My favorite feature on LinkedIn has got to be their lead forms that they have. So a lot of our campaigns use the lead forms, they're very similar to the Facebook lead forms. But you know, the value of LinkedIn is that everyone has their company name and job title filled out. So we often, you know, it's a neat, very easy way for someone to click, sign up for your lead magnet or whatever it is that you have to offer, and then people, you know, will be submitting, you know, email address, and then company name, job title. That's super useful info for, you know, for the campaigns that we're running. So lead forms, I'd say probably my most favorite feature. – Anthony Blatner

LinkedIn is an amazing platform! And there are so many ways you can utilize it. If it's been a while since you've been on LinkedIn then now is the time to check it out. I'm joined by Anthony Blatner in today's episode to talk about all things LinkedIn. We talk ads, business pages, new features and so much more.

 In this episode you'll learn:

→ New features you may have missed on LinkedIn
→ How you can use LinkedIn to do virtual networking
→ The power of using hashtags on LinkedIn posts
→ Using the search functionality within LinkedIn
→ Tips for utilizing LinkedIn groups, or not
→ Functionality and benefits of sales navigator.
→ Different types of ads and how much they cost compared to other platforms.
→ Messaging and chatbots on LinkedIn
→ Ideas for ways Non-profits can target donors on the platform.

Want to skip ahead?  Here are some key takeaways:

[5:03] We can't go and network in person. LinkedIn is a great way to virtually “bump” into people and also share your knowledge.
[7:25] LinkedIn has new features within their company pages. Make sure you have both company pages and individual profiles filled out completely so people can find you and interact with you.
[9:45] Hashtags are newer on LinkedIn compared to other platforms. Anthony has seen the use of them get more organic reach. Use them thoughtfully and tastefully. Don't pull in as many as you would use on Instagram. 3-4 is typically the sweet spot.
[11:11] There are lots of ways to use search inside of LinkedIn. If you search for people that need your services go back a page or two and you'll find less popular posts that likely haven't had their question answered.
[12:44] Groups are a great way to start conversations with people. Starting your own can help you position yourself as an authority in your field. And by joining other groups you can find new customers in your niche.
[17:09] Starting with sales navigator is the best place to start before you run ads. You can build and grow you audience and find out who's there to target your messaging to. Then when you're ready for more of a push – switch on those ads.
[22:20] LinkedIn ads are more expensive than other platforms. However, the level of the leads you're generating tend to be more valuable as well.
[31:41] Two ideas for fundraising on LinkedIn. #1 – utilize LinkedIn events to share your online event. And go live to broadcast it to those that have engaged with you. #2 is to use Sales Navigator to target CEOs and specific industries to start making meaningful connections there.

Resources

FREE 30 Min Digital Marketing Therapy Sessions through April 2020.
Company Page Checklist
Modern Guide to Lead Generation
Modern Media Facebook Group
LinkedIn Advertising Group
How to Get Bigger Customers with LinkedIn (organic + paid)

Full Transcript

[INTRO] Hello, hello, welcome to another episode of Digital Marketing Therapy. Sami here, your host, and today we're talking about LinkedIn. And with networking opportunities dwindling, because we can't do face to face LinkedIn is kind of the best option for your virtual networking needs.

And so I have invited Anthony Blatner. To join me on this episode to talk a little bit about LinkedIn in general. Some of the features you might not be aware that they've added, some ways you can take advantage of it during this time. And if you're ready to take it to the next level, even how LinkedIn ads might support you in growth in your business.

Yes, businesses are slowing down. Yes, businesses are shutting down. But that doesn't mean that your business doesn't have an opportunity to continue to get in front of new audiences generate leads and build potential new customer bases for when things open up a little bit more and for ways for you to support and provide service to people that can really use what it is that you are in expert in right now.

Okay, I hope that makes sense. I just I really think LinkedIn is a great platform that I hear a lot from people saying, you know, LinkedIn is dead. Nobody's on LinkedIn. So Anthony Blatner here is going to help us walk through it all and share with us the beauty of LinkedIn ads as well.

Anthony Blatner is the founder of modern media, a top LinkedIn advertising agency. And as a previous tech founder and ex IBMer. Anthony has seen a lot of companies have explosive growth with good technology and good marketing. Well, others even though they had great products or services fail without effective marketing.

In 2016, Anthony started Modern Media to help those companies unlock their B2B marketing potential. By blending his experience in marketing and software. Anthony is able to help businesses reach high-level decision-makers at scale using LinkedIn ads and technology.

It's safe to say that Anthony is one of the top LinkedIn ads experts in the industry, having managed millions and ad spend and generating over 100,000 new sales opportunity.

So let's jump into LinkedIn. I'm so excited for this episode. But before we get to it, this episode is again, brought to you by our Digital Marketing Therapy Sessions. And maybe you're sick of hearing me talk about them. But I promise you, these are some of my favorite things to do all day. So head on over to thefirstclick.net/officehours, snag your free 30-minute session with me. They're not normally free, but we are having them free for now. So check them out, get in I would love to hear about your business love to hear how we can integrate your website and LinkedIn together, how can we help you create content for both. I would love to talk to you about that. So thefirstclick.net/officehours. I can't wait to see you. But for now, let's get to it.

[CANNED INTRODUCTION] You're listening to the digital Marketing Therapy Podcast. I'm your host, Sami Bedell-Mulhern. And each week, I bring you tips from myself and other experts, as well as hot seats with small business owners and entrepreneurs to demystify digital marketing and get you on your way to generating more leads and growing your business.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] Hey, Anthony, thank you so much for joining me on the Digital Marketing Therapy podcast.

[ANTHONY BLATNER] Hey, Sami, glad to be here.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] Okay, so Anthony, we know you love LinkedIn. But why is LinkedIn kind of your platform of choice?

[ANTHONY BLATNER] Um, my LinkedIn is my platform of choice. Because I've always been in like the B2B world, or like working at enterprise, no more corporate enterprise stuff. And that's never, that doesn't work as well on Facebook, which is more of like my friends and family. So I think this, as I got into it, I felt more comfortable sharing on LinkedIn, the business things I felt uncomfortable sharing those on, on Facebook. And all my work has been in the B2B world. So that's, that's why I spent all my time on LinkedIn. And nowadays, I'm one of the weird people that probably spends more time on LinkedIn than Facebook.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] Okay, so all the people that are rolling their eyes, maybe LinkedIn dead, nobody talks about LinkedIn anymore. Like, what? What would you say to them?

[ANTHONY BLATNER] Um, well, I'd say open your app and check recently. Like, I've, I spent all my time most of my time on LinkedIn and just like the over the last few weeks, with everything going on now, activities are just like through the roof on LinkedIn, I've noticed a lot of people I haven't seen on LinkedIn in a while starting to post in just my newsfeed blowing up from it. And we got a graphic from one of our LinkedIn reps of like, overall activity on LinkedIn. And it's, it's, of course, like spiked over the last month, but the numbers were pretty impressive. It was like 2,017% increase in activity. And you know, we're all being forced online, everything. Wow. So just traffic's through the roof. So now's a good time to start leveraging LinkedIn.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] So for businesses that I mean, obviously a lot of our businesses have changed dramatically. Now's the time to be online, obviously because more people are online where people are wanting to do business online, brick and mortar is kind of struggling. So, you know, LinkedIn is a great platform to start to continue to build those drivers, right, those revenue drivers and things for when things start to loosen up a little bit, and we can kind of get back to a different normal. And it's just a great way to keep building networks and things like that, don't you think?

[ANTHONY BLATNER] Yeah, so what I usually say is, like, you know, especially right now, while we don't have while we can't like bump into people at the co-working space, or like, you know, talk around the watercooler, LinkedIn, and just like online in general, is kind of the alternative that we have to use right now. So now using using LinkedIn in that way of like, you know, while I'm not bumping into people at the coffee shop, or the co-working space, how can I bump into them online, make those connections that I used to do in person between those online now.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] And for people that don't know LinkedIn was purchased by Microsoft? How long ago? A few years ago, right?

[ANTHONY BLATNER] Um, about a year or two ago. Yeah.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] And they've been dumping a lot. So Like you're saying, if you haven't logged in for a while login, because it's very different.

[ANTHONY BLATNER] Yes. So at first, I'd say right after they purchased them. I think we all have like really big expectations and like nothing changed for a while, or like, Okay, what are they doing? It must have started all behind the scenes. And then I don't know if just everyone being at home and like getting the work done now, but we've seen a number of features roll out recently over the last couple weeks that we're really excited for such as like online events.

Now you can create events, both from like your personal profile and from your company page. And then some new targeting features inside of the ad side that are going to be super useful. So we're starting to see new stuff come out. In the beginning, it was like Yeah, what are they doing but I know they have on the back end have been connecting data with like, some other Microsoft services or just like Outlook for like email verification actions, and then also like Bing Ads. There's some connections happening there as far as like being able to target people on Bing, based on their LinkedIn profiles,

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] And Bing is the number, well, I guess maybe the third search engine right behind Google and YouTube.

[ANTHONY BLATNER] Yeah. I'm not sure of the rankings

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] No, but Bing has a good presence. So that yeah, I just didn't want people to think that that didn't matter. It is also a Microsoft platform, right?

[ANTHONY BLATNER] Yeah.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] Okay, so I want to touch on something. So like with Facebook, like you mentioned, your business page and your personal page typically have to operate very separately. And in LinkedIn, that's not the case. And in fact, LinkedIn has done a lot of improvements on business pages, and what you can do to communicate with current and potential customers.

[ANTHONY BLATNER] Yeah, so so company pages have a lot of options on them now. The things that I always start, you know, when I talk to people it's you know, number one, make sure your profiles both your personal and your company page are all filled out optimized as much as possible. because number one, like a lot of that content is also indexed in Google. So just purely when someone's searching out there, we see your LinkedIn page often is on the first page of Google search results.

So you know, you should have that filled out with all the possible information. A lot of people might be landing there. And then if you ever do run LinkedIn ads, there are a number of people that will click through from your, you know, your page that's running the ads to your company page. So you want to make sure both, you know your company pages update and then your personal pages as well.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] Yeah, but unlike Facebook, like in Facebook, you can go to Facebook jail if you post a ton of business stuff on your personal page. And whereas LinkedIn, they're kind of one in the same.

[ANTHONY BLATNER] Yes, yeah.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] Yeah, so don't be scared.

[ANTHONY BLATNER] Yeah. And like Facebook, throttles a lot of posts and stuff like that when you do get too salesy and stuff like LinkedIn. That's why you're on LinkedIn, so you know, the business content, it's more appropriate.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] Well, one of the features that I've loved on the new Facebook page or sorry, the new LinkedIn business pages is as you're posting stuff to your business page, it allows you to broadcast that to your employees to say, Hey, we just shared this, you should share this with your network. 

[ANTHONY BLATNER] Yeah, that's, that's one of the having that business network inside of LinkedIn. They're doing things on their end. So you can so that they recognize the connections between your company, your employees, and then also between teams like adding teammates and stuff. So that's your content from your company can kind of be spread out through your throughout your company, and then through their connections as well.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] Okay, so then let me ask you this question, which I know is the hashtags are controversial on every platform. But how do you feel about LinkedIn hashtags?

[ANTHONY BLATNER]  Hashtags are great on LinkedIn. I'd say they're somewhat newer to LinkedIn, rather than like, you know, Facebook and Twitter. They've been there forever. We do see using hashtags helps get you more organic reach. You'd want to you know use I recommend use, use a couple of them tastefully. Don't don't do the Instagram approach of like trying to fill everyone possible.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] Don't do 30 or 30 hashtag son each post that you put up.

[ANTHONY BLATNER] The way it works on LinkedIn, we've seen is like is like three to four is kind of the sweet spot more than that. And we don't see as much of a boost. And sometimes if you do do too many, then you do get throttled. But if you scroll around your LinkedIn newsfeed, there's posts that are gonna be popping up there based on the hashtags you follow. So if you use the right hashtags, someone else could be following then you can get your post, even if you're not connected with them into their news.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] Yeah. And then the other thing I love about the business page is also they do recommend hashtags for you which you know, you can add to your business page, but then they also give you content that you can share that's relevant to your audience, and they kind of helped curate that for you.

[ANTHONY BLATNER] They do yeah, so it makes if you're doing you know, if you have a social media manager, or if that's what you're doing that does, they make recommendations, you can just like one click post.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] Yeah, I will say I haven't found the search capabilities and that super effective for some clients, but it's definitely kind of a cool feature to have.

[ANTHONY BLATNER] Yeah. While you mention search, I will say using search on LinkedIn, I don't see anybody ever talked about this. But you can search on LinkedIn and like search for things of people searching for you, if that makes sense, where you could search for people who are searching for your services, and you'll find those posts out there. Those are usually ones in your second degree network is the one that you'll see.

But you know, the first page LinkedIn tries to give you the ones that they think are the most popular, so you'll see ones with lots of comments on them. Like, for example, if you search for I did an example this week of like searching for mobile app development. And there was like people asking their networks for Hey, do you who knows a good mobile app developer who has a recommendation for a mobile app developer, and you can find these these results by searching so if you are a mobile app developer, go search on LinkedIn for people searching for your services. The first page has a lot of comments on those things. Those are the most popular. But if you go back a page or two, you'll find posts and people looking for recommendations that haven't had their question answered yet.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] Okay. So that's super interesting, because typically when we're looking at things, we want the top results. So you're saying go back two or three pages, because it's not going to be as noisy and you're more likely to be heard and close that deal.

I love that. That's, that's a really great tip.

Um, okay. And then I want to go back to initially what you were talking about where like, we can't network the same as we used to, and it's just a little different to have conversations. So talk a little bit about LinkedIn groups. And, and maybe the strategy behind deciding which groups you will you choose to be a part of.

[ANTHONY BLATNER] Yeah, so LinkedIn groups are still I'd say, I will say they are behind Facebook in terms of functionality, but for the most part, we see the direction that Facebook's gone where most you know, the groups are evolving a lot a lot of new features are coming out there. And I'd say in general, like, yes, LinkedIn does tend to follow Facebook and a lot of ways. We've seen Facebook Lives. Now we've seen LinkedIn lives, the hashtags thing and like also like that. So my hunch is, groups are going to continue to get more important all over and including on LinkedIn.

So groups are useful because you can, you can get so many groups out there, and some of them are pretty big. I actually think the best way to use them is for most people to start your own, and then position it as like, a way to organize your community and to get people who are maybe interested in your services or in the community that you're serving, and use it as a way to position yourself as an authority expert. Because a lot of people when, when it comes to people who are doing the kind of connected message approach, it's always like, a little you know, the questions like what do I put in those messages and inviting people to a group is a good way just to start that conversation of like, Hey I manage this group, you might be interested in it, you know, it could be a group about mobile app development. Hey, I know you're a developer or you have an app for a company. Are you interested in joining this group? That's just a good way to start the relationship.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] But it's also right about thinking outside the box in if Okay, so if I am a marketer, I don't want to create or group about people that are marketing, because those aren't my clients, or I don't want to join a bunch of groups that are a bunch of marketers. I mean, maybe I do some for some, like, you know, industry updates and staying on top of trends and things. But it might be like joining the small business groups in the city you live in or like if I want to focus on nonprofits, maybe it's joining some nonprofit groups where I know my ideal customers are.

[ANTHONY BLATNER] Yeah, exactly.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] Yeah. Okay, so we've given you lots of ways to use LinkedIn, right, your newsfeed, business page and groups, and I mean, but there's messaging there's, I mean, there's doing articles on LinkedIn, like you really have a really robust way of putting your business out there.

[ANTHONY BLATNER] Yeah, there's a lot a lot of organic, a lot of free ways that you can get started. Get started with using LinkedIn.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] So if somebody says, Okay, I'm just starting with LinkedIn, what's the number one thing you think they should do first profile? Make sure that's clean?

[ANTHONY BLATNER] Yeah. So step one is I call get dressed up to go to work.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] Well right now that's like sweats and maybe a, you know, business shirt if you have to do a zoom call or something.

[ANTHONY BLATNER] Exactly. You know, and what I tell people is like, like, this is still the internet. You're making connections with people online. But you know, people are so skeptical to start. So if your profile is missing information. Like, I'm sure we've all seen the person out there who just doesn't have any info on their profile, or it's like missing a profile picture and you're like, Are they a real person? You got to make sure all that's filled out.

And, you know, what we usually do is, look at your headline, look at your photos and all that they have a bunch of, you know, checklists and tips and tricks. But make sure it's all filled out to start and then you know, make sure to speak to your target audience. And then there's a few tips around like, what we call lead magnets, you know, some asset of value that's interesting to your target audience, put a link there in your summary or your company section. And while that link is not directly clickable, people are still going to read that and they'll be like, Oh, you have a checklist for this. I'm interested in learning more, they're going to go go to that page.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] Okay, and so profile and then start posting in your newsfeed on a regular basis, would you say that people need to post every day or just two or three times a week?

[ANTHONY BLATNER] Yeah, two to three times, like if you're looking to make that effort for like two to three times a week is good. Daily is kind of the most optimal if you're trying to maximize that more than once a day, then it starts to get throttled. So you shouldn't, so two to three times a week is a good place to start.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN]  Okay. And then at what point should people like with I've been using LinkedIn on a regular basis at what point do I think I want to start to interject ads

[ANTHONY BLATNER] When you're when you're comfortable with so usually the the first step might be like setting up for Sales Navigator and starting to what are some of the search criteria is available there. So Sales Navigator is kind of a first initial first step, it's like 80 bucks a month to sign up for that. And then you can get into Sales Navigator and see how I can start targeting like I can look at the criteria the targeting criteria and see industries, job titles, senorities. That gets you a feel for your target audience.

I usually recommend and like even for like as we talk about new clients we look at we help them with Sales Navigator first like let's size up your target audience and see what that looks like. And then make sure to the people that will reach and then we'll take that and put that into an ads campaign. But Sales Navigator is a good first up and then moving to ads when you're comfortable with your target audience and like with the message that you have to put out there,

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] Well and Sales Navigator, if you haven't used it before, you can use it for free for 30 days, right for the first 30 days, yeah, yeah, yeah. And so your recommendation then would be maybe, okay, like, I'm gonna start using LinkedIn regularly, then I'm going to get into Sales Navigator free for 30 days and make as many connections with people as possible, really hone in on my audience. And then once I know exactly what I'm trying to sell, step into ads.

[ANTHONY BLATNER] Yeah, advertising is like throwing fuel on the fire. So when you're comfortable with who it is that you want to, you know, reach out to and what your offer is what you have to, you know, want to say to them, then then an ads campaign is it will take that to the next level.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] Okay, so if I've been running Facebook ads for my business, what might the difference like? What's the difference between the two? And why would I maybe want to either switch from Facebook ads or why might I want to do both.

[ANTHONY BLATNER] So if you started on Facebook ads, you probably have a good feel for just how advertising works in general, LinkedIn, advertising platform, you know, it's very different, but also If you're familiar with like running your own ads on Facebook, then you'll be able to figure out LinkedIn very easily. LinkedIn is different because well, if your target audience is a professional audience, then then you have all the targeting tools in front of you that you probably want to be using for reaching that crucial audience. When one for me back when I was first getting started, like I've done a lot of Facebook ads in the in my day, I'm like, What? And I remember there was like one account very specifically, we were working on that they were a, you know, big data platform, it was more of like an enterprise platform. It was expensive to buy. Most of the people that were signing up through Facebook ads, were usually clicking on it because it was like a pretty picture or they didn't really know what they were opting into. Like, we were trying to be very clear in the ad that everything but just the people you're targeting on Facebook is more of a broader consumer audience. So switching them over to a LinkedIn campaign and specifically targeting bigger companies, higher-level decision-makers, those companies from day one of launching the LinkedIn campaign, we were getting much more qualified leads coming. So you know, take that step to LinkedIn when you do have the professional audience and you need those targeting abilities.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] And do you need to have a large audience before like have your own connections before you start to run ads, or just like other PPC, it will also target people that you're not connected to.

[ANTHONY BLATNER] Yes. So your your personal connections are separate from advertising campaigns where you actually can't target your connections in an advertising campaign unless you have an email list of all your connections and then you pop it into ads manager, ads and your end the organic set are separate.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] Oh, so that's different. Interesting. I did not know that. That's a new thing for me.

[ANTHONY BLATNER] Yeah. Your company, you can, you can target them but on a personal page, you can only target people that you're not connected to already,

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] Yeah, yeah. I mean, I guess that makes sense

[ANTHONY BLATNER] It doesn't exclude people that you're connected from it just you don't have that there's no option in the ads manager to say people

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] got it to specifically target those people. Yeah. And then does LinkedIn also allow you to do video ads or multimedia type stuff? Or is it?

[ANTHONY BLATNER] LinkedIn has both video ads, and they also have carousel ad just like Facebook does. And then the other ad formats are like the sponsored inMail type of ad.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] Right. So in your messaging?

[ANTHONY BLATNER] Yeah.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] Which I see those all the time. I think that's probably the ads, the ad type that I get the most of.

[ANTHONY BLATNER] If you ever opened up your inbox there's probably one in there in the first like five messages. You can probably get a sponsor inMail.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] Yeah. Um, so from a cost perspective, how does LinkedIn kind of match up to some of the other social media platforms like Pinterest, which you could argue is social media or not, but whatever. Different topic different day. So like, let's say you're looking at Pinterest, you're looking at Facebook and Instagram, you're looking at Twitter ads, LinkedIn ads, like kind of where does it fall into that mix?

[ANTHONY BLATNER] Yeah, so LinkedIn ads are more expensive than most other platforms. So So comparing to like Facebook, let's say LinkedIn ads tend to be more expensive than Facebook. LinkedIn kind of set a minimum of like, of clicks are it clicks in the US are a minimum of 4.50. Maybe it's 4- 4.50. It kind of changes depending on your audience that you select, but they've kind of raised their minimum.

So usually spending, you know, cost per click is usually a lot higher on LinkedIn. But for a lot of our you know, for a lot of our campaigns, it's thinking about what your ending cost per qualified lead is. So on Facebook, we might be running a lead generation campaign and getting a number of people signing up for like a buck or two each, but you know, if only one out of every 50 people actually qualified out of that, then then you are spending 50 bucks a lead.

So on LinkedIn, we usually say, you know, for new lead generation campaign, you're probably going to start between 30 to 60 bucks per lead. But, you know, nearly all those people are going to be qualified because you're setting the specific targeting criteria that you're looking for.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] Well, and if you're going B2B, then most of those sales are either going to be like a wholesale, if you're a product, or a larger account, if you're in the, in the service-based industry versus on Facebook, it might be a single customer paying for something one time with, you know, that might be a $5 to whatever hundred dollar product right? So you're, you're paying more per lead, but you're also expecting that that contract or sale is going to be of a higher amount as well.

[ANTHONY BLATNER] Yeah, yeah. So you might have a different audience on LinkedIn, if you choose us. If you if you're, there's one campaign that I'm thinking about that they sell B2C on like Facebook and every other platform like the typical eCommerce store, but they sell wholesale on LinkedIn that we're running lead generation for them to sign up people who are interested in in buying wholesale and or interested in to be a partner and affiliate.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] Yeah. Okay. So I have one other question for you. And that is with regards to organic content versus paid content for some industries that come up. So like politics, or like the CBD/cannabis industry or healthcare or financial, you know, like on Facebook and other platforms, that's super tight, like how does LinkedIn handle some of those other more, I don't want to say high risk, but you know what I mean, like volatile industries.

[ANTHONY BLATNER] Yeah. So LinkedIn has their own set of ad policies, which are if you just read them they're pretty similar to Facebook's though I will say, you know, Facebook does a lot of like automatic scanning of what you upload as far as like your copy and your images and your videos. And I do notice Facebook rejects a lot of things. Whereas LinkedIn is, you know, they're a little bit behind their, their scanning algorithms aren't as good stuff like that. So there's certain sure there's certain like words that if you put in there, they're gonna reject because of the certain word word that you use. But for the most parts, you can get away with a lot more on LinkedIn. But their policies are pretty similar to Facebook's, but for some, like those financial ones, they do allow more around like business services, financial services, then then other platforms.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] Yeah, well, I mean, and that kind of makes sense, because it's a different. I mean, you kind of expect that people that you're targeting kind of understand the jargon a little bit more than maybe on other platforms. Because if you're targeting somebody, they're probably similar industry type people.

[ANTHONY BLATNER] Yeah, yeah. Usually we're targeting by a specific industry and a specific job title. Or function at that industry. So we we actually do get usually it's like a certain keyword or jargon term is what's going to catch someone's attention. You actually find like using stuff like that is useful.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] Yes. Okay. So this brings up another question. I said, I had my last question. I lied.

So, Sales Navigator is a great tool. I've used it before, and tons of amazing targeting in it, but I do not have to have a Sales Navigator account in order to still do some specific targeting with a LinkedIn ad. Correct?

[ANTHONY BLATNER] Correct. Yeah. Sales Navigator is also separate. So you don't need Sales Navigator to be using ads. And in fact, the ads targeting criteria is very similar to search Sales Navigator. So you know, you don't really need both

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] Well, but you just can't make the personal one on one connections. Like it's not like you can pull from your ads and say, Okay, well ABCDE person saw this and I'm going to go make a personal connection with them. That's the difference. 

[ANTHONY BLATNER] Some Well, you can See who's liked and commented on your ads,

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] But not who the ads been served to. Right, right. Yeah.

Okay, so what is your favorite feature on LinkedIn?

[ANTHONY BLATNER] Um, my favorite feature on LinkedIn has got to be their lead forms that they have. So a lot of our campaigns use the lead forms, they're very similar to the Facebook lead forms. But you know, the value of LinkedIn is that everyone has their company name and job title filled out. So we often, you know, it's a neat, very easy way for someone to click, sign up for your lead magnet or whatever it is that you have to offer, and then people, you know, will be submitting, you know, email address, and then company name, job title. That's super useful info for, you know, for the campaigns that we're running. So lead forms, I'd say probably my most favorite feature.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] But that's only through ads. Correct?

[ANTHONY BLATNER] Yeah.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] Okay. And then do you think that LinkedIn will ever or is there a company that has kind of an API between chat so for example, I have have several clients that use Many Chat on their website as their chatbot feature because it syncs directly with Facebook. But if I'm more of a B2B company, is there a chat functionality that will directly dump people into my LinkedIn messenger?

[ANTHONY BLATNER] Um not like that. I, I would love if they had that.

But I will say there's been a new ad type that's been released recently that actually, you know, makes me think that they're going in the chatbot direction, and maybe not to the extent that Many Chat does but there's a new ad format called conversation ads that are that that some that are you build a chat flow is what you do. So it's still more basic than like a Many Chat flow, but you can offer people a few different options. And we've seen a big performance boost out of using them and I think this is like LinkedIn first step towards going more towards chatbots.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] Yeah, cuz What is your feeling on chatbots in general?

[ANTHONY BLATNER] Um, I have mixed feelings. I think they're useful for offering some, some automation, like, on Facebook, like I was at the major conference in Austin this past year and like, I feel like I've seen a lot of like chatbots, but myself, I haven't used them a ton as far as, even as a consumer, I haven't used them a ton and like, whenever I see him pop up, I just kind of ignore them and still send a message in a different way.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] I know you know, what I struggle with is as somebody who's in the marketing space on a regular basis, I struggle with like, how do I separate myself from the masses? And understand like how, yeah, like consumer consumers react to those chatbots versus because I agree with you like a lot of them I've seen I just like ignore and then interact with the brand differently.

[ANTHONY BLATNER] Yeah, so I think LinkedIn is going in that direction. Another interesting kind of take on that is when we do lead gen campaigns, a few recommendations we usually make as as people are signing up for your lead magnet using your lead form, you know, oftentimes, if they if they're providing you to their LinkedIn URL or company name or job title, you can go find these people on LinkedIn and they're often very open to accepting your actual request.

And then when you connect with somebody on LinkedIn, you can then you know, send a message via LinkedIn. But then also, if they haven't given you their email address and phone number, most people give it to people in their network or they it's just on their profile. So kind of starting the starting the relationship through an ad or through a lead form, and then continuing it via still via LinkedIn. You know, the initial problem they engaged on, whether a message or via, via email afterwards.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] Yeah. Okay, so I swear this is the last thing I promise. Um, okay. So I know right now, there's a lot of nonprofits out there that had fundraisers or planned or run walks or whatever. Um, and even if they're rescheduled, if everybody's rescheduling to Q4, Q1, like, there's just going to be a super grab for dollars as there is now like, do you have any ideas for how nonprofits can utilize LinkedIn to reach out to, like, CEOs that might be friendly to their cause or other business owners that might, you know, I mean, I would think LinkedIn could be a great place to reach higher quality. I don't wanna say quality, but like a higher financial level of, of people, professionals that could still potentially help support nonprofits and fundraisers online and things like that.

[ANTHONY BLATNER] Yes, so two ideas there. And one one is for the events that might have been canceled or moved online is LinkedIn just rolled out events as a, you know, as a feature on LinkedIn, both from personal pages and company pages, along with LinkedIn lives recently. So if you're moving your event online, you know I'd recommend this. It's free to use these features create an event for on LinkedIn, And then also post on LinkedIn live. And just like how Facebook gives people your network notification when you go live. So does LinkedIn. So it's also a good way to activate your networks there for any events that you are moving online.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] Before you go to the second one, though, okay, so like, let's say we have all of our board members on LinkedIn. And is there a way, if we publish it to our pub, or our business page for the nonprofit could they then share it with all of their board members, and if their board members share it, then the live goes then to that entire network of people?

[ANTHONY BLATNER]  So the live notification will go to anybody following the page, okay. As as a page can share it with people connected with the page, they can then share it with their networks, and then it can kind of expand,

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] perfect. Okay, so then your second idea.

[ANTHONY BLATNER] Second idea is if you're kind of looking for fundraisers, or looking to reach out to networks of higher net worth individuals, then LinkedIn good channel to use. Maybe you do sign up for Sales Navigator for the nonprofit and then you target specific CEOs, companies, maybe a certain industry and then you can connect and start the conversation with them there.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] I love it. Okay, so so many ways to use LinkedIn. So if anybody says that LinkedIn that for them. They're crazy.

Right?

[ANTHONY BLATNER] There's a lot of new there's a lot of new options out there. And just like with everyone, you know, with everything with everyone being forced online right now, like LinkedIn is just where the business community is gonna go.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN]Yeah. Okay, so you mentioned earlier a couple checklist or freebies that you have people want to know more about you and how they can kind of make sure their profile is, you know, up to snuff and all that good stuff. How can they find out more?

[ANTHONY BLATNER] Yeah, so I have I just posted a company page checklist to my LinkedIn. I uploaded the PDF right inside of LinkedIn, so I can share that with you and then we have a so our website is modernmedia.io. And then I have a guide, called the modern guide to lead generation. If you go to modernmedia.io/guide, you can download that there, that kind of shows the funnel process and then talks a lot about lead magnets. And then if you have any questions, feel free to email me at anthony@modernmedia.io or connect with me on LinkedIn and go from there.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] Yeah, and we will have all of these links in the show notes for this episode at thefirstclick.net/podcast, you can check all those freebies out there any last kind of words about LinkedIn and why you love it.

[ANTHONY BLATNER] Just get on there and try it out? You know, it's a big network. There's a lot of options. Anyone can sign up and give it a whirl and see how it works for you.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN] I love it. Yeah, it's the one that I always want to get on. I always think about it like almost every day and then don't so I need to that's on my list too, to start being more consistent. 

[ANTHONY BLATNER] For the longest time I was as even as I was I was running ad campaigns. I was like who uses it and who signs up for these things, you know, for our campaigns. But now over the last few years, like that's, but now that's me where I'm like, Okay, I'm on LinkedIn. I'm on Facebook.  That's where I spend the time, you know, thinking about business stuff. And yeah.

[SAMI BEDELL-MULHERN]Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Anthony. I really appreciate you coming on today.

[ANTHONY BLATNER] Yeah, there's a lot of fun. Thanks, Sami.

[CLOSING] Thanks. Thank you again to Anthony. I really appreciate him taking the time out to chat with me today. I hope that you got some great feedback. As far as LinkedIn and its new features. I would love to hear which feature you were most surprised by and what you're excited to jump in and do.

So for now. Make sure you send me your profile on LinkedIn so I can check it out and follow your business. I look forward to seeing all the amazing things that you do. Make sure you head on over to the show notes at thefirstclick.net/podcast for links to all the resources that we talked about in this episode. And don't forget to subscribe wherever you listen so that you don't miss out on a single episode. We'll see it in the next one.