Produced By - Growing Brands and Big dreams: the power od LinkedIn Strategy | #88: Marina Panova

Episode Date: February 3, 2025

Marina Panova is a social media strategist and leading LinkedIn creator helping businesses and freelancers grow their brands online. With years of experience crafting effective content strategies and eye-catching designs, Marina knows how to turn audiences into loyal clients. Her expertise has empowered countless professionals to establish their authority, attract clients, and build sustainable freelance businesses. In this episode, discover the beauty of North Macedonia and what it was like for Marina to grow up there. Tune in for professional tips on building your LinkedIn brand, creative insights for crafting content strategies, and the motivation to pursue your passions and achieve your biggest dreams. Connect with Marina: ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/marina-panova/⁠ We Craft You Grow: ⁠https://www.wecraftyougrow.com/⁠ Connect with Tommen: LinkedIn: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomasloucky/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠  Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/thisistommen/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠  X: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://x.com/TomasLoucky⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠  Podcast: Links: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://linktr.ee/produced_by⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠  Support: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.patreon.com/ProducedByPodcast⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠  Produced (email newsletter): ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://producednewsletter.substack.com/ More: Trailblazed (marketing agency): ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://trailblazed.digital/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠  EpiXtory (podcasting agency): https://www.epixtory.digital/ Produced (LinkedIn newsletter): ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/build-relation/newsletter-follow?entityUrn=7092551882589528065⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠  Produced By with Tommen is your weekly dose of inspiration where ambition meets creativity. Join us as we dive into the journeys of content creators, entrepreneurs, and other remarkable individuals who break barriers and redefine success. Each episode shares unique stories, challenges, and triumphs. From heartfelt struggles to incredible successes, these conversations will motivate you to push beyond your limits and chase your own dreams. Whether you're on a creative path or just love great stories, tune in and become part of a community that constantly strives to push the boundaries. Sit back, relax and enjoy. Connect with Tomas:X: https://x.com/TomasLoucky⁠⁠⁠Stan: https://stan.store/TommenLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomasloucky/⁠⁠Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thisistommen/⁠⁠Unproduced:Newsletter: https://unproduced.substack.comYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@unproducednotesSpotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/033Ddo8ibDlLYoaP7FFLIWMore:Links: https://linktr.ee/produced_by⁠⁠⁠Newsletter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://producednewsletter.substack.com/⁠The Podcast Club: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/25420030/Tools & gear that support the show:Metricool: https://f.mtr.cool/HRJBZKRiverside: https://riverside.sjv.io/vDnDodFavikon: https://www.favikon.com?fpr=tommenRa Optics: https://ra-optics.myshopify.com/discount/TOMMEN?rfsn=8803777.591d19JamX: https://jamx.ai/podcasters-offer?ref_id=e02d48af-ef66-4e76-b804-c2e8d282a8bfSome links are affiliate links, which means I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. If you find them useful, using these links helps keep the podcast running. Thank you!  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

So in the future, once you start growing very fast, then you can start thinking about long term and about really what are your goals and what kind of life do you want to have. You should understand how you can build that lifestyle and that kind of life you will love for yourself so you can feel free. I think for me, the value that matter the most is flexibility and authenticity. So flexibility in a way that I will be able to choose where I'm going to work, who am I going to work, what time of the day am I going to do what. So really, free to do whatever I want. So it's very easy for me right now because LinkedIn was the reason. And I always like to set boundaries with clients that I would love. They do respect these boundaries because it is very important to build a life and have the lifestyle that you want to have.

Before we dive into today's episode, please hit that subscribe button. Your support helps us grow and inspire more people on their journeys. Thank you. Hello, Marina. Thank you for joining us today and welcome to the show. It's my pleasure, Thomas. How are you doing? I'm all good and I'm very excited.

I hope you are too. Of course, always. There are some events, podcasts, when there are some, like any kind of discussion, any kind of conversation with people that are from LinkedIn and I'm always open to discuss and to share more about my story and how, how am I, what am I today? And so to start with, in case there are people who don't know you, can you please introduce yourself? Of course. So I am Marina. Currently, I'm based in North Macedonia, but I also lived in France, in Paris for a couple of years. I also lived in Spain.

for a couple of months. I'm back in Macedonia right now where I plan to make a bigger project, build a house, and yeah, I'll be staying here for a couple of months. And about me, I'm currently mostly focused on helping clients, founders, freelancers, build, grow and monetize their business on LinkedIn. So I get a little bit of each group. I'm very happy with what I'm doing. I am also recently a couple of months ago, I opened an agency with another person. She's a very deep person to me.

She's Katie Zasheva. Probably you've heard about her. We're working together and we onboarded a lot of clients lately. We have full hat of work. That sounds like exciting. And before we discuss business and LinkedIn, can we talk more about your country, about North Macedonia? Because as I said, I feel like I've never met anyone from there. So I would be really curious to find out more.

So maybe if you can tell us, what was it like growing up? Of course. So our country is a really small country. Like it's just north of Greece, but there's a lot of culture. the people are really nice and friendly, although not a lot of them understand English or any other languages. They are very nice. They will try to welcome you with what they have, what they can do for you. I'm going to say that it's a very free country.

When I say free, it's free in a way that I remember since my childhood. So I was raised here in North Macedonia. I think it's similar for all of our neighbors, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Serbia. So it's very similar for all of us. I remember that we were on the streets as children playing around. We were on the street all day playing really visibly. I don't remember going to school all day in a lot of other European countries. So I felt like really free.

I felt like really like there were a lot of children like at the time where we were played openly and we were played freely. It was back then when there was no social media. So you actually spent in time at all the time. Yeah, right. Yeah, but I come to the time where I got my first computer when I was, I don't know, maybe 12, maybe 10. I'm not sure. I just remember some old games like Tarzan or games like that. I remember as well.

Like it was very funny. It was very fun. But honestly, I don't remember playing any games. I just remember playing out. Yeah, hanging out outside. Yeah, any kind of games on the streets. I remember that about myself, about my childhood. So I'm really not that kind of person that is coming from any kind of gamer background or kind of like I don't remember that about myself I recently playing some video games but

I was I was just smiling when you were describing that because I felt like that that was my childhood as well spent the time outside you know you go to school then you put your back at home you go out and spend the whole day playing outside without social media so it was very nice to hear that's right that's right it's I feel it's very different for for all of the generic It's a whole different story. I mean, for the generation of my parents, it was, they were like, I would say in our country, they probably didn't have a lot of money. So they were always like sharing their money together and buying stuff together.

So none of the people like, none of the friends, they feel excluded because they had less. So I think that's a very good starting point to building relationships and friendships. So that's very nice. What else about my country? I think the nature here is very beautiful. It's affordable for someone that's working, that's having a business. So that's really nice. I have a lot of family here.

My parents are here. Everyone that I love and I would love spending time with is here. So I really think that Macedonia is a very nice country to visit and to learn more about the culture. And, yeah, if you would love to come in here, you can visit Skopje, it's the main, it's a capital city. And also, you should go to Okrri. This is the oldest lake in Europe. So, we have a lot.

Yeah, this lake in Europe. Oh. And it's very beautiful. Honestly, it's very beautiful. It's a small country. You can visit everything in like a week. So, yeah, it's... You sold it close.

Yeah, I love to travel the world. Still, there's one country in my heart, and still, that's my country toward Macedonia. And I might be wrong, but wasn't it called a bit differently before? Wasn't it just Macedonia? I don't know. I think there was like some tension with Greece, or can you tell us more about it? Yeah, so my country was called just Macedonia, Republic of Macedonia. So it just, it was the name.

but after I think a couple of years ago, there were some issues with our neighbor Greece. I don't know, from historical perspective, they claimed that they also had part of, that our country was their country, that Macedonia was part of their country. So the part of where we live right now, it's also Macedonia, but it should be called North Macedonia because it was all. part of their country. I don't know. I don't love to talk about a lot of politics,

but I remember that it was, there was like north and south of Macedonia, so south was in Greece and north is where we live, so I don't know how much of that is true, I don't know why it happened, but it happened, yeah.

And although I don't want to discuss too much of politics, but I'm curious, is there like some kind of tension between the countries or between the population of one and two countries because of this or they don't care what is it like yeah right so there is i'm going to be lying if i say there isn't because there are a couple of issues with and misunderstandings with our neighbors with Greece and Bulgaria they're all claiming it coming back to some historic historian fact and i really don't know how much of it of it is true i don't know

know which one, which side is right, which side is wrong. But yeah, there is, especially for people like us that are going to spend a holiday in Greece, you can come back, crash car. It's possible. It's possible. There were a lot of these situations because there is some kind of hatred that's coming from a long time ago, but I really don't like that and I really don't think it's necessary at all, I think. We're all just people and we don't need to go back to some historic and facts, facts, just because we really don't know what happened and we really don't need to make problems about that now.

Yeah, that's what I... And it's obviously not your fault or not fault of your generation, something that happened before, so why should you be affected by this, you know? Right. Yeah, it's happening, but I don't know. really, I'm just staying out of it. Yeah. I don't want any place of that.

Yeah. So moving to some more positive topic, then what kind of student were you? Where you like someone was into business or entrepreneurship or traveling or what were you like? Yeah, I was studying here near where I live, the town where I live. So I studied economics. I studied marketing management, so I'm really very familiar with the background and with entrepreneurship. I started early into entrepreneurship while I was studying in university. I had someone from the university, which a person did something very meaningful for me.

He was a professor and he saw something in me. He saw that I had some kind of potential. And we opened a topic about the Kindle ebooks that I've shared on Amazon. And he was interested in what was my motive behind it and why did I do it? And yeah, that's when we opened a conversation and then we started working on something together. So basically my job was to help him with some blog stuff and some Pinterest stuff, something for social media. It was very simple and very interesting for me. because I've never had anything to do with practice until that moment.

It was all with books and, you know, how it's going on university. And honestly, there was a real issue here because we don't have a lot of companies, a lot of being companies that have marketing apartments and sectors. So we had to find any kind of opportunities to do our practice. and I don't really remember anything from doing any kind of practice that's connected with marketing. So I thought, like, okay, I should find another way. So I'm just going to start doing it myself and I'm just going to teach myself how to do it. And that's how I started doing it.

From the university, it was a very nice time. But the last year of during my studies, I moved to Paris. So, yeah, I did it online from there. And my universities was like, I would say a basic university in my country. It wasn't something special. It wasn't something that I would like say, yeah, it was because of, yeah, I did it because of my university or because of my professors, because of the knowledge I did I learned from there. So it's not something, I would say, it is good to have, but not something that made me to make me what I am today.

Yeah. And what made you to go to study in Paris? I haven't studied in Paris. I started here in North Macedonia, but I moved to Paris for another reason. Oh, okay. I went to Paris with my boyfriend, so he's half-range, and we moved together just to experience. Okay, yeah. I thought that you maybe went there to study or something like that.

Yeah, a lot of people thought that, a lot of people think that. But, yeah, I know a lot of people that are studying there. It's very common, right? But yeah, in Paris I want to just seek another opportunity just to I don't know, feel something different. Like visit another country but live, which is very different visiting and living. It's a different story. So we chose to go there in France and just see how it goes. Friends are really beautiful, but I would say that I love France because of the language.

I really love French. I really love the food I really love the countryside and Paris not a lot but anything else I love Why is that Is it I don't know

Over tourism or Why don't you like Paris that much? I don't think that if you're not a French like a Parisian Like a person that lived in Paris He's all life You can come and leave

But I don't feel that you can have that feeling of a home. I always have the feeling that I was going somewhere, rushing somewhere, like traveling somewhere. It's never like, I felt home. It was never,

I had never had that feeling. I was always like looking forward to something, but I knew that it was going to finish and I will come back to where I feel home and safe. Because Paris says, it's an interesting city. It's a lot to, there's a lot to learn. There's a lot to see. There's a lot to experience. There's really a lot of

stuff. It's really accessible. Everything is really so easy to find. And to get, where I went there, I was searching for a job and for a stranger. I was really interested in anything, really. I didn't care. Well, at the moment I was studying, so I thought I needed to find a job, so it's going to be more interesting for me, and I'm going to learn French faster. And that's what I did. I found a job as an English nanny. I was teaching kids how to speak English, so they were teaching me how to speak French. Mutual benefit, yeah. That's how I learned, actually. That's how I learned. I, I,

was practicing, speaking French a lot, and that's how I learned. So it was, yeah, I think that's a very good experience because I loved my job while I was there because I think I got one of the better jobs while I was there because a lot of people just starting out there trying to find something at hospitality, but I'm not that type of person where I can just go and just, you know, I'm not that I can either see myself as a waiter or someone that's in hospitality. And that's the moment of my life where things got really interesting. Because basically my job was to work for a really wealthy family based in Paris and the agency that I was working for was a really also like high-end agency in Paris. So,

This is the moment where we get, we're interesting because I actually talked to the owner of this agency and I told her that it would be very good if they had any kind of social presence at all. At least if they could be active on LinkedIn and they could show any kind of activities for children, for families, anything that could be interesting. I think I thought that it would be very nice to build relationships for the parents. for the children, for that kind of business, because it's every kind of, every kind of business is built on trust and authority. So we needed to find a way how to show that, how we're doing.

I know that I'm doing my job very well, but if you find a way how you can show that, showcase that through social media, there would be even more valuable, in my opinion. And I actually managed to convince her that I'm the right person to do that for them and they give me the worst opportunity to work and anything connected to social media

and that's how it everything started. Oh nice. Yeah, I like to hear like when there is such a moment, something that you wouldn't expect and it goes from there. So does it mean that or actually before this we're actually already using LinkedIn to build your personal brand?

Yeah, I was using LinkedIn but I was using LinkedIn very bad. I was using LinkedIn without a strategy. I was posting on LinkedIn pictures of how I'm doing yoga. I was posting on LinkedIn. I don't know, anything like anything that's really valuable here. There was a lot about what I think is going to develop about social media and stuff like that. But most of the time, I would say it's fluff.

It's not something that's really interesting to read. And I would say that I didn't know how to write well. So I probably guess it wasn't that interesting to read and to see from other people. So, yeah, I wanted to say that I wasn't using LinkedIn the right way. And after I made a huge break, so I made a huge break on LinkedIn, like, couple of months where I needed to complete the studies and I needed to take the final degree from the university. So I did a huge break here, hoping that after when I come back, I'm going to come back stronger and I'm going to learn more about copywriting and how can I write to attract

people and to just be interesting to read and to hear. Yeah. And maybe coming back even more, Do you remember when you started on LinkedIn in the first place? Or why did you actually start posting there regularly? So I think he was, I think, 20, 22, something like that. 22, yeah. And do you remember why? Or why LinkedIn specifically? I don't know.

I don't remember the reason why I asked LinkedIn. I probably heard from somewhere that LinkedIn is a good platform to do just find opportunities and to find work. And that's, I think that's what I was hoping for to find some kind of job, to find any kind of opportunities. But I came to a bummer because I didn't know that in order to get what you want, like to get an attract right people, you needed to build a personal brand. So I didn't know about that time then. So I, I just, I was like looking what what other people were doing, what they were posting. I would just like, you know, discovering the platform and how it works.

Because I already know the other platforms, Instagram, Facebook, and other platforms how they work. But for LinkedIn, it was really kind of strange and I really needed to know the way how people were doing it. And when I started figuring things out, you know, got so easier. And I started doing it myself after the huge break. I started like experimenting with a couple of things, a couple of things that work and didn't work for me. But yes, since today, I can definitely say a couple of things that worked for me and a couple of things that I think that can work for a lot of people. So I can share that knowledge and I'm really happy to share that knowledge with everyone else. Yeah.

Would you love to know? Yeah, of course. I was about to ask you. I'm pretty sure that there will be a lot to share, but some tips or tricks or even something that maybe wish you done differently when starting out. Right. So first of all, in the beginning, I was trying different content formats. And I really wanted to be different. I don't, I didn't want to post just pictures.

In the beginning, it was, I think it was famous, popular to make some things. text foes and I was sharing a lot of them and then I started with some pictures and some carousels and I think I figured it out with carousels because all of my leads came through the carousels and then when I came back and tried to understand why carousels work for me, it was because I was talking about pain points that my audience was struggling with. So I was always sharing examples of how it should be done because it's different when you say, yeah, you can do it, this and you should do that, and, you know, you can talk a lot. But show, don't tell is the real advice.

Because we love to see, oh, there's an example. Well, she's showing me how to do it, which is, I think. I think it's very valuable. It's really valuable. I always love to, when people can show me, like, how you do it, like, show me an example. So I can understand. It's very easy when you see an example for the people. And then you can understand it.

You can make it yourself. I completely agree. Makes it more relatable and easier to understand. Because it's like when you're trying to describe or share something that you know and for it's obvious. it doesn't mean that it's so easy or so obvious for the person who's reading that maybe for the first time in their life. Right. Yeah, right.

So imagine, so when doing a LinkedIn post, imagine there is a person that's going to, it's like going to be on LinkedIn for the first week or for the first time. And they're like going to be, well, what's happening? Like, you should make it very easy for them to understand. like very easy like don't try to use any jargon any complicated words really try to cut the fluff and try to say it as easy as possible to be understood so this is the real the real game here you should always cut the fluff you should always always like this is i since i started doing it i got so many so much more engagement and impressions really the formatting matters a lot the formatting it's it's it's

the most important part of... Like the way you structure the copyright. Always use white space, always use bullet points, numbers, anything else that could help you really with helping people read it easily. So this is just... Imagine like you're having a paragraph of text

that's like you don't have any white space and you don't have any kind of formatting to it. And then you read the other part or the other post where you can see the white space. And it's very easy. It just like it flows very nice. You can just read everything within 30 seconds. This is it. This is how you do.

You just make it very easy for the people. So they'll come back and they will want to read more. And I like especially like when someone orders, let's say, ballot points. so that it's from the shortest one to the longest one, and you look at it, it's like, oh my God, this is a beautiful highlight. That's very funny because I'm always experimenting with the formatting, and there was once when I made a post that I made the formatting looked like a burger.

Half of the comments were like, oh, what I can see here is a burger. You should do that again. I would love to see that. That's very funny. I always, yeah, the sending, ascending format, it's very nice and it's very easy because, and it looks very nice. It looks very stylish. I love it. Very nice.

Yeah. Other kind of tips that I have. So engagement is a big part of it. Engagement is a really, really big part of the deal. Because even if you're not posting, you should be engaging with other people's posts. Because through engagement, through valuable comments, you can build relationships. Other people will come to visit your profile and leave comments on your post. So it is really something you should not leave out of the game.

You should not, you cannot hope to just post and just not engage. it's how you can level up the game and if you can engage more it's going to be really valuable especially in the beginning, especially where you're at 5-1-10K, this is a very important moment of your personal brand of doing a lot of engagement for other people because the more you do it,

the more you show your profile everywhere, the more you're building your awareness, the more you are opening up for potential opportunities. So you should really not neglect that. It's a very important part of the building. What people might also forget that by engaging, it means that it increases likelihood that those people will engage on your post. Because people are often surprised, oh, why I don't have engagement? And do actually engage on their profiles.

So it's like something in exchange. Yeah, right. There are a lot of people. When you're growing on LinkedIn, when you're growing, you will see that with time, there will be more and more people that will come and engage with your post. Right now, I'm very happy with my engagement and with how many people are coming to comment on my post. And I honestly, I don't have that much time to respond to fly and apply. respond to the comments because I got 500 comments proposed. This is a lot of time.

It's crazy, I know. It's full-time job. You really need to go back and go back and I'm very happy with it. I'm very happy that people come and they love more posts. But then you will see, oh, how do I? How do I manage all that? I don't want to just hire someone and just reply instead of me.

It's not fair. I want to be, I want all the comments to be right by me, by the person behind the brand. I understand, yeah. I've been, because I've been thinking the same, although I don't have such a high engagement as you do. Sometimes I'm not going to, it feels a bit overwhelming. Because once you feel like that I'm there for the people, I want to communicate with them, but then it's like a full-time job, replying to everything, you know. That's right. That's right. Yeah. It's a full-time job.

Want to take your podcast to the next level? At Epic Story, we help you launch, improve and market your podcast with expert guidance. Whether you're just starting out or refining an existing show, we've got you cover. Visit EpicStory.org.com.org and bring your EpicStory to life. Unless you are talking about this, it's quite a hot topic, but I'm curious to ask you. but you see the engagement so what is your take on AI comments I'm pretty sure that you noticed on your post it's on everyone's

post so what's your experience like with people commenting with AI oh my God you can see it from the sky right you can feel it from I don't know it's just I reply to them because they just they took the moment

to put the focus that you begin just and I appreciate the time you know But I always, it's a no-no. It's very bad. You can find a way how to teach chat GPT, how to comment like you, but really use just a part of it.

Like you can tell him, yeah, when I'm commenting, I want to talk about that, that, that and that. You can just really teach chatypD to make it like you're, like it's your comment, but just use part of it if you really want some help. help with that. But I'm really against that. I'm really against AI comments and AI posts. It's really not natural way to build a relationship with other people, especially when you're trying to build a successful person around. And it's really not the way to do it. Definitely. I agree. And I think that sometimes it seems like that people forget that if they do it day by day,

you start seeing patterns because you are someone who reads your comments and you can see. oh, this is the person who yesterday commented in a similar way. And when you see it for, I don't know, so many times in a row, it becomes so obvious. So I don't really understand why people keep doing it. Right, right. But also, I think there are a couple of groups of people, like people from India that are a lot of people that are doing,

I think, AI comments. And I can see most of the comments, AI comments that are coming are from people from India. So I don't know what's to point about that. I really, if any of you is really listening to this advice, really stop doing that because it's not possible. None of the creators, I'm not really a big creator, but I am getting really at that point.

So we be creators, we don't have time to read an icon, and we can see that it's AI generated. and we really want to focus on replying to the valuable comments so the people that really took the time and left valuable comments. So I'm just going to leave a little notice here. It's not in person really. Yeah, I like it and I can only agree. And just as we are talking about this topic,

what is then your, or how do you use AI in general? How do you follow it? Is it something that you are interested in? Is it part of your work process? Yeah. AI is part of my work, part of my life, part of... I would say my best friend, honestly. Just for everything, it's really...

I don't know, we have it, especially Chad GPD. I mean, since Chad GPT launched, my life was instantly changed. I mean, in a better way, of course, I got so much help at Chad GPT. and we can see that it's going to be better and better. First of all, chat GPD and, of course, other AI tools. There are a lot of them, but I'm mostly talking about Chachpity

because it's the tool that I'm using the most for work. Chat GPD is really one of the most valuable tools because you can teach the tool to write like you. You can teach the tool to format like the post like you. You can teach the tool to write. hooks to get any kind of help that you need, any kind of cut the fluff here, make the sentence shorter, add me one more letter to make sure that the format is looking perfect. So, you know, you can use it for everything.

If I was alone while doing all of those kind of tasks, I would have, like, I mean, I'm probably going to spend, I'm going to spend double of the hours that I'm. I totally agree. Maybe even more. It's really, I don't know, for the people that are not using it, it's really one of the best things that happened to our world. Yeah, and I think it's going to be even bigger part of our lives. Just, you know, it's not a replacement, but embrace it.

It's not a reprise it. No, it's definitely not a replacement because you should still be able to be able. to create that kind of creativity, authenticity. And I can help you create part of it, can give you ideas, but it cannot replace it and can give it to you because you have to discover it yourself. And still, you should make it as you feel that you should make it. The more natural and the more personal you get with that is the better.

So, yeah. Yeah, totally good. And when I was talking about chat chippedy, this is a really interesting part because I say that I use chat chit for everything. There were times when chat chvety really helped me. Like, it's like almost like a doctor. I'm going to tell two just examples. One of the examples was about there was a time where I had a problem with my face because I used some products. about washing the face and then all of the all of my face turned red i didn't know what was the

problem i'm not allergic to something i'm not like i don't i don't know but i just i just asked such a gpt what could be the possible ingredient that is causing this this kind of damage to my face and he said well it's probably sodium suffas or something like that and i'm like wow it you know it was that one it was that one when I when I was like looking after and the other products that I had and I tried it with product that had the same kind of an ingredient it happened same thing happened so I'm like thank you Jashpity I really appreciate the help yeah it's a smart use case yeah and then last week I remember doing something really creative I really wanted to eat something sweet but I really really

want, I didn't want to order something. So I'm just like, hey, Chad GPD, can you help me do something sweet? This is what I have. And I basically gave him the ingredients. I had some dates. I don't know, some Nutella, some, you know, really good things. Not a lot of things, although there were like five ingredients that I had at home. And he'll, oh, you can make the Nutella protein dates, bowls.

And I'm like, okay, let's fry it. And they turned out fantastic. Like they were the most delicious things that I've ever done. Like, I was amazed and all the people that are traveling. Like, where did you find the recipe? You should have said that you came up with the recipe on your own. Yeah, it was me, it was me, yeah. It's a nice creative use case.

And outside of CHITGPT, are there any other tools? to use? Yeah. So I use, honestly, I use a lot of tools. There are tools that I use for scheduling content, for LinkedIn. So I use Publour. This is a scheduling tool that I use for all my clients and shout out to them because their tool is really amazing. And then I use chat GPT. I use outer up for post formatting. I use a lot of tools honestly. I don't think I cannot really think of a lot of them

at the moment but I do a lot of them really. Calendar and all those stuff for organizing calls. So CapCut for videos, captions for writing captions to the videos. I use scribe. I use that's a tool that's helping you

write. Linkney pose. So, yeah, I do use a lot of tools, honestly. They're really helpful. So it's just a waste of time not to use them. Yeah, yeah. And I just as you mentioned the video, I remember your recent post about quite high engagement and impressions on your video.

So is that something that, you know, you plan to do more in the future? Or maybe can you give us some tips how to go viral like you did? So I really don't know what to say about this because it all happened all of a sudden. She just doesn't want to give us a secret. No, I really don't know what to say.

I wish I could know myself. I'm like, I was impressed because first of all, I'm going to be real. It was me that created the video. So there was not any kind of interaction at all. Like it wasn't interacted like other professional videos on LinkedIn or social media. I just added captions, used it to my brand color, and that was it. I'm not like some pro video designer. I didn't even include some music or some effects or anything.

It was very like some boring. When I was, when I was like, okay, this could have been done a lot better, but let's go. So let's not over thinking it and just share it. And yeah, it got one over, it views. It's crazy. Yeah. Spragily right is my most successful pose. Usually I got 60K impressions,

sometimes 100k, sometimes, I don't know, 25 sometimes, 45, I don't know. But 1 million impressions is definitely a lot of impressions. I cannot imagine. So I'm not going to say, I'm not going to lie if I say, The quality of the video was not very good, and LinkedIn actually, I don't know,

screw up with the quality. It should have been with better quality. I don't know what happened. I tried to post it a couple of times, but it was all the time with the same kind of bad quality. So in the end, I didn't have a choice. But the reason I think was because it was my first video ever. So, and we all know that lately LinkedIn is pretty,

videos. A lot of videos, a lot of creators, they're sharing videos and it was because of the fact that it was the first video and it was because it was, I don't know, maybe the first video coming from me. And I really don't know what else as advice to give for the video. Maybe I can have some more advice in the future where I'll have some more videos and then I'll have something more to share. And so I assume that you plan to continue with video content? Yeah, I think I'm going to continue with video content. At least share once a week, a video. And that's it. I will see in the future how that goes. It's very nice because you can reshare the video on other platforms.

Right now, I'm also on LinkedIn, but I also have an Instagram account. I'm not sure if. Because right now that I see that videos are also working really great. I can just repose on other channels and I can just have them ready and everywhere. So that's very nice. Other than that, I also have newsletter. The newsletter is mostly for freelancers and there I'm sharing some insightful things about freelancing career and about anything that could help them level up their freelance business.

These are the platforms that I'm currently using. LinkedIn is the number one focus for now. And we haven't discussed yet your business. So do you want to tell us more about the business that you run with your partner, with your friend? Yeah. So our business is called We Craft You Grow. And it's really, I love the business. I am in love with what we started together with Katie.

So the reason why we started doing what we're doing with, we craft you grow is because we wanted to simplify everything, simplify everything from start until the end. When someone comes to us and says, yeah, I have a goal. I want to grow my business and I want to get more leads. We already have that problem solved for the client on a really, fast way. Like we already have a process, an onboarding process that's really easy and efficient for us and for them. We have a template that we use a notion. We already have everything ready

that's really easy for them. And our strategy that we're using for our clients is also very good and it's working. So, yeah, we started this because of the experience, because of being. We fall in love with building personal brands and we wanted to help more and more people with the strategy that we're using because our strategy is working really great. I think we can all see based on an example of you and of your profile, which obviously they're a big name. So it just makes sense to share your knowledge with others. And is that then something also that you were interested in before, like being entrepreneur and founder of business like that? Honestly, when I was a child, I always wanted to do something meaningful, help other people. And so I didn't have like any kind of career in mind that I was like, yeah, I would be that when I grew up.

And I can say that it all happened very naturally for me. When I discovered LinkedIn, I can say that in the beginning, he was really helpful. helpful for me because I didn't know what to do and do know how to move in the right direction. But the second time after the huge break, when I came, I told myself that I'm going to do things, this time that I'm going to do things differently. So I implemented the strategy and I was testing and I was adjusting and I was adjusting and I was experiencing. So it changed everything.

And when I started doing it the right way, I can say that, LinkedIn changed my my life, really changed my life. And it's because LinkedIn is a way, it's a very good platform, first of all. It's a very good way to build a community. It's a very good way. You can have a very good way to show your expertise, to show what you can do, to show, to track the right clients, to get personal with your post brand. And this is your personality and your authenticity is through,

things that connect people and that make you relatable to other people. Because these are the two things people would love to see from you. Yeah, yeah. They can't everything they want, but if you don't nail down, like, if you can't show who you really are, then it's really not worth doing it if you can't show for you as a person and why you care for others. So when you choose to do it in a meaningful way, it's a meaningful way. this is really the right approach and it changes everything when you're doing it the right way and

meaningful way. I agree because it's like you can meet even the fact that we are now speaking never met but you know just over the LinkedIn you can meet people each way from all around the world you never know who meet and it's just as you said a great platform and I see the same way as you said right right I can say and I can confirm and I can by these words that once you learn how to do LinkedIn, the opportunities are going to be endless. And when I say opportunities, I mean opportunities as potential collaborations like me and you, potential collaborations about content creation, potential collaborations about promotional goals, if you would love to do that, potential collaborations about any kind of opportunities,

work-related, business-related, partnerships, full-time jobs, like really any kind of, there will be more and more stuff coming on your way because people can see that you've built something valuable and you've built the trust and authority. So this is really interesting. Don't underestimate it, yeah. Right. So in the future, I think once you start growing, very fast, very fast, I mean a couple of thousand followers per month, then you can start thinking

about long term and about really what are your goals and what kind of life do you want to have. You should understand the way, how you can build that lifestyle and that kind of life you will love for yourself so you can feel free or you can feel however you. want to feel. So, yeah, I think for me, the thing, the value that matters the most is flexibility and authenticity. So flexibility in a way that I will be able to choose where I'm going to work, with who am I going to work, what time of the day am I going to do what?

So really, free to do whatever I want, whatever I want. whatever I want. So it's very easy for me right now because we LinkedIn, LinkedIn was the reason. And I always like to set boundaries with clients. And I would love that they do respect these boundaries because it is very important to build a life and have the lifestyle that you want to have. And with the flexibility that remote work gives you, you can really have it all have it all yeah

and just speaking of this have you got any dream destination where would you like to work from so I have a couple of countries that I would love to visit but not sure that I am going to stay there and just live there so any kind of destinations that are connected to the nation nature, especially seaside, especially the sea in front of me, I'm all about that. I really love to see. I really love swimming and all the water sports.

So I would love to, when they have a house in front, in a very small cottage in Italy or in Greece. So that would be my dream, yeah, if you ask me. But it's going to be after the big plan that's going to be. I'll be fine about the house here in North Estonia. So, yeah, in the following years, that could be another plan. But let's take this one first and I will think about that one. Yeah. And then just as we will be finishing soon, I'm curious,

what is it that you enjoy doing in your free time? Yeah, in my free time, I love to go out. I love to spend time with friends. just be out there on the sun when there is the sun I have my daily works with my dog, Pablo. We actually brought the dog from Spain

and I love to watch movies, love to cook, read books. Got any favorite books? I haven't read one a couple of months but if I talk about marketing books

influence is definitely one of my favorite books. But other than that, I love to read thrillers. I love thrillers. Any kind of natural, like out of the

nature, like the kind of stuff, like sci-fi. This is going to be my favorite genre even for movies, even for books. So I love to just get out of this world and just be in another world. So this is why am I reading and I'm why this is why I'm watching and reading something.

And then it's obvious, but can you sum it up where people can find you, follow you, and promote any kind of your work? Yeah, so if you would love to work with me or if you would love to know any kind of information about my agency we've built with Katie, you can find it. on WeCraft You Grow.com. So this is our website. You can check out everything there, the packages. Everything is included there.

Otherwise, if you have any other questions about my work, feel free to reach out to me on LinkedIn, and we'll take it from there. But anything, anything than that, I don't really have anything else to add. Also, about the coaching, so I'm also a freelance coach. So if there are any kind of freelancers listening to this podcast, and if you need help about your freelance business, pricing strategy, how to build a personal brand, any kind of lead generation, so any kind of issues that you're facing and you really want to move in the right direction, you can reach out to me because I can help you with us.

And as always, all the links will be in the show notes. And then the last question, is there something that you would like to add or something that I should have asked you and did not? Or anything that you want to share to finish with? Yeah. Something that I would love to add, it's a very simple advice, but I think it works for a lot of people and a lot of us people that are right now. You can see it's on the other side, but the other side of the success is, is not a linear line. It's really a tons of ups and downs and downs. There are going to be so many struggles and so many problems, but really just be consistent. Try to solve every problem on your way.

Really try to challenge yourself to solve any kind of these problems because once you become with that mindset, nothing can stop you and you can just be successful and you can really do something meaningful and it's going to in the hard work is going to pay up. Yeah, I think that is perfect. I want to say a big thank you, Marina. I really enjoyed it. As someone who's been following you, I really appreciate you joining. So thank you so much.

I will keep following and supporting. And I wish you all the best. So thank you. And this is so nice to hear Thomas. It's very, I'm very happy that you invited me to this. podcast. I had really fun talking to you and I hope that in the future we can talk again on another podcast on another interview or anything. And yeah. Thanks for listening to Produce Buy with Tomlin. Check out show notes for all the links and don't forget to like,

subscribe and leave your feedback. Speak soon.