Young and Profiting with Hala Taha - Hala Taha: Your Secret Weapon, How Leveraging LinkedIn Can Grow Your Brand and Generate Leads | The Goal Digger

Starting point is 00:00:00 Today's episode of Young & Profiting Podcast is sponsored in part by Shopify, Relay, Co-Pilot, Masterclass, and Indeed. Shopify simplifies selling online and in-person so you can focus on successfully growing your business. Sign up for a $1 per month trial period at shopify.com slash profiting and that's all lower case. Take control of your money with Relay, an online banking and money management platform that puts you in complete control of your cash flow.

Starting point is 00:00:27 Apply online and sign up for free. Go to RelayFI.com slash profiting. Start feeling fit and fabulous with co-pilot, your one-on-one remote personal training service. Head to go.myco-pilot.com slash profiting to start your free 14-day trial. With Masterclass, you can learn from the best to become your best, anytime, anywhere, and at your own pace. Get 15% off an annual membership at masterclass.com slash profiting. Indeed, is the hiring platform where you can attract, interview, and hire all in one place. Start hiring now with the $75 sponsor job credit

Starting point is 00:01:02 to upgrade your job post at indeed.com slash profiting. As always, you can find all of our deals in the show notes. What's going on, young and profitors? I am super excited for today's episode because we're replaying my appearance on the Gold Digger podcast with Jenna Kutcher. I was so excited to go on this podcast, it is such a big show. And the host of the show, Jenna, is the ultimate entrepreneur slash mom.

Starting point is 00:01:38 She runs a seven-figure business and her podcast, The Gold Digger Podcast, has over a hundred million downloads. It was such an honor to go on her show. And I actually just recently interviewed Jenna on YAP. So if you haven't heard that episode, it was awesome. It's number 242, and I highly recommend you check it out after today's episode. And by the way, Jenna Kutcher just joined my podcast network, the YAP Media Podcast Network, which is the number one business and self-improvement podcast network. I'm so happy to have Jenna joining our family.

Starting point is 00:02:08 Today, Jenna and I are talking about all things LinkedIn from using keywords to copywriting to building a content strategy. We'll also talk about how to sell in the DMs and build your personal brand on LinkedIn to generate more leads for your business. And if you want to dive in further with LinkedIn, sign up for my LinkedIn Secrets Masterclass.

Starting point is 00:02:26 Our next session is December 13th and 14th, and you can go to yappmedia.io slash course. Again, that's yappmedia.io slash course, and you can use code podcast for 30% off. Without further ado, enjoy my conversation with the lovely Jenna Kutcher on the Gold Digger podcast. Well, this feels like an absolute delight. I am so excited to finally connect with you. One thing that I love is when I see

Starting point is 00:02:53 other women at the top of the charts. I have been sharing you on. It's a welcome to the show, Halla. Oh, thank you so much, Jenna. I'm so excited for this conversation. So I know a little bit about your story. But for those who might not know, can you tell me a little bit about your career journey that's led you to where you are today and where you are today? Because all of this is so fascinating. Sure.

Starting point is 00:03:16 I started my career in radio about 10 years ago when I was a junior in college. I interned for the Angie Martinez show on hot 97, which was the number one hip hop and R&B station. And I basically interned for three years at the radio station to understand how production works, radio works. At the same time, I had online radio shows, which was the precursor of podcasts, podcasts were technically available, but they're really complicated. And a lot of people were doing online radio shows. So I'd host like music-based entertainment shows with the up and coming DJs at hot 97 on the side. And I used to make my money selling like hip hop showcases and hosting like parties that night with all the DJs. And so I did that for three years, actually

Starting point is 00:03:59 ended up dropping out of school because, you know, they wanted me to keep working more and more at the station. And I started doing commercials at the station and working on the weekends for them and learning the de-leb boards and running the whole music program and everything like that. And so I eventually wanted to get paid. And, you know, that rubbed hot in a bit the wrong way, long story short, I got fired. And I felt like my whole identity was taken away from me. I felt like, you know, I was hanging out with celebrities. I was dating Chris Brown at one point. Like, I was, you know, it was like my whole identity was crushed. And everybody basically blackballed me from hot 97 because once you're sort of out, you're out. And some people were like, Laylo, maybe Angie

Starting point is 00:04:40 will forgive you. But I didn't. I thought of a new idea and I was like sort of wanted to get out revenge. So I got fired on a Thursday. By Sunday, I had a new idea and I was going to start this thing called the sorority of hip hop. And it was going to be a blog. Blogs are super hot at the time. And so I went on Twitter. I had a big following on Twitter at the time. I went on Craigslist and I started recruiting girls. And I was like, if you're in the entertainment industry, if you've been burned, if you want to learn how to blog, if you're pretty, if you're smart, send in your pictures, send in your resume, and I want to recruit you for the sorority of hip-hop. And so I started this group two weeks later.

Starting point is 00:05:16 I had 14 girls. I went back to school to finish my senior year in college. And I remember I had my first board meeting in my college, and I like rented out a room. And there was like 14 girls. So I was a president of this new thing called the sorority of hip hop. And I started learning how to build websites. And three months later, we were one of the most popular entertainment and hip hop sites in the world.

Starting point is 00:05:38 I basically figured out how to hack Twitter. We kept recruiting more and more girls. So in and out over three years, I had like 150 girls, but usually there'd be like 50 girls at a time who are under me learning how to blog. And I basically would connect everybody's handles to Twitter. So when we put out a blog post and it was a music based like makeup, hip hop, fashion website, we would like tweet out like Wiz Khalifa and his new song

Starting point is 00:06:01 and there'd be like 50 pretty girls tweeting him and they'd retweet it. And I was the first one that figured that out. Now everybody does that, right? But I was the first blog to do that. And so we got popular really fast. And so MTV reached out to us. And they wanted to shoot a reality pilot. This was just three months into it. We didn't get the show, but I'd figured what else could happen, right? Who cares? And then all of a sudden, because I was making so much noise, everybody from hot and he seven started reaching back out to me. And then I just started hosting all the coolest parties in the city. And instead of being somebody's intern, I basically was

Starting point is 00:06:37 peers with DJ Camillo and Funk Master Flex. And even Angie was trying to get me on love and hip hop and helping me out. And everybody had more respect for me because I built something on my own and they realized I wasn't just going to go away. So I started hosting all these parties. My business turned into a blog slash like a vent company. I would host concerts, throw concerts. Then MTV came back to us two years later or so.

Starting point is 00:07:01 We had like built it up pretty popular in the Tri-State area. We'd get shouted out on the radio like every day for all the parties we'd be hosting. And they were like, this is it. It was right after Jersey Shore had ended. They're like, you're going to get your own show. You're going to be the star. They picked like five out of 50 girls to be in the cast with me. They got a studio on Broadway. They filmed us the entire summer. We threw a concert, like we did all these cool things. And I thought I was going to be famous. So at this point, it was like six years of basically working for free. I was scrounging money here and there, but I was like kept working like marketing jobs and doing like social media for festival companies. And we were making money, but there were so many

Starting point is 00:07:39 mouths to feed. And it was expensive to run a blog site with all the servers and how popular a site was. And I hadn't figured out advertising, like, you know, I was like just bootstrapping and like didn't even know what I was doing. I was so young. Anyway, we shot this whole pilot and two weeks before it's supposed to air, it's not just a pilot,

Starting point is 00:07:55 we could shot like a whole series over the summer. Two weeks before it's airing, the producer from MTV calls me up and she's like, I'm so sorry. We went into another direction and we're not gonna air the show. And I started baw up and she's like, I'm so sorry. We went into another direction and we're not going to air the show. And I started bawling and I was like, no way, like, what do you mean?

Starting point is 00:08:11 This is the second time you guys did this to me. We signed all the papers. Like, what do you mean? It's not going to air. And she's like, I'm sorry, we're going in another direction. And at this point, I was really beaten down. And I felt like, I can't make it and try to bring up 50 girls with me at the same time.

Starting point is 00:08:26 If I'm not even successful myself, I felt really like ashamed with my parents because all my siblings were like in med school and residency, all these things. And I was like, still trying to make it and like even just make like $30,000 a year or whatever. Like, you know what I mean? I just wasn't making any money. Even though I was like almost famous in the tricy area, I wasn't really making any money. So then I just shut everything down. I actually pretended that it was a fake show then. I said I needed a break. I was like, let's pretend we're shutting down

Starting point is 00:08:53 and just get a lot of attention. I just need a break. And then our break was supposed to be like two weeks. And then I was like, I don't want to do this anymore. And all the girls were really upset with me to this day. Some of the girls really hate me for doing that. But I had to do it. And so I went. I had a terrible undergraduate GPA because I only was doing was working at Haunt in the seven in my undergrad.

Starting point is 00:09:15 So I wanted to get my MBA. And I couldn't get into any schools. And then I ended up begging my director of my alma mater of the alumni program, and she let me in. I told her my story, and she was like, okay, like, you know, if you get a four point out, I'll keep you in the program. And I was like, okay, I'm gonna do it. And so I got my MBA, I got a four point out. I graduated number one of my class,

Starting point is 00:09:35 and I started my corporate track. And I just literally thought I'd never get back on a mic. I thought it was done. And then I started my corporate track. I worked at HP, worked there for four years. I became the face of the young employees there. So I essentially was an entrepreneur at the company and really stood out and I was way more tech savvy

Starting point is 00:09:52 than everybody else. And so in the marketing department, I just kept rising up in the ranks and I was sort of like the C-suite's pet and I would go to all the conferences and interview the CEO and the CMO and I was like that type of character at the company. And then four years into it, I got the itch and I saw podcasting was really out there. I saw that there was

Starting point is 00:10:09 apps like pod bean and things that seemed accessible that I could figure out. And so I just decided one day I remember it was New Year's 2018 right before the New Year. And I was just like, all right, I'm going to start this podcast. And instead of being like an influencer within this corporate company, I want to take what I've learned over the years and interview smart people and be of service. And I started this podcast, young and profit. So I'll pause there. I know that was so much more there's stitch mix.

Starting point is 00:10:36 There's Disney. You have been all over the place. What was it about podcasting that drew you in? Was it that radio background? I mean, because if you think about radio and blogging, podcasting is kind of this interesting combination of both of those skill sets. Yeah, I felt like I knew how to do everything, right?

Starting point is 00:10:54 So I had like a half Twitter, there's a social media element for sure with podcasting. I knew how to do audio editing, I knew how to do video editing, I knew how to do graphic design, I knew how to host. I, I knew how to do video editing, I knew how to do graphic design, I knew how to host. I also knew that I had a story and that I could probably get some really big guests

Starting point is 00:11:10 just from my story. And so I just figured I had all the skills and I had the time. I was doing really well in my job and I felt like I had all this kind of free time. I would volunteer internally within HP and I decided to stop doing that and then all the set in. I felt like I had like four hours a day to figure some stuff out. And the cool thing about young and profiting is that I had a team of volunteers that actually helped me for two years. I had

Starting point is 00:11:35 20 people for two years that helped me. And it's because I had so many skills that like there'd be one guy from Atlanta and I teach him how to do videos. One guy from Estonia, I tell him how to do my website, you know, interns from my past college, I would teach how to do production research for me. And so I just like had this like tea army of interns that would help me so that I could have a day job. And then I just kept growing the podcast that way. So I know that you made the leap into full-time entrepreneurship in 2020, which was a crazy year for everyone, but especially for you. What finally gave you the confidence to go all in?

Starting point is 00:12:13 What did that look like? Yeah, it was actually, you know, when I started the podcast, I never thought that I was going to make any money. I was just being of service, growing my, I became a really big influencer on LinkedIn, growing my, I became a really big influencer on LinkedIn, growing my like personal brand. And I literally didn't even think it was possible to make money off a podcast. And I remember like being in clubhouse like before I really blew up being like, guys, there's no way you're going to make money from podcasting. It's about networking. And then like little did I know there's so much money in podcasting if you know what you're doing, right? And so the first way that I started monetizing my show is that these guests would come

Starting point is 00:12:48 on. And I from the start, I had a really big guest because like I said, I was punching above my way. I understood how to get big guests from the start. And I never sort of settled for anyone. I always shot up. And it was like a volume game. I just knew the more I sent out, somebody would eventually say yes. And then one person says yes, it was easier to get more people to say yes, right? So basically these big guests that were very successful already would come on my show. They'd be author speakers, celebrities. And after the end of the show, they would literally like clockwork be like, how did you grow your LinkedIn? Can you do it for me? How had you grow this podcast? Can you do this for me? And I used to always be like,

Starting point is 00:13:25 I'm sorry, I have a really great corporate career at the time I was working at Disney. You know, I've got a volunteer team, but they're really busy with my stuff, like we don't have the bandwidth to help you, I'm sorry. And I would just always say that. And then one day I met this lady Heather Monahan, are you familiar with her?

Starting point is 00:13:41 Yes, yes, then I know this part of your story. I love it. So she came on my show and I gave her the whole spiel. She was like, how I need you to do my LinkedIn. And I was like, I'm sorry, I can't. And then she just wouldn't leave me alone. She was on every single one of my videos on LinkedIn. She's a call you have to do this. She kept commenting. You have to do this for me. So then I was, you know, she was somebody who I looked up to and so I was like, you know what, I would love Heather to be my mentor. So I was like, listen, I can't do it for you, but I can teach you how. And so I started setting up these meetings with her on Saturdays. And she thought it was so cute that I would like send a calendar invite for Saturday. And like,

Starting point is 00:14:19 I was like, trying to teach her how to use like headliner and canvun, premier pro. And I was showing her like our slack and our drive and our templates. And she is just like, was like, Hala, I literally am talking to VaynerMedia for them to do my social media. Your stuff is more impressive. She's like, you have a company. You do. You understand you have a company. I want to be your first client.

Starting point is 00:14:42 And I was just like, it was COVID. And I was working from home. And really, I was in a space where like, I wanted a distraction, you know, quite frankly, because I had a lot more free time. I was sort of coasting in my job. It was a hard job, but I felt like I had time. I just figured like, all right, we'll do it. And I was like, okay, I'll start with your videos. And then we did a great job. And we started taking over all her channels and then eventually her podcast. And then my second client,

Starting point is 00:15:11 so Heather was paying me like nothing, like $700 a month, like it was really nothing in the beginning, right? And so then my second client, Jason Waller, he was the CEO of like one of the fastest growing, oh, you know him, he was the one of the fastest growing solar panel companies you know him. He was the CEO of one of the fastest growing solar panel companies. And it's like the fastest growing private company in the US.

Starting point is 00:15:30 And he invited me on a show. And afterwards, he was like, how can you do social media and production for me? And now I had like a business kind of. And I was like, yeah, definitely I can do it. I sure else, a new proposal. And I remember meeting with my business partner, Tim, who has been with me since episode two,

Starting point is 00:15:46 we put together this proposal and it was like $3,000 for each service. It was three services. And then he's like, why don't we just make a $10,000 to service and let's just shoot for 30K. And I was like, okay. And it was a 30K monthly retainer. I was like, let's do it. And so I hop on a call with Jason and I give this pitch.

Starting point is 00:16:04 And my second deal was $30,000 a month. And then it was just like boom, then I got like Cara Goldin of hint water for another huge contract. Then I got the CEO of one of your inner got junk, his personal brand and his company. Then I just like skyrocketed and I just kept it in client after client. So then six months after I started the side hustle, I had 38 paid employees, I started paying everybody right as soon as we started making money across the world. I had the, you know, already full time US employees. I was still working at Disney.

Starting point is 00:16:33 Then I got on the cover of podcast magazine and interviewed Matthew McConaughey. And then I was like, all right, I got to just take the leave. It's like, I'm like, I should have done this three months ago. And I quit my job and the rest is history. Let's hold that thought and take a quick break with our sponsors. Okay, young profitors, let's play a game. I want you to brainstorm.

Starting point is 00:16:55 What's something that works so well that's basically magic. I can think of a few things. Noise canceling headphones, air conditioning. What about selling with Shopify? Psh! That's right, when I decided to launch my online course, I went for a magic instead of driving myself mad. I went for done for me, plug and play.

Starting point is 00:17:15 Because you know what? I needed to focus on a perfect offer, the perfect messaging, the perfect positioning, the perfect course. I needed to focus on what I do best, making great content and marketing. And when it comes to building websites or creating an e-commerce platform, that's not my expertise.

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Starting point is 00:18:37 promo codes. Shopify has all the features that I need to run and grow and scale my yetAT media academy. Shopify is the global force behind all birds, Rothies, Brooklyn, and millions of other entrepreneurs of all sizes across 175 countries. And I actually just interviewed the CEO of all birds and it was awesome. They made over a million dollars in their first month with Shopify. I can't wait for you guys to hear this founder story.

Starting point is 00:19:03 It is so inspirational. And they just IPO'd 10 years later, they are still on Shopify. Shopify grows with them because businesses that grow grow with Shopify. Sign up for a $1 per month trial period at Shopify.com slash profiting. And that's all lower case. Again, that's Shopify.com-sash-profiting. You can sign up for a $1 per month trial period at Shopify.com-profiting and that's all lower case. Young and profitors, what's a game where no one wins? The waiting game. When it comes to hiring, don't wait for great talent to find you. Find them first with Indeed. When you're

Starting point is 00:19:44 hiring, you need indeed. Indeed is the hiring platform where you can attract interview and hire all in one place. Indeed is the only job site where you only pay for applications that meet your must-have requirements. And candidates you invite to apply are three times more likely to apply to your job posts than candidates who only see it in search, according to US and D data. What I love about Indeed is that it does all the hard work for you. It shows us quality candidates whose resumes fit our descriptions immediately after we post up, and then we get matched with quality candidates instantly.

Starting point is 00:20:19 According to TalentNAS 2019, Indeed delivers four times more hires than all other drop sites combined. Indeed stream Streamlines, the hiring process with powerful tools that help you find match candidates. With instant match, over 80% of employers get quality candidates whose resume on Indeed matches their drop description, the moment they sponsor a job. At YAP, we use Indeed to hire all of our new talent. That is the first place we go to put up our job posts. Join us and more than three million businesses worldwide

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Starting point is 00:21:19 It's so insane. I love your story. And there's so many parts you didn't even include, which is why everyone needs to go listen to your show so they can hear a full story. So one of the things that you hinted at is LinkedIn. Now, we have had hundreds of episodes on this podcast and we've only talked about LinkedIn a handful of times. Why do you love LinkedIn? Sell it to me for anyone who is like, wait,

Starting point is 00:21:42 people still use that? Yeah. So LinkedIn is a really popular platform. There's 135 million active daily users on LinkedIn. And my favorite part about LinkedIn is that people are primed for sales conversations. So people are doing research and they're buying journey on LinkedIn. People are used to being approached in the DMs. People want to be approached for relevant things related to their career and their job. They want to be helped and they want people to help them solve their problems.

Starting point is 00:22:11 And so they're receptive to basically selling in the DMs, which is where a lot of the selling happens on LinkedIn. Whereas on Instagram, when you try to do the same thing, people get turned off because they're there for entertainment. They're there to check up on their family and not there for sales and business. So that's one reason. The other reason is because that algorithm is completely hackable still, right? It is completely possible to grow without the use of boosting and automation or bots or whatever.

Starting point is 00:22:39 And Instagram is really hard to grow right now. There's a couple of ways that you can still grow on Instagram. But LinkedIn, it's like once you understand the tactics, once you understand what works, what doesn't, and you understand the algorithm, no matter what your topic is, no matter how well you write or whatever, you can figure out how to grow a following on that platform. So happy to dig into any of that. Okay, so let's talk about first the following. So does your following matter? We know we've seen like popularity and people are so fixated on growing that number under their name on all the platforms, walk me through why you want to

Starting point is 00:23:12 grow your audience on LinkedIn. Yeah, so I think that getting a following is really important, but really it's engagement that matters. It's the amount of views that you get on your content and how much people engage like comment share. That's what really matters because I've got a lot of clients that have come to me in the past. They might have a million followers. Maybe they had like a big press push or they were LinkedIn's top voice or they started on LinkedIn 10 years ago when it was no matter what you did. You went viral and they have little engagement and they get no sales, they get no business from LinkedIn because nobody's actually seeing their stuff anymore. So it's really important to focus on engagement and understanding how to go viral on the feed rather than just getting connections, right?

Starting point is 00:23:53 So in terms of why it's important to have a following, especially first connections on LinkedIn because those are the only people that you can DM. And on LinkedIn, there's first connections and there's second and third connections. And second and third connections can see your feed content if people share your stuff or engage on your stuff. But you actually want to be able to DM people so that you can generate sales because all the action and connection and people actually clicking on links really happens in the DMs. So what would you say would be the first step? If somebody's listening to this and they're like, I have a very old profile on LinkedIn,

Starting point is 00:24:28 it probably hasn't been updated. I'm an entrepreneur now. I haven't thought that I needed this. What would be the first step of getting re-acclimated on LinkedIn? One of the things that I ask people to do is look up their lookalike profiles. So when I say lookalike profiles,

Starting point is 00:24:43 what I really mean is people who have a following that you want. It's not necessarily your competitors, it's not necessarily anybody who's actually in your niche. It's people who have a following that you think would resonate with your product or offering. Okay, because those are the people that you want to study and emulate and figure out how you're going to differentiate

Starting point is 00:25:02 between their profiles, take what's working for them, and then improve on what you think could be better. The other thing that you can do with those local-like profiles, as you can see, who recently liked and commented on their stuff. And this is really important because people go on LinkedIn, they go look for a job, they get a job, and then a lot of them never log back on. And the last thing that you want is dead profiles. So a lot of people make the mistake of just like typing in titles or doing searches on LinkedIn and then finding people that they think would be their target audience and inviting them, but those people never accept their connection requests because they don't log on to LinkedIn. So you want people who log on to LinkedIn and take viral action on posts, which means you want to find

Starting point is 00:25:42 people who have a big, engaged following, not just a big phone. Again, people who get, you know, 200 likes, 300 likes plus on their posts and are getting engagement. And then you want to see who liked and commented on those posts and who shared those posts, which you can actually see. And you're going to want to invite those people into your network. And so I did this when I first started, everybody was calling me the young Gary V. I, you. I knew he had a podcast, knew he talked marketing, knew he was motivational, and I was like, okay, anybody who's gonna like his stuff is gonna like mine too,

Starting point is 00:26:10 and I'd say, hey, what's up? I noticed you engage with Gary V. If you like his content and podcasts, you're gonna like mine too. I'd love to provide value on your feet. Let's connect. Nine out of 10 people would accept, then all of a sudden had like 10,000 of Gary Vs fans.

Starting point is 00:26:25 And little did I know that I was also triggering the algorithm because when you recently connect with someone, they see your content at the top of their feed for two weeks. If you DM with someone and they respond back, they see your content at the top of their feed for two weeks. Then if they like or comment or share, they're like 85% more likely to see your content. If they comment, they're 70% more likely to see your content. And so you just start this flywheel effect of bringing people in, DMing them, then they see your stuff, then you go viral on the feed, then people are connected with people who are similar to them. So if you are targeting someone, let's say who's in real estate, chances are they've got a lot of people in real estate who's in their following themselves.

Starting point is 00:27:06 And when they engage on their content, those people see that engagement in their feed. And so then you get like a referral to all their following. And so that's really how you crush it on LinkedIn. You have to be strategic and invite people who take viral action and start this flywheel effect. And it's both content on the feed and this DM strategy. And so you can do this in a million ways. Another great way to sort of target active people on LinkedIn

Starting point is 00:27:30 is that there's thousands of events that are going on every day. And people are registering for these events. So if you, like for example, let's say you have social media services. So if you look up social media events on LinkedIn, you can see all the events that are coming up, everybody who registered, who basically are raising their hand, I'm interested in this topic.

Starting point is 00:27:48 You can register for that event, and then you get access to message everybody who's in that event, and they're active, they're interested in what you want, and it's relevant, and people will have that conversation with you because you're bringing up something relevant to them. Wow. Okay, so I'm obsessed with this. I love hacking the system, which you have absolutely done. So you brought up content in the feed. So a lot of people just visualize like the old school Facebook, right? When you could only see your own profile and when we all freaked out that the news, we'd

Starting point is 00:28:20 happen to similar rollout happened with LinkedIn, where now you are supposed to be sharing content and value. Walk me through different types of posts that you publish that can show up in the feed so that people can start imagining what type of value can I add on that platform and what does it look like compared to other platforms that I might already be on? Yeah, this is a really great question. So whenever we're talking about feed content on LinkedIn, we want to promote shareability. And there's two main types of posts that are shareable. There's motivational and inspirational,

Starting point is 00:28:51 and then there's educational. And folks of them work really well on LinkedIn. In fact, LinkedIn is now prioritizing educational content. So one of the things that you want to think about when you're thinking about motivational content is telling stories. So things that work well as like transformational stories, I was poor. Now I'm rich.

Starting point is 00:29:09 I was fat. Now I'm skinny, right? Showing that like transformation and what your learnings are and giving a story. And it's really important on LinkedIn to remember what features work the best on that platform. So while Instagram is really video heavy, they want to compete with TikTok. LinkedIn is not the same. Actually, like vertical style videos that work really well on Instagram, do very poorly on LinkedIn. And actually, you want to stick with a 4x5 size graphic. So a very large, I call it poster size, that yet media graphic on LinkedIn. If you guys are curious what that looks like,

Starting point is 00:29:43 you can go to my profile on LinkedIn, and you'll see that almost every single post is like a four by five photograph on LinkedIn. And so typically these motivational posts is either a story or a quote or a lesson that you're giving, that is gonna be relevant to everyone. And the reason why it's shareable is that everybody wants positivity.

Starting point is 00:30:02 Everybody can relate to it, It's relevant to everyone. So if you're looking for a broad audience, and you might have a lower ticket offer that doesn't need to have a very specific audience, you probably want to lean into motivational content that's going to go massively viral. That's the most viral type of content. And it doesn't matter if it's a long caption, a short caption,

Starting point is 00:30:20 but when you're thinking about social media on any platform, prioritize being skimmable. OK, so on LinkedIn specifically, they'll actually deprioritize you if you use chunky paragraphs, because LinkedIn knows that people are skimming through about nine posts. They're only going to stop and read if it's easy. It should be fun. You don't want to make people work, right? So you want to make it as easy as possible. So even if you're telling a story, it's line by line,

Starting point is 00:30:44 and you're opening it up with a hook to get people hooked in to actually spend time on your post, at least dwell time. Click the learn more button or keep reading button and keep spending time on your post. That's really important and then eventually hopefully engage. So again, line by line style copy. That's they call a broetry on LinkedIn. That's actually the algorithm is prioritizing that kind of content. That's why you see all the influencers do that. We'll be right back after a quick break from our sponsors. Young and profitors, even though I interview the brightest minds in the world, I still seek out ways to keep on learning to become a better entrepreneur and a better

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Starting point is 00:37:45 Yes. So this is really important, especially for an entrepreneur. It's educational content, right? And so when you're thinking about educational content on LinkedIn, really, what you want to make sure is that you're not lecturing. So this is the biggest mistake that I see entrepreneurs do. They want to give everything away. The kitchens think away. They want to give like a blog post on their LinkedIn, but you have to realize that this is a digestible platform and you can break apart, like let's say a blog post over five days instead. And when you're posting, you want to give one lesson and you want to give room for people to add their opinion. So if somebody is saying like, I'm going to give you the top five ways that you can crush your LinkedIn and they list every top five way, then people are going to be like, I'm going to give you the top five ways that you can crush your LinkedIn. And they list every top five way.

Starting point is 00:38:27 Then people are going to be like, all right, Hall has got to figure it out. Like, what's there for me to add? Or okay, I'm just going to keep moving. Like she's a note all. You want to give one kind of meaningful nugget that is actually going to help people who's problem that you solve, but then allow them to participate by not giving away the whole kitchen sink. Then people can be like, yeah, that point is okay, but what about XYZ, right?

Starting point is 00:38:49 And so you don't wanna give too much away in your pose. I think that is a big problem that people have. So once you come out with content and you're continually educating people, people are gonna start engaging on your content. And then you've gotta close the loop. You've got to retarget those people in the DMs. So you put out educational content about your offer and you don't want to be sales

Starting point is 00:39:12 in LinkedIn. You actually get deprioritized if you're salesy. So you can't like link out to your website in the caption. LinkedIn's goal is to keep users active and engaged on their site for as long as possible. So that means you can't link out to another site. You can put a link in the comments, but even if you use salesy language, LinkedIn is basically going to deprioritize your posts because they have their own editorial agenda and it's not to make use sales. So you have to be completely of service and you want to use keywords. This is another point. So let's say again, let's use a real estate example. If you're in real estate, you want to use real estate keywords in your posts. The same keywords that would be found in your target client's profiles

Starting point is 00:39:51 because LinkedIn will start to match profiles and start to feed content to people who they think would be interested in your content based on their keywords. So it's important to infuse your posts with keywords so that it gets fed to the right people, okay? Now, hopefully people are engaging on your content. And once they do that, you can then DM them. So you can say, Hey, I noticed that you recently liked my post about real estate. I would love to give you another tool. I've got this, you know, mortgage calculator. I'd love for you to check it out. And so then you can give them some sort of free resource. Once they respond back, oh, thank you so much. This was awesome. Oh, yeah, let me know if you have any questions. The goal is to just keep the conversation going until you've built up enough social currency

Starting point is 00:40:32 with the person that you can make an ask, let's hop on a call. Here is a form. If you want to learn more information and book a call, right? So then you want to bring them off platform and close them. So really that's the goal. It's getting them from the feed, starting a conversation in the DMs and then bringing them off platform so that you can close the deal. So I love this. I think that most people are terrified to try to sell the people via DMs, probably because we've all experienced like that one girl from high school who started a skincare business and is now reaching out. Do you have any tips of gaining comfort ability in terms of like reaching out and having that type of language around how we

Starting point is 00:41:13 can close a deal? Yeah, so I think first things first when you're reaching out to somebody, you always want to think of the law of likeability and you want to think of common ground. So let's talk about the law of likeability. People like people who are like them. And that means that you need to find your similarities. What is it about you that's similar? So are you both powerful women? Did you both go to the same school? Are you both from the same city? Do you both like the same influencers? Are you both you know MBA grads? What is it that you have in common? And you want to give people compliment. People like people who compliment them, right? People also like people who ask them for advice, who ask them questions. And so you want to think about all the ways that you can become

Starting point is 00:41:55 more likeable. And so one of the ways that you can use a lot of likeability is let's say you're a executive coach for females, for female executives. So you would go on somebody's profile, let's say you're targeting anybody who's in chief, because you know all those people are qualified, and you can go to them and say, hey, so nice to meet you, I saw your profile and you look like somebody who's a blazing, powerful female in the space, I'd love to connect with you. And so you're giving them a compliment. You can also say something like, it looks like we both have a lot in common.

Starting point is 00:42:27 We're both really crushing it in the female entrepreneurship space. I'd love to connect with you, right? So you're giving them a compliment. You're showing that, hey, I'm like you too, let's connect. That person is likely going to accept because you've given them a compliment. You've shown that you have some sort of common ground. And again, you can use any sort've shown that you have some sort of common ground.

Starting point is 00:42:45 And again, you can use any sort of attribute that they have in their profile to set that common ground. LinkedIn's really unique from other platforms because there are all these different search filters where you can basically look, say, like, okay, I want all the titles of VP in California and you can find everybody with that criteria and then come up with some language that is relevant for all those people that you can just sort of customize as you go along and invite those people to your network.

Starting point is 00:43:10 So that's one way. And then let's say it's like you don't have a lot of accolades and you're just coming up. Instead, you can ask people for advice. Hey, you look like a really strong, powerful female. I'd love to connect with you and, you know, get your feedback and get your advice on xyz or I'd love your thoughts around xyz. Now, if the person's really famous, this is not going to work because they're getting bombarded with

Starting point is 00:43:34 messages like this. But if it's just somebody who's like incorporate, they're going to be happy to have a conversation with you because probably not many people are reaching out asking for advice and people love giving their advice and showcasing their value and expertise. I love this. I am smiling so big. I was recently on a girls trip and one of my friends has this beautiful British accent and she looks to this guy and we needed an extra golf cart

Starting point is 00:43:57 for something and she was like, you look like a man who could get things done and like the guy gets like all excited and he's like, I can, yes, I can. And I was like, I need to take that line with me everywhere because all of a sudden he was like proud to help us after two people had already told us, no, it was just so funny. So I love this because I totally agree with it. The other thing that and you just alluded to it, the other thing that you want to make sure is so that you don't turn people off the deams. I'm sending thousands of DMs a day and 99% of people say thank you and are appreciative.

Starting point is 00:44:29 That is not normal and it's because I'm doing little things to make sure that it doesn't come off cost spammy or insulting. So your friend said you look like someone. She didn't say you are. Let's say somebody engages on my post about my LinkedIn masterclass. We might approach them. You look like somebody who may be interested in our LinkedIn masterclass. Then they're really like, yeah, you know, I'm kind of am interested about a lot. If I said, hey, you're interested in my LinkedIn masterclass, I'd love to XYZ. They'd be like, I'm not interested in your class. Who are you to tell me what I like, what I don't like, get out of here, you know. So kind of seem like, you may be like, you seem like the type of person who would XYZ, right? So you just want to make

Starting point is 00:45:09 sure that you soften it a little bit so that it's not so direct because people like to prove you wrong, right? So you want to make sure there's no way that they can prove you wrong. Yes, I love this. One of your gifts, one of your like secret sauce things that you are so good at is branding. Talk to me about how branding plays well with LinkedIn. What does that look like? And how do they kind of coexist and compliment each other? Yeah, so when you're thinking about building

Starting point is 00:45:34 a personal brand, you want to be so consistent that people think of you like an old friend. This is what I always say. Like you want people to think of you like they know you without that you even knowing them. So for me on LinkedIn, I've done a good job of this to the point where if somebody trolls me, I'll have like all my fans being like, you don't know how I don't tell her this blah blah blah. It's just because I've been consistent in all my actions.

Starting point is 00:45:56 And so essentially branding is consistency. And if you are consistent in every single action that you take on LinkedIn, that means your profile, your bio, every single caption, every single action that you take on LinkedIn. That means your profile, your bio, every single caption, every single comment, every single video content, every single DM, they all have to be consistent and that means you need to step back and understand what you want to be perceived of. What do you want to represent as yourself? So one of the exercises that we do in our LinkedIn Masterclass is we come up with voice guidelines. And essentially, it's like a breakdown of your personality. So first of all, what are your values?

Starting point is 00:46:30 Your values are your decision-making compass, right? So when things go bad, how do you know what you stand for? Because that's when you can't think logical, and that's why it's important to understand what your values are as a person. And so you come up with your values. The next thing is personality. So your personality actually reflects your audience,

Starting point is 00:46:50 not yourself. You want your audience to feel magnetic towards you and people like people who are like them. So you need to reflect them, not yourself necessarily. Maybe there's one element that showcases your personal personality, but really you want to mirror the way that your audience acts. And so you want to think about your audience demographics, what's their age, what's their gender, what's their interests, what do they sound like, you know, what other

Starting point is 00:47:12 influencers are resonating with them, what do they sound like? And you kind of want to mirror that when you're thinking about your personality and your tone and the way that you come across. The other thing that you want to think about is your transformation, the impact that you come across. The other thing that you wanna think about is your transformation, the impact that you wanna make with your audience. This isn't extremely important. So essentially, it's like your four or five key messages that you're gonna tell over and over and over again in a hundred different ways.

Starting point is 00:47:36 So for me, you're never too old to learn something new. You know, sky is the limit, there's life is limitless, you can do anything. You're always able to grow and learn. Continuous learning is extremely important. So there's a few messages that I just say over and over and over again in a million different ways. And this is what I stand for now.

Starting point is 00:47:53 This is why when I share a picture of myself on LinkedIn, I don't represent hallotaha anymore. And I'm extremely shareable. People share my picture automatically because I represent hope for them. I represent learning for them. I represent learning for them. I represent motivation for them. And so they're happy to share my face, which takes time once you're consistent. And you feel like an old friend and you represent more than just your face. You're now your brand, right?

Starting point is 00:48:18 And so you've got to be consistent in those messages. And then the last part is your delivery method. How are you going to make that impact? What are you going to do? For me, I've got a podcast. I'm going to share micro-constant. I'm going to share motivational posts, educational posts, and so on. And so you've got to think about what is your delivery method to make good on that impact.

Starting point is 00:48:35 So that's sort of what I take people through my masterclass. And then you're really set up for success. If you pair that messaging and branding with viral strategy is an engagement strategy, there's all these different hacks on LinkedIn. There's no way that you're not going to be successful. Amazing. I am so impressed with you.

Starting point is 00:48:53 I am obsessed with your story. I love seeing you on the chart. Thank you so much for coming on the Goldigar Podcast. This was an absolute dream. Thank you so much.

Young and Profiting with Hala Taha - Hala Taha: Your Secret Weapon, How Leveraging LinkedIn Can Grow Your Brand and Generate Leads | The Goal Digger

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