I've decided this.[00:14:00]
Then it's the activity section. That's just the posts that you're doing and how people are engaging with this. Then it's the whole, the old way of saying it is a CV section, which is called experiences, where you have the different jobs that you have done or doing. Number one thing for everyone here on the call is having in every single experience, having a logo.
I have seen it over and over again that people don't have a logo next to their company. Like I'm the owner of Heitland Media Group and there's no, no logo. It just looks better if you have a logo, which requires you to create a company page. So if we, if we just go into my startup. So my startup, I'm the CEO and founder of, of this startup.
And we have [00:15:00] the section where I explain what I do in that startup. So my role in this startup is the CEO. My responsibilities are, and my achievements are this. And then I'm linking again, skills to that. And I have a link to the website embedded. But when people are interested in, into the company, they will click on the company logo or on the company here.
And then you go to the company page. So this is now obviously the, the version that I see, but if you go at like, everyone sees this. So that's the company version. That's. The company why and then you have a company page with company posts
So inside of linkedin you have personal pages and you have company pages And when you go to your like everyone that has worked in a corporation and a bigger [00:16:00] company knows that you you link We go back to my ikea time So if if you change your your company like in this case You are selecting ikea centers in my world and then it's linking me to be an employee inside of ikea centers And what you do when you have your own business is exactly the same thing.
So you create a company page and then you associate yourself with this job. We go to this thing here, we call it We Are Succeed. That's where I associate myself with the company. And then you just have all the different jobs in here. One small trick that I did that every one of you can do as well. I gave myself a job that's called keynote speaker.
It's, it's just the trick that I've heard. That's good. I like that. I have copied that again from, [00:17:00] from one of the LinkedIn experts who did this. And I said like, Oh, fuck. He's so clever. So I copied that a hundred percent. I called myself keynote speaker on my personal webpage. It's not a company, but kind of is me.
And then I just, uh, added all the speaking engagements in here as well. So that, that, that someone sees like, okay, you're, you're not a first time speaker, you have spoken a bit. So you see, for example, startup nights, Siri is already in there. And after that, I did the tech recruitment conference in Amsterdam.
And then I added the link to book me as a speaker here. So that people can click straight away through it. It's just an easy trick, which everyone can utilize too. Yeah. Nothing too magic about this section. It's just adding the things that you, I just did all the different jobs I did in the past. more as a CV perspective [00:18:00] where like all the IKEA stuff and so on.
It's quite long in my world, um, just to show people that I've done more than just what I'm doing right now. Then there's an education section I know specifically in German speaking. Country's education is super important. I can't care less. So I haven't added my education here, but I know that some people are very fond of showing that they have an MBA and a PhD and whatever education they have done, and that's free to do so.
I think it's less important for entrepreneurs, more important when you look for a job, because then like the recruiters see what your background is. An opportunity is always skills. So people endorsing you on specific skills, um, that's just building up over time, at least for me, I've not done anything consciously on this.
I've just. I [00:19:00] added the skills to my different, um, companies or through my different, um, jobs that I did in my life. And then it's just ended up there. And then something I have not done properly over the last years is getting the testimonials into LinkedIn. I have a couple of, but not much. As you see here, the last one is from January, 2024.
I was just lazy with that. I, I get, um, them more in, in different ways, but something you can easily do just every customer that you have worked with, ask them if they would be happy to give you a written recommendation inside of LinkedIn. It's always boost credibility if you have it on LinkedIn.
I think the last one, would you then, would you then sort of copy that, um, or link that into your website as well or into a product website? Um, so, um, definitely. [00:20:00] Yeah. I haven't chased it. I remember back when recommendations came out, I remember chasing them quite a bit. And then, but that was like 15 years ago and I haven't chased any since then.
So, um, yeah, I probably could do with, um, getting back into that. What I have done is I just did screenshots from those and added them into my website. Because then people see it's from LinkedIn. So it's legit. Not something you come up with, because that's the beauty of this is that obviously you can kind of still fake it if you know the other people.
But in the end, the other person is writing the recommendation to you. And then it's kind of the last step on their side is approving it. Um, so it's, it's quite, quite nice. Um, I focus a lot on Google reviews. Um, so probably I best is to ask those people to also leave a LinkedIn review. Yeah. Both. I would say, I [00:21:00] mean, for you, Google is way stronger if we take your tree business, Google is always super good.
If you get it on Google, it's just for me, like if you take my consultancy business or even my startup, nobody would ever leave a review on Google. Because it's not kind of a physical location where you go into which you link to Google Maps or something. At least in my experience. Still helps. Yeah. So that's, that's the key on LinkedIn questions.
I can talk more. I have more topics on LinkedIn, but that's, for me, that's, uh, that's great for me. Uh, uh, like a profile perspective. Um, so I think, and there's some good, some good, good, good insights there that I hadn't really thought about. Um, especially the, especially like, let's say the people, people buy from people thing.
Cause I think, I think I've, [00:22:00] I've always over over egged on the, what I do business wise, as opposed to what, um, let's say what I, a little bit more about me. Um, so I think that's, I do need to get my arse in gear and do a, um, a better, um, uh, banner, right? I think that's, um, that's something I've been sort of, um, uh, putting off because it needs, um, a better professional photo and I haven't got a good fashion photo.
Um, or maybe I just need to get my arse in gear and get a, uh, photo, uh, photo book booked. So, uh. Let, let's think about this because one easy thing where we could arrange is when we are meeting in January, we could just organize a photographer and then it's done and we just spare, like split the cost. Yeah, it could be so, but we, we can figure that out.
But I mean, if you take a photo with your phone, it's already, that's already most of the time, good enough. Yeah, I can probably, I've got a decent [00:23:00] selfish thing, which I could probably carve, carve something out. And you ask a friend or family member, it's like, it's still good enough. It don't need to be super, super, super extreme.
It's just, and I, what I did, I haven't shown this on the screen. I did it in one of the other ones. I, one of the, I don't know, I'm a nerd. What I did is I did screenshots of my my linkedin profile over let me just check when I started The first one is from not that long ago, first May, 2023. You can't see that most probably a little bit.
It's like, it's still ugly compared to today. And this was like half of the followers than I have less than half of the followers than I have today. It's quite interesting when you change your photo, how much impact that has, and as well, the title [00:24:00] of, of what you do. I was not, I was always never believing in this because I don't trust people that are just influencers, but then I was just testing it for myself and it makes a difference.
So just, just test it for yourself. If you have, um, it's two, three photos and as well, job titles that, I mean, it's not, not that changeable all the time, but just look what, what you feel. Works best for yourself and a question when a company doesn't have any LinkedIn page. Would you do it by yourself? Will you create it yourself?
It's not my company. I was just engaged or I'm used to it. Ah, no, then then not. Then I would only create the company pages where that I own. If they don't have a LinkedIn page, then it's most probably difficult. Are they still around? Yeah, but they're not, [00:25:00] uh, they're not in LinkedIn. And then another point, uh, about the, could you, could you share us again, your page?
Because, uh, on the first page, uh, beside the title on the right side of the title, uh, hi, you have these, uh, high long media group. Okay. Oh yeah. Good one. Yeah. You can associate the company that you want next, next to your photo. So you can do this inside of the, it might be only, yeah, here, current position.
And then you can sell here, show current company in my intro, this one. So if you take this, then it shows this company. And for me, it's just, I've, I've chosen this, I have done tests with it, but right now I'm, I'm more focusing on getting this company up and running. That's why I'm using that all the time.[00:26:00]
Because then it shows up here. Yeah, it comes for me for education and not for a company. That's interesting. I don't know. Because I'm okay. I'm already done with the position. Uh huh. Yeah, okay, I got it. Yeah,
then maybe, maybe, I think we don't, we don't need much more than five minutes from now. Um, so we have saved some time. Maybe two tricks, LinkedIn. Just one more thing on LinkedIn. So just in terms of that posting strategy and commenting and that sort of stuff. What's the, What is, what's the pattern? What's, what's the best pattern to, um, use?
Is it daily? Is it three times a week? Is it, um, uh, I know, I know we can start doing the video stuff, which should help as well, but, um, what else other than the video stuff? Do you, is it just about being on everything or is it about being on things that are really like, do you comment, [00:27:00] um, or how does that work?
Do you comment or do you repost? And what's, what's, there's a bunch of different things. I just don't quite understand that from the, how the algorithm works. Perfect. Perfect. I will. I exactly that what I wanted to talk about. So I was just like, you're going to do in five minutes. I can do this. So posting strategy, Monday to Friday, daily, important.
You will get more likes if you post less. But it's, if you look at impressions, the impressions go up. So what you want to have is more people see you. It doesn't matter too much if people are liking or commenting on your own posts. That's sometimes confusing and if you think like an influencer, then you want to have a lot of likes and a lot of comments.
In the end, you use it as a media that is showcasing what you're doing and you want to attract people. [00:28:00] And it's, if you look into branding and long term branding like IKEA, if I say Swedish furniture company, every one of you would tell me IKEA, right? And that's what you're, what you want to create on a, let's say, small scale, that they're associating you with what you're doing.
And as more consistent you are and show up every day with something that is interesting people as more the LinkedIn or doesn't matter which platform will support you. To be seen, but in the end, it's not about if you get a like, or if you get a comment, it's more about that. You're creating a baseline for everyone to show up like every way you can see me as, as an example, like everyone that is connected to me on LinkedIn, you're getting, sometimes it seems like bombarded with topics.
But in the end, it's, it's just in German, we say, so [00:29:00] there's, there's just something that's going on all the time. So there are people that are interested in what you're doing. They will consume your content. And if you don't show up, they have no possibility. So it's, I would say at least every day, once every day, once.
And Saturday, Sunday is not that much important, but sometimes highly seen. So, I, I do at least twice per day, seven days a week. But if you go to Every day, one post. Two posts, normally three. No, about us, every day one post. But you make it, yeah, you make a two posts and it's not important how much, uh, how much like or comments it's about just post it, post it, post it.
Yeah. I can show you an example. But you said less post is better than much more post. For likes, but we are not in for likes. Aha. Okay. I got it. Example. I post a picture on [00:30:00] LinkedIn with my daughter. It will be more likes. Okay. Thanks. 100%. I bet this with everyone. Does it bring any business to me? No, I don't believe it.
Okay. So you can hunt for likes, you can dance on TikTok, you get a lot of likes, but that doesn't convert to your business because what we want to create is a personal brand that is thought leadership that drives business to you and not how can you produce more likes? That's a different strategy and that's not me.
I have this discussion with a lot of CEOs that are just saying, but I don't get that many likes anymore. Yeah. Because you're not posting pictures with your wife and your kids. Well, nothing wrong with that. It's just not helping you to convert to business. As more you are staying on brand and what you're doing, as better it is for you.
I give you an example, um, because I was [00:31:00] laughing about that with a friend the other day. So if you, if I just show you one of, one of the, where does it work?
Let's go to, what is it? The top of the last 90 days. So it's 102, 000 views. If we look at this, this is the post. It's only 13 likes, like 12 likes. It's nothing. And it's how many comments? Two comments is also nothing. And one of them is even me commenting on the comment, but it has. 102, 000 impressions, which means 102, 000 times people have seen that video, maybe not in full lengths, but they, they have explored that video.
I'd rather take the 102 compared to 50 likes.[00:32:00]
So it's, it's a different strategy. And that's, that's why I'm always saying it's about the system because in the end, what we want to get to is we want to, um, get people towards Your business, like nobody, you're not getting paid for likes, or at least we are all not getting paid as influencers with brand deals and posting something about other things.
We get paid through people coming our way and drag them into our business or maybe speaking engagements, but that's this too. Thanks. And that's why we are creating a strategy that helps you to gain visibility and credibility. And with that, we are funneling the people into your direction. So, going back to Nathan's question, every day a post, Monday to Friday, commenting, I would say, I would try at least 10 comments per day.
If you can on people that are thought [00:33:00] leaders in your industry.
So if you comment on the, like the people that have, let's say 15, 20, 000 people following them, if you comment on their posts, valuable comments. Then people that are reading their comments, they're dragged into your ecosystem. There's a saying that you should do 100 per day, but that's almost impossible.
You've got a business to run, yeah? No, exactly. So when did you So at the moment, right, I'm at about 300 per, I get 300 impressions per view, per post, which is pretty, pretty low. It's good. I, I, I see, and then, then I get, I know I get a couple of good ones and I'm just starting to look back at which ones actually send the ones up into the thousands.
And I got one, one, which was specific timely about Snowflake the other week, which was, I think I got, um, really a [00:34:00] lot of the right people. liked it and um, and then I got, let's say, 2, 500, right? So, um, I guess, and I need to then, I think I need to balance, let's say, doing, okay, I need to get my arse in gear and do the, um, the one minute, the one minute videos and get that going, um, And then, um, I need, I need to, I think I need a little bit more long phone content that helps hit the right, um, the right people supporting that.
Um, that gets me up from the 12, from the two to the 12, and then I guess, sorry, from two to the, uh, two, 2000. And then okay, then, okay, what do I do to get from the 2000 to the 20,000 is probably the, um, and I, I think I, I, I get the feeling if I can get from the standard up to 2000, then. There might be start getting the ones up into the, up into 20, 000.
So yeah, that's what I'm looking at. Yeah. Then the number one thing is consistency [00:35:00] because I have this like that my two top videos have nothing to do with each other. Different topics are edited in the same way, different hooks. Do your top videos flow through into your, uh, into YouTube links as well? So can you see how many people actually watch the whole video?
Or So this one's a different video. So this ones are just produced short form content. So I don't have any conversion to YouTube from this ones. So you're just doing your little MP for whatever it is. And that's going directly into LinkedIn. It's not going, it's not going via, okay. Yeah. Okay. So you only get the, the analytics from LinkedIn's view.
Okay. Okay. No, that's, that's fine. That's good. Yeah, that's good. No, I wasn't sure what you, whether you were doing, um, this, uh, directing to. No, if you, if you're uploading the YouTube link, [00:36:00] it's downgrading your post in LinkedIn. Unfortunately. Right. Okay. So they don't show it to as many people because they're seeing it as you moving people off the platform.
Same if I, uh, promote the sub stack, for example. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. So that's, that's maybe a good point. Try to post as much as possible original content that's yours. You see this when you do this regularly, when you, when you share something from someone else, it's downgrading automatically. Like you share something from your own business, less people see it.
So as more original content you're producing, that's what LinkedIn and all the other platforms are after produce content that is valuable to other people as more people will engage with it. And creating that on an ongoing base, which is the number one, thing is consistency. [00:37:00] Everything else will fall into places over time.
Yes. And that's different than influencing. Influencing is you do exactly what the algorithm wants, wants to do. What we do is we do what we want to build for the future, which is business. That's completely different way of thinking. So if you do their influencer classes and they will tell you exactly like you need to do this, this, this to get five likes more doesn't help to get a business.
That's, I can't underline this, um, heavy enough. We're not selling clicks. It's not, uh, we're not, we're not selling advertising. So yeah. It's completely different, but it's key part is posting every day, five times a week, commenting if you can, 10 comments per day. I don't do it in the moment, but it helps.
And then what I do every day, I look into LinkedIn, who are the birthdays in my connection. Yeah. [00:38:00] I'm religious with them every day. Sometimes I'm forgetting one day like yesterday, but normally I'm doing every day. Um, and even the ones from yesterday, I texted today, Hey, happy belated birthday. It just helps to keep the connection flow going.
And um, funnily enough, LinkedIn of course knows that you're engaging with that person in the background. So it shows them more, more posts of you. It's, it's an easy way of keeping things moving. Yes. Frank in Facebook too. It works on all platforms. I think this, this is kind of the base layer. If you, if you get this things moving just five and the, the good thing with LinkedIn, you can program posts.
Like you can program this week for next week and then it's just out of your mind. So if you just say, I want to post consistently from next Monday, today is [00:39:00] Monday and you write the post from today, today, and it's going out on Monday and you do tomorrow and maybe you do two tomorrow, then you have already three days ahead and always try to keep at least one week in ahead.
Then you are never in a rush in creating content.
Maybe some simple, simple things. LinkedIn again, posting. You have three ways of a more, but let's say three usual ways of posting. You do a photo with text, you do text only, or you do a video with text videos as high as performing of all of them, because YouTube is now pushing a little bit more of the video content.
They have changed that couple of months ago. So that's why video is always higher con for performing. The next one is photos. Photos. Sorry. Quick before you go on, if you do YouTube, do you, if you do, uh, LinkedIn, do you also post the same thing on the [00:40:00] YouTube? I usually just say you do the same same content multiple channels.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So photo post with Texas second and then text only is third. And when it comes to photos, I can, I can show you the trick that we do. Um, it's not real trick, but it works.
What we do is we do text overlays with photos. Like this one. I mean, this is my daily podcast. That's why we have a daily post. Uh, efficiency comes from clear thinking. That's kind of the episode name. And what works super well is having your face on the, on the post. So as more you use your own face, as better it [00:41:00] gets.
I know there are a lot of AI tools out there where you can generate photos. They are always performing less.
It's, and you see this, if you, if you just scroll through LinkedIn, just not my profile, just go through it. This is boring. It's an advertisement. You know, it is an advertisement. This is actually one of my friends. I will bring her in for speaking in the future for us. Teaching speaking, she's engaging.
She's dragging us in. This is Christian from our community who has started with videos. So again, photo, you don't need to like the photo, but it's, it's a photo that is like, what, what is that? So if you see a face, look at this, that's an AI generated photo. a combination of stock photo and AI. It's, it's less intriguing because you know, it's a professional stock photo.[00:42:00]
This is the influencer I talked, talked about with the 250. Like I highly recommend to follow him. Just me knowledge. He's, he's amazing what he's doing on LinkedIn. Look at this, like 1, 700 likes, 1, 400 comments. What's the, what's the age? Jasmine? Jasmine. Jasmine Alec. Okay. Yeah, so you see is it's a photo of him again.
You see, here's a combination of both, but it's less intriguing. This group photos always work well as well, but in the end is as more natural. You are in the photos as more their photos and not don't think like, um, Instagram photos where you, you, you just do. photos for yourself, almost influencer photos.
You see that's, that's, that's a professional version [00:43:00] of a photo too. So photo and text overlay. And she's also in our, in our Greek community. But you use also, um, uh, so, uh, same photos or for any posts, you have different photos, different. And in my case, we have different photo for every post. We have 30 photos and then we do, we start all over again.
Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Uh huh. Okay. Then you pre, okay. It's also a good way. 30 photos, have a 30 reference photo and then you, Exactly. So that's what, what we have. I can show you if you're interested because we did that last, let me show you.
So what we did is like we did in the website. Um, call we have created, um,[00:44:00]
maybe I should share,
you see here, like we created a format that we use for the website and these are all the different photos that we use for the daily posts. It's always, I mean, some of them look similar or are similar. But it helps to have something going on. Then people will not just see from the text that it is different.
If you take this too, this text is different than this text, but it's the same photo. People might think it's the same post. So that if you have a different photo, then it will, they will understand this one and this one is a different post. It just helps. But that's one of the things that we have integrated for me.
Any more questions? [00:45:00] No, just about the premium, uh, when you, if you joined the classes or the courses of LinkedIn. I haven't joined classes the last years. We have used it when I was in corporate a bit, where we could use it. I haven't joined anything after then. Zero in my, I don't have enough time. Yeah, okay.
I just created the, yeah, I just created the business website for my company because like before it was all running over me. How do I connect myself as a CEO to the, to the new company website? You told it earlier. Yeah. Let me show you.
When you go to your profile, my profile, not the business profile, you go to your, [00:46:00] your page. Then you go to like the, the job that you want to change this one. And then here you type in the company and then you can select it like this. Okay. Good. And like when I created just a new page, how much time it takes until it's updated?
It's straight away. Okay.
Could be like seconds. Good. I'm just,
I think you have a question. Yeah. Hello. Hello. Yes. Here's a question. Do you reuse, uh, posting in your, uh, strategy? Because I was reading, uh, an article was really interesting to reuse the post you have used in the past. And you get the old, uh, the old [00:47:00] interaction plus the new one. What do you think about that?
I've tried it a couple of times. So the question was like reusing all posts or resharing all posts. I've tried it in my case. It didn't work. It didn't work because, because you have a post, I can be last year. And then for the next, for the next month that you use, okay. In the programmation, I just want to use this one because I love the picture.
I don't know what the people was interacting a lot. And now maybe I can try at the end of the day is a tryout. Yeah. I mean, you can always try things. No, I have reused photos quite a bit, but not the same posts doing it again. I don't know if it's somehow limiting the reach, but at least for me, it didn't work.
We can't hear you properly. Uh, sorry. Um, uh, thank you because I was really [00:48:00] curious about that topic, you know, for using, uh, already done posts or reposting what you did in the past. Well, you can try always test it. Yeah. I'm going to do it next week. Any more questions?
Good. Thank you very much. Next we will go into video and go deeper and then yeah, that's it. Good. Thank you very much everyone. See you next week, latest or in between. Ciao. Thank you. See you.
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Transcript:
Personal development masterclass. One of the topics that's dear to my heart, because of what I have seen over the last 15 years is that personal development is quite seldom in organizations. It's not really taken, uh, in a proper way, at least in my eyes. So that's why I'm really keen on sharing this today.
So we have two. main perspectives. One or two topics for today. One is personal development talk versus performance evaluation. And then we do a deep dive into how I'm doing personal development talks. And then we do questions in the end. Personal development. So we have one part, which is the personal development talk, and then we have the performance evaluation.
And a lot of organizations, focus on performance evaluation. And the difference between those two is that the performance evaluation, the main part they are focusing on, or the main source of that is the company. So the company is on the top. And from there, it goes into, the individuals and the different tasks that need to be done to accomplish what's happening in the company, what is required to do to be done in the company.
And the individual that is doing the task is the last point. And then inside of the performance evaluation, you're looking backward. So you look, how did this person perform in the past? The development talk is the opposite. So the most important part of the. Development talk is the future. Where does the person want to be in the future?
And it has nothing to do with the outcome of the company or where the company wants to be. The goal of this is, and why, why do this personal development talk? I believe that if we are developing people in organizations beyond what the organization needs, they will contribute more to the company. They will contribute better.
So the goal of what I'm doing with development talks is finding out what the people desire and going deeper into that. And we will have a look at that in the next couple of slides. And then look, what are the different tasks of the organizations that fit the person and what the person wants to be. And then you marry these two things.
And then it works as well from a performance evaluation perspective. So that's my perspective on development talk and performance evaluation. Let's go into personal development talk a couple of, I think it's almost two years ago or something. I've developed this in as, as a worksheet. So if anyone is interested in getting this worksheet as a PDF.
Happy to share that. So, the starting point of a development talk is really a setup of the atmosphere and the place. So you are going to do a development talk with another person. So you are the manager and the, the other person is like reporting to you and then you're meeting up. So what you need to make sure of is that you have, an appropriate place.
The best case is always doing this outside of the office environment in a. In a place where people feel well, the atmosphere is super important. The time of the day is important, not doing it on Friday afternoon, for example, when people want to go on the weekend, of course, you need to be aware of your relationship with the other person, depending on how deep your relationship is.
You of course have then a perspective on how deep you can go. And how much that is. And then what is important as well is that you put the note-taking responsibility to the person that is inside the room or is working with you. So me as a leader, I always give the note taking responsibility for the other person because then you see what they understand and what they get out of that.
And then I always do as well. A version in front of us so that people understand this. So printing out this worksheet as an example, if you do that in a physical space, then you print it out and then you go into the development talk. And the starting point of the development talk goes really wide.
Looking into what's the personal vision like. I always ask these as open questions without showing them the worksheet in the beginning. Who do you want to be? And that's very, very, very wide. Like, who do you want to be? What does it mean? Some people who have never had a conversation like this, struggle with this.
So they start with, yeah, I want to be a manager. I want to be something specific. So they go very, very, very specific and they don't really look into the future. So the first round of this, I just, Help them to find out who they want to be and they write down, they write down a manager. I want to be a good father.
I want to be whatever they come up with. And then I go to the next question and I show them the next question, not before. So why do you want to be that person? So then they're reflecting on the answers they have given and then they go back and refine who they want to go to be. And that's an interesting process because what.
You as the manager that is holding this development talk are doing, you're literally shutting up and just asking open questions to tell me more. How, how does that feel? What does that look like? What would that look like in the future? So you only ask open ended question when that gets the person talking and reflecting.
So if you're saying this, what does it mean? So, and then they're explaining, explaining, and they go in a loop between who am I going to be? And why do I want to be that person? So until they have clarity, and the first loop is always. The starting point where they don't know what's going to come, then who am I going to be?
They come up with high-level topics and then they go, Why do I want to be that person? Then they go back to Who am I going to be? And then they go deeper. And I always then give them a perspective. Okay, think about five years, 10 years from now, who do you want to be? And then they go more particular in all of these things.
And then we go, we don't close this, we keep it, we put it aside. And then we go to the next sheet, which is a personal development map. So I want them again to reflect on certain questions. And it doesn't matter in the order, I just take them clockwise right now. But it's really going and answering the specific questions.
What do I want to learn? So you're asking this, the person that is in front of you. So what do you want to learn to be that person? So linking it back to that person of the future. And then you're asking, what do you want to improve? And then they come up with things. So it's, it's like writing down the, all the different topics and then what do I want to leave behind?
And then they come back with topics that they want to leave behind. Another question is what excites you? Yeah. And then going deeper into this, who is important to them? And then what is important to them? And when you have done this circle, you go around it and they were deeper in this topic.
What quite often happens then if you ask them, so how, if we go back to the other one, is that still the same thing you want to be? Because they have now clarified what they want to be. and answer the question, they go back to this one and then clarify, no, no, no, I want to be this, I want to be this. What I always ask them, in this part is to paint a picture.
So when, when we have finished with this one, I go back to this one. And say, from a personal vision perspective, imagine a picture and describe the picture that you see on the wall. And then they describe to me who they want to be and who they are going to strive to be inside of a picture and explain everything that is around them.
I've had, for example, a person that told me where they are going to live, what, how it feels, um, in this picture, where the kids in this picture, where the wife or husband and, and going really into details and then linking this to. A job perspective as well, because in the end, we are at least this part is in a job environment.
So they are linking that to the job environment of who they're going to be working with as well. So these two are super powerful. And then you go into the next step, which is a goal perspective. So it starts with the staircase. So in the top right corner, we have what is the goal. And the starting point is really, um, defining that goal.
So if you want to be this person in five years, what is the goal for the next year for you to be very specific? And of course, you can do smart goal setting and all of that, but it's in the end, What does feel right for that person? What is the development goal they want to reach in one year from now?
And then they formulate that goal. And then you go to the bottom of this page where you look into where do you stand today on a scale from one to 10. So they're rating themselves on how close are they to that goal. If they're close, then they're at 10 or 9. If they're far away, then they're at 1. And what always happens is they're somewhere in between, obviously.
So when they have rated that, then you look into what are the things that get you closer to that goal, meaning moving your scale from 5 to 10. And that's what they are writing down above the stairs. So, above the stairs are the things that are getting them closer to their goal. And then they're defining this in bullet points and formulating that out.
And [you do that obviously all in a conversation. You ask the person who is doing the development talk, you are asking them questions to get them moving. You're asking them clarifying questions about the topics that are put, into the sheet. And then the next part is, what are the things that getting you further away from that goal?
So downstairs, if you think at it from a staircase perspective, and then they're writing these things down and then they have a clear picture of a goal staircase where they, they know they want, where they want to be linking that to the vision that's five years from now and the goal picture, and then they rate themselves.
And have then clear understanding of that are the things I need to do to get to my goal and that are the things I should not be doing. And then the last step of the development talk is getting specific. So now we zoom into one year and actionable goals that help them or tasks that get them towards the one-year perspective.
So what are the things they're going to do? When are they going to do this? What do they need to make happen to be able to do this? What are the things they need help with and how I'm, how they going to measure them? So it's a very, very simple setup where they write down literally the different steps that help them to get there.
And they're putting measurable goals towards the goal. And this is roughly. I would say one and a half hours, even if we go through this right now in a theoretical setting in, let's say 15 minutes in a real conversation, in a coaching style, where you ask the manager or coach the other person to find out what they are desiring and where they want to be.
It takes roughly one and a half hours if you do that well, sometimes it's faster depending on the relationship as well. The fascinating thing with this is it has zero to do with the company you work in and one hundred percent to do with who they want to be. And as well as zero to do with you as their manager, if you're their manager, like your perspective, your opinion on anything of that.
Um, just to give you a couple of examples, I've had people that told me that they want to be. building their own company in the next five years and they worked in the company and I was their manager they told me because they trusted me that they wanted to build their own company and we built a plan for how they were going to build their own company and I've had situations where people told me that they want to get married in the next five years and then we built a plan to get them towards marriage getting married and looked into how that does that work with the career perspective same with kids and all the other things so this is a development tool you That I use with everyone that is working with me over time because I believe that as further we as managers and organizations help people to develop as better it is.