Unleash the Power of LinkedIn

[00:00:00.450] - Marlys Arnold

You're listening to the Trade Show Insights podcast, Season 16, Episode 8.

[00:00:19.280] - Marlys Arnold

I'm your host and exhibit marketing strategist, Marlys Arnold, bringing you tools to improve your exhibit results on today's episode, brought to you by the Exhibit Marketers Cafe, we've got a rebroadcast of our virtual lunch with an expert on how to improve your personal brand on LinkedIn.

[00:01:02.270] - Marlys Arnold

I am so excited to bring on our guest today because she literally she's known as the LinkedIn expert and she truly is a LinkedIn expert. So I want to introduce to you Viveka von Rosen.

[00:01:17.780] - Viveka von Rosen

Hello!

[00:01:17.780] - Marlys Arnold

Hey, Viveka. She is the co-founder and CVO, or chief visibility officer of Vengreso. She's known internationally as the LinkedIn expert. I mean, literally, that is her @ tag, @linkedinexpert. She's the author of best selling LinkedIn Marketing An Hour a Day and the brand new LinkedIn, One Hundred and One Ways to Rock Your Personal Brand. There it is. And as a contributing expert to LinkedIn official sales and marketing blogs, and they're sophisticated marketers guides, she's often called on to contribute to publications like Fast Company, Forbes, Money Entrepreneur, The Social Media Examiner and more. Viveka takes the LinkedIn experience that she's perfected over the last ten plus years and transforms it into engaging and informational training and has provided over a hundred thousand people with the tools and strategies they need to succeed on LinkedIn. So we are very honored to have her here with us today at Virtual Lunch. Welcome, Viveka.

[00:02:19.360] - Viveka von Rosen

Awesome. Thank you so much. It's a pleasure to be here.

[00:02:23.120] - Marlys Arnold

Thanks.

[00:02:24.110] - Viveka von Rosen

I love how you started this. And I've got I mean, how can I compete with Bob Ross and cows? Right. But I got all the links open so I can go look at them later.

[00:02:34.250] - Marlys Arnold

I love it. Yeah. Well, you know, just a little back story for for you Viveka and for those who may be new. Joining us, we started this last year in March and just wanted it to be a community for the trade show industry. And so we started we did it every Tuesday last year, and then now this year we do twice a month. But I just I want it to be a place where people can come and, you know, not only not only learn things, but also to have a little bit of fun, too. So that's that's where Bob Ross and the cows come in.

[00:03:04.070] - Viveka von Rosen

I love it. I love it. No, it's such a it's such a great resource. It it just reminded me kind of like, you know, the the old school radio shows that were just kind of like hanging out and chatting, you know, before blogs, before podcast, before live. And it was I just I love it , that's awesome.

[00:03:21.260] - Marlys Arnold

Yeah. Well thank you. Thank you. Yeah. It's like when people ask me, is it a podcast, what is it. It's like well it's a combination of news show, talk show, late night show.

[00:03:31.430] - Viveka von Rosen

Exactly. Exactly.

[00:03:34.430] - Marlys Arnold

All right. Well, moving on to LinkedIn.

[00:03:37.640] - Viveka von Rosen

Yeah. Yes.

[00:03:39.620] - Marlys Arnold

So I think the first time I heard you speak was on Amy Porterfield podcast several years ago. And I remember I was like taking all these crazy notes and I started working on my profile and fixing things and tweaking things and doing things. And so I don't know if we're going to get into the SSI scores today, if you're going to talk about that. But I did start seeing my score go up. And so, in fact, it's like I'd been stuck in the sixties for a long time. And just last week I checked and I'm now to 73. So I was proud of myself.

[00:04:10.460] - Viveka von Rosen

The SSI score for anyone who's wondering is is the social selling index. So LinkedIn goes in and sees, you know, how how finished is your profile? Are you connecting with people? Are you engaging with people's content? Are you sending messages and responding to messages? And it kind of looks at all of those things and gives you a score. What we found out and I don't know if this is true and I hope it's not true, but I'm on this LinkedIn experts forum and they one of the women there said, yeah, I, I got the new creator profile on LinkedIn, which is awesome. And I think for those of us who are creators, I think it's great. But she said, but my score dropped ten points and I'm like mind did too. So I went from you know, I went from like eighty four, eighty five down to like I think well maybe not ten points but like seventy six and I like what. But she said it was because of the creater profile. I'm like no. And you know what, I will give up SSI score for all the cool new features. So I'm you know, it's kind of interesting though how how LinkedIn gamifiesq itself. But if you want to go to yourSSIscore, y-o-u-r SSI score, dotcom. You can, it'll show you your SSI score.

[00:05:25.970] - Marlys Arnold

Yeah. And it's tricky to find too. I know because it took a while for me to find it. I think we might have a link, Alan we might have a link for the the tip that she has on Vengreso's site for the LinkedIn SSI Scores. So anyway if so we'll put that up here in just a minute and by the way, if you are listening to the replay of this on Trade Show Insights podcast, all the links are in the show notes as well. So you can get those from there if you're just listening to the audio. But so anyway, so talking about OK, so some of the things that you can do to help improve that score, improve your profile. What are some of your best tips for people to do?

[00:06:05.070] - Viveka von Rosen

Yeah, sure. So, again, for those of you who are not only running your business, but you're kind of the spokesperson for your business, go to your profile on on the computer, not on your your phone, but go to your profile on the computer. Scroll down to where it says my dashboard and see if you've got creator mode. This is brand new. It's like a month old or so. So if you have that creator mode option and if you do, all it does is it allows your lives to play on top where your banner is, if you in fact have linkedIn live, which is a big assumption.

[00:06:40.140] - Marlys Arnold

Yeah, I'm still waiting on that too.

[00:06:41.280] - Viveka von Rosen

You know, I you know, I went it's funny because while you were while you were sharing all the great stuff this morning, I'm like, oh, I've never actually seen because I'm doing live. So I don't actually see my page while I'm live. So I'm like, oh, I'm going to go see it on Marlys. And yeah, they haven't given it to you yet so err but yeah. So if you've got live great it'll play on top of your head, but also it will allow you to choose five hashtags that you're going to want to use with regularity. So make them like five of your best hashtags and it will help to promote those posts within what used to be hashtag communities. Now just like on LinkedIn and then it will also move up your featured section and it will also meet up move up your activity if you're active sharing content on LinkedIn. So if you're if you're not doing any of that stuff, then don't worry, don't even look for it. But if you are active on LinkedIn, if you are a content creator for your company, then definitely you're going to want to turn on that creator mode if you have it yet.

[00:07:40.800] - Viveka von Rosen

And it should be rolling out to everybody soon. But you know something?

[00:07:44.170] - Marlys Arnold

So whatever LinkedIn's definition of soon is.

[00:07:47.250] - Viveka von Rosen

Exactly ... Eight months from now, like when I get my next check. Yeah. Like whatever.

[00:07:52.290] - Marlys Arnold

Yeah. Yeah. Well I've been applying, I've applied I think like five times for LinkedIn live and you know, they just completely I mean I wish at least they would reject you. They just ignore you.

[00:08:05.050] - Viveka von Rosen

Yeah, I know, they just ... So that the trick is you either have to be a LinkedIn learning author like I am, and that's the only reason I got live. Or you just keep applying, keep applying, keep applying. My friend Kate just got it. She had to apply 12 times.

[00:08:17.790] - Marlys Arnold

Oh, wow.

[00:08:18.630] - Viveka von Rosen

Yeah. And if you're already doing lives like you are right on YouTube and Facebook, then add links to those lives. And whatever you do, don't tell LinkedIn that you're going to be talking about LinkedIn because they don't they don't like that, which is what I did wrong, amongst other things. But, yeah, if you're if you're applying for lives and you already do lives on other channels and make sure to share the links, they basically want to know that, you know how to do it and that you know how to use and let them know that you use Stream Yard in your case and maybe it will work.

[00:08:48.150] - Marlys Arnold

It's interesting. It's interesting because the last time because it used to be. Yeah, they asked you all that kind of stuff the last time I applied, which was just last month.

[00:08:55.290] - Viveka von Rosen

Yeah.

[00:08:56.070] - Marlys Arnold

They've streamlined it. And there's like hardly any like you don't have an opportunity to share the fact that oh, I broadcast every month.

[00:09:03.370] - Viveka von Rosen

Yeah. And here. Oh not even that.

[00:09:05.520] - Marlys Arnold

Yeah. No.

[00:09:06.300] - Viveka von Rosen

So just keep applying then.

[00:09:08.280] - Marlys Arnold

Yeah.

[00:09:08.610] - Viveka von Rosen

Hit that like the up button on the elevator. Just keep applying.

[00:09:12.240] - Marlys Arnold

Well and what's really funny is they're like so upload native video but ten minutes or less and it's like well these are like thirty minutes long. I can't upload a whole one of these. So yeah it's, it's a game. I think it's a real game to try to get in there. But anyway so on to some other cool things. I know of other things that that they have available on the profiles. I think there's the so the creator was that the little orange circle because you kept talking about.

[00:09:41.620] - Viveka von Rosen

Oh yeah. The little orange circle, the and I don't know if they come all together. I got them all together but I'm not entirely sure they came all together. But yeah, there's this cool new feature, it's called it's official name is Video Cover Stories. Yeah. I call it the Harry Potter effect. And what happens is you can shoot these twenty second videos that actually play where your head is on your profile. So picture normally is on your profile. What happens is when you have it and you go to someone else's profile who has it. So it's being super selective again,

[00:10:18.600] - Marlys Arnold

So you can't see it unless you have it too.

[00:10:21.480] - Viveka von Rosen

No, and that's why I did the video on it, because obviously, if I'm showing my profile in a video, you all can see it. But yeah, you can't see it on other people's profiles unless you have it too. It's just like, ooh, the cool club, cool kids club. But it's cool because you see this picture of the person and then you see this three second video and then it goes back to being the picture. So it's very hotter Harry Potter effect. But when you click on the The Circle, then the full twenty second advertisement comes up. So for us, I mean we we. So you've got your headline, of course, which is under under your picture. You've got your video cover story which is your picture and then you've got your voice pronunciation, which is a little a little sound icon to the right of your picture, and for all three of those, we basically recommend utilizing our formula, which is tell people who you help you tell, tell, tell your audience who you help, how you help them. And then you can say who you are in the company. But I always say, you know, if I just have this the, what is my what is my title, CVO of Vengreso. Like, you don't know what a CVO is and you don't know what have Vengreso is like. Am I the chief vitality officer of some soup brand. Like no one knows what a CVO of Vengreso is, so you never want to lead with that. And unfortunately when you create your LinkedIn profile, especially if you did it back in the day, it said, what's your title? Where do you work? And that's what it put in that headline section.

[00:11:52.860] - Marlys Arnold

Right.

[00:11:53.190] - Viveka von Rosen

You actually have two hundred twenty characters where you can tell people who you help, how you help them, who you are, what you do. So for us, we help B2B companies create more quality and qualified conversations. So there you go. And actually B2B sales and sales leaders. So it's very clear who we help. And then I take that into my name pronunciation tool, which you can only do on your mobile device. You can listen to it anywhere, but you can only do it on your mobile device in the in the profile section. And then I took that and expanded upon it a little bit for that video cover story. So it's very the brand is very much aligned with the headline in the and the name pronunciation and the video cover story. And then, of course, if you can get that background image to reflect your brand, obviously you want to do that, too. And that's all right above the fold, like.

[00:12:48.120] - Marlys Arnold

Right.

[00:12:48.510] - Viveka von Rosen

You have those elements. And then, of course, you want a picture that looks like you because the last thing you want is like that 1980s glam shot. And then you have that video cover story, which looks like your mother, and then it goes back to being glamor shot. So you want to make sure that you nail all of those and it takes a little bit of effort. But once that's done, that's huge, huge, huge as far as impact and branding. And then you've got and then people are a lot more likely to scroll down and look at the rest of your profile, which you want to be a resource for your buyer. You don't want it to be a resume. So many people, if they had a tool, it's gone now. But you used to be able to upload your resume into LinkedIn and plug it into the right places. Right. And a lot of people stop there. But no one I mean, hopefully there's not many people on this call or on this live looking for a job. So if you are right, but if you've got a company and you want the company and you want to explain your company, you really want to focus again on how you help people. Not that you're you know, that you've got twenty five years in the industry. No one cares about that yet.

[00:13:57.450] - Viveka von Rosen

They want to know, how can you help me? How are you going to help me? How are you going to help me and my brand stand out online? How are you going to help me and my brand stand out at a conference? Should we ever go to those again? How are you in a in a virtual event? How are you going to help me and my brand really stand out? And so once you've addressed that, then you can go into, you know, who you are and how long you've been in the in the world of exhibits or whatever.

[00:14:24.690] - Marlys Arnold

Well, and I think that's a really I know that's something I probably need to work on my headline. I've I've done a good job of changing it out. Like, you know, I put it about virtual event experience. And there yeah, of course. Now all of a sudden I get all these, like, spammy people wanting to connect with me because I have virtual events in there in the title, so.

[00:14:43.920] - Viveka von Rosen

Exactly.

[00:14:46.470] - Marlys Arnold

But OK, so that's another thing. Let's talk about reaching out and connecting because I get lots of LinkedIn invitations from people and I'm pretty open if I look and I see that we have twenty seven shared connections and most of them are in the trade show industry I know they're probably OK, but if I get an invitation from somebody and we only have one or two people in common and it's like and, and especially like you said, that headline I'm reading and I'm going this person,

[00:15:14.550] - Viveka von Rosen

Whaat,

[00:15:14.550] - Marlys Arnold

This is a sales person.

[00:15:16.560] - Viveka von Rosen

Head south ... lead generation.

[00:15:20.350] - Marlys Arnold

And as soon as you click Connect, you've immediately got like three messages popping in from them. So what is some what are some tips for the appropriate way to try to reach out and connect with people on LinkedIn?

[00:15:32.730] - Viveka von Rosen

Yeah. Yeah. Oh, my gosh. Thank you for bringing that. Yeah. And I you know, I don't get it because, like, if we were at a trade show or a conference, we would never be like, hey, my name's Viveka. You should totally buy my book, buy my book, buy my book. And yet that's what we're doing on LinkedIn. Let's connect

[00:15:46.110] - Marlys Arnold

Yeah.

[00:15:46.110] - Viveka von Rosen

And then buy my stuff, hire me, you know, and you're like, no, delete, goodbye.

[00:15:52.230] - Marlys Arnold

Yeah.

[00:15:53.160] - Viveka von Rosen

So I don't know why people think it's OK to do that on LinkedIn. So when you're on LinkedIn and you're inviting someone to connect, first of all, you don't have to connect with everybody. Very, very clear on who your target market is, whether they are your buyer or you share an audience of buyers, because one of my favorite clients was Tom James. They're a boutique clothing company, which we do very little B2C at Vengreso but their audience were C Suite, B2B, et cetera. And so we shared an audience. So. So the relationship made sense. So when you find that person that you want to connect with on LinkedIn, first of all, don't automate anything like automation on LinkedIn is a huge no no. You'll see it because you'll have all these salespeople or these lead generation people using their own tool to generate leads while all they're doing is like annoying you. My favorite invitation, my favorite worst invitation ever was, dear sir, I noticed that you're in the cleaning supply business like me. If you want great leads like this, you know, let's connect. We do lead generation. I'm like, not a sir. Not in where the world that they get industrial cleaning like and so don't automate. You do always want to customize your invitation, personalize your invitation whether you're doing it on your phone or on your desktop or laptop. But but take we call it the three by three, take three minutes to look at the person's profile, get their gender correct and now there's the his/her, she/her.

[00:17:29.000] - Viveka von Rosen

Yeah. That. They/them. So now there's actually that feature if you want to add that to your name. So get their gender correct. Listen to the name pronunciation. If they have it down, look at their profile. Yes. See who you have in common. Look at their content. What are they sharing. Look at their featured section if they have it. What what have they shared. What blog post, podcast, whatever. Where do they go to school? What do you have in common with that person? And so after three minutes about and choosing three things, utilize that when you reach out in that invitation to connect, like I'm not going to connect with you if you like, if you just say we have a bunch of friends in common, OK, who, who are our friends in common. Like, I notice that you're connected to Jay Baer. Love his podcast. You know, would want to connect with you, too, OK? Sure. Like, you know, my friend and you know, he's got a podcast. OK, let's connect. So that's one thing is do the three by three another really good thing to do. And it's kind of a Win-Win situation all the way around is if they are sharing content, go to their activity, engage on their content. Right. Like it, comment on it, maybe even share it for them. That's going to create that name face recognition so that when you invite them to connect, you're like, hey, you know, love the post you did the other day on, you know, the best exhibits to use for a virtual show. I don't know if you saw I shared it for you. I think my audience would be really interested in it. And do you want to connect? So it's going to take a little bit more time to do this. But we're looking for quality connections. I mean it back in the day, right, when LinkedIn first started. Everyone was a lion, a LinkedIn open networker. And you would connect with just anyone because that's the way LinkedIn worked back then. But now LinkedIn has changed its algorithm.

[00:19:23.120] - Viveka von Rosen

It actually is more likely to promote your content if you've got a smaller network of interested people engaging on your content, dwelling on your content. And then so it's actually better to have a smaller, more engaged network than it is to have thirty thousand connections. Also, it's a pain in the butt, have thirty thousand connections because I've got that many and it's like, oh it's pain in the butt.

[00:19:45.800] - Marlys Arnold

I don't have that many. I have a little over a thousand and yeah

[00:19:48.770] - Viveka von Rosen

That's good.

[00:19:49.640] - Marlys Arnold

It's challenging to like when I do my invitations for virtual lunch.

[00:19:54.200] - Viveka von Rosen

Yep.

[00:19:55.130] - Marlys Arnold

LinkedIn at least I've not found a way that you can save an invitation list, so I have to go in that. And

[00:20:00.410] - Viveka von Rosen

every time, every time

[00:20:02.280] - Marlys Arnold

I literally I'm like crosseyed by the time I've done going through all these names.

[00:20:07.550] - Viveka von Rosen

Yeah, exactly.

[00:20:07.550] - Marlys Arnold

So those of you who get my invitation, if I ever skip you one week I'm very sorry but I have to go one-by-one.

[00:20:14.510] - Viveka von Rosen

But you can always go to our profile and see the invite there.

[00:20:17.480] - Marlys Arnold

You can always. And then that's why I always share that you know, the day before. I always just share it openly as well. But the personal invitations have to go out one by one by one.

[00:20:27.110] - Viveka von Rosen

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Oh my gosh. I know they don't want you to automate the process. They want it to be as much a one on one. They want you to see the person's name and think to yourself, oh, I actually know that person and have real relationships on LinkedIn. Unfortunately, as you said, the scammers, the spammers, they've they've figured out there's ways to automate LinkedIn, but it's really kind of ruined it for all of us. I think all of us can go into our inbox right now and the majority of content there is going to be scammy or spam. So stand out. Be the. Be the exception.

[00:21:01.230] - Marlys Arnold

Well, another cool thing that you shared recently that I discovered and I've been starting to use it is the voicemail messages, which I actually even shared a voicemail message with someone, and they actually sent me back a voicemail.

[00:21:13.950] - Viveka von Rosen

I love it.

[00:21:15.610] - Marlys Arnold

It was really cool. So tell us a little bit about that. And I think we might have a link for that one as well to so.

[00:21:21.960] - Viveka von Rosen

Cool, yeah, so on. And it's easier to do on your mobile ... Actually voicemail. You can only do on your mobile device. If you want to leave a video message, you can do it on mobile or desktop, but they're both be easier on your mobile device. So yeah, when you go to your mobile device on LinkedIn, you go to LinkedIn the app, you go to your message. What you're going to see is a little plus sign or no, I'm sorry for the voicemail. On the right hand side, you're just going to see a little microphone icon. If you press that you can leave up to. I think it's a 30 second voicemail, which is definitely going to be different than what everybody else is out is doing out there. Now, you can't do that on your invitation to connect, but you can do it once you are connected with someone. So once they've accepted that invitation, you can absolutely leave voicemails and it's really going to separate you from all the other stuff out there. And the other thing you could do, which is really powerful, is leave a video message. You could do it natively using your app. You can do it natively on your desktop and or you can use a third party tool. I use OneMob, but it's a really great way to stand out.

[00:22:24.360] - Marlys Arnold

Yeah, I have Send Spark and I've been using it. Yeah. So yeah. Yeah, yeah. Well a couple of other things I want to make sure we get in here. Is that your great new book, One Hundred and One Ways to Rock LinkedIn, you have made it available so anybody can get a free PDF copy. So that's how I read mine. So that's why I don't have a copy I could share.

[00:22:47.440] - Viveka von Rosen

Yeah, exactly.

[00:22:50.040] - Marlys Arnold

But I'm going to share that like for you so that you can go get a copy of Viveka's new book. And then also there's lots of other resources that you have available on the Vengreso's site as well. So, yeah, I'm going to put up that one. So here is the link that you can go request Viveka's new brand new LinkedIn book with One Hundred and One Tips. And I mean, I've got a whole new list, a task list now of things that I still need to work on. So,

[00:23:16.980] - Viveka von Rosen

It's really I mean, one hundred one seems like a lot, but actually this book is a lot.

[00:23:21.090] - Marlys Arnold

Oh, it's a fast read.

[00:23:21.750] - Viveka von Rosen

Smaller than the first. Yeah. I mean, it's like tip picture, tip picture, tip picture. So you can get it, you can read it in probably an hour or two. It only took me like I don't know, six to eight hours to write in. Four hundred and ninety eight hours to edit but well I didn't have to edit it and the team did but but you know realistically folks so if it only took me like, you know, four to six hours to, to, to write it, it's not going to take you that long to read it. What what will take a little time to your point is adding the acts or actually taking action and changing your headline, adding your featured section, expanding on your about section, adding your recommendations, whatever it is.

[00:24:02.970] - Marlys Arnold

But it's a great way to just kind of go through and like, OK, got that handled. OK, here's my next thing and just kind of walking through. So I like a little bite size tips, makes it feel very manageable that way.

[00:24:15.540] - Viveka von Rosen

Awesome. Well our our audience of course is B2B sales people, so we know attention span zero. So we have to make sure just a little just a little bit of activity a day.

[00:24:26.610] - Marlys Arnold

Or it's like I got five minutes. What can I do?

[00:24:28.770] - Viveka von Rosen

Exactly. And in fact, I got five minutes between calls.

[00:24:33.480] - Marlys Arnold

So. Well, Viveka, thank you so much for being our guest today on virtual lunch. I mean, this has been so eye opening. I mean, I hear I follow you and I still learned new things today that I hadn't heard you talk about before. So thank you so much. I really appreciate it.

[00:24:49.280] - Viveka von Rosen

Oh my goodness, my pleasure. By, everyone.

[00:24:58.480] - Marlys Arnold

You can find all the links mentioned during our interview in this episode's show notes at TradeShowInsights.com. And if you'd like to join us for an upcoming virtual lunch, you'll find info on that at ExhibitMarketersCafe.com/lunch.

[00:25:24.890] - Marlys Arnold

If you enjoyed today's episode and would like more, you can subscribe to the podcast and automatically receive future episodes on your chosen device, simply search for Trade Show Insights in Apple, Spotify, Stitcher or virtually anywhere else that podcasts are found. Then click the subscribe button. Trade Show Insights is protected by the Creative Commons copyright license, you may feel free to share this recording with colleagues or embedded on your own blog as long as it's shared in its entirety and is not used for commercial purposes.

[00:25:59.650] - Marlys Arnold

To learn more, please see the link in the sidebar. The show notes at TradeShowInsights.com. Well, that's it for this episode of Trade Show Insights. Be sure to check out our show notes and archives at TradeShowInsights.com. You can also connect with me using the social media links or the contact page on the site. I'm Marlys Arnold. Thanks for listening and be sure to join us next time for more tools to improve your exhibit results.