Sam Birkett 0:04
Welcome back to part two of Marking Meanders with Sally and Sam and today I'm being interviewed by Sally to talk about LinkedIn and whether we should be worried about it or thinking it's too tricky or too expensive. Should we and how can we use it? Listen on.

Sally Green 0:20
If I'm going to run a paid-for LinkedIn campaign, is it useful to have other things happening around it? Suppose when talking about, you know, handbag-making machines, should I also at the same time as my ad is running for however many weeks or days or minutes or whatever, however long I've asked to run, should I also be posting organic stuff on there about that subject to kind of raise the profile of that subject area? Should I perhaps even be putting things on Google or Facebook to raise the profile of that subject area?

Sam Birkett 0:50
Yeah, I'd say so. Yeah, I mean, this is one of the pitfalls you fall into sometimes I think, because and as you can tell I'm quite an advocate for LinkedIn. So when you go on there, you think this is fantastic, we can find this highly targeted audience and brilliant. So we know that we're going to get in front of a good portion of these people on LinkedIn, and we can produce some really nice formatted content and great. So you always think, well, that's enough. That's done. You know, we've covered that then and I mean, I was going to come to the whole thing about you know, and the thing I love doing is calibrating campaigns once you got them started, so I'm doing multiple versions of things and testing, multivariate testing and everything and doing all that jazz. But yes, as you say, I think best practice overall would be, I would say, not just LinkedIn, but anything when you're in the best-case scenario if you've got multiple channels out there, and ways of, you know, adding additional touch points around the place, if you can target that group, then yeah, having other elements to your campaign. Other channels, you're using your campaign, the more the better, because we quite often, actually, funnily enough, I've been running something along those lines, which was just before Christmas for somebody and we were actually doing a direct outreach, one of the good old fashioned telemarketing campaign.

Sally Green 2:01
Aww, bless!

Sam Birkett 2:02
Which, gosh, I've not been involved in for ages. But these guys are really good, actually and they do it in a you know, obviously, completely GDPR, above-board way and they did a really good job. But it was a very, very, very, very targeted audience and a very specific geography and so they've been reaching out to lists of people or companies, rather that we've identified who we're allowed to contact and have. But I said, Well, what we want to do is, well, it's actually the other way around so we'll have this appear, because we can target them really well on LinkedIn, we're almost certainly not going to get any of them to click through and say, Yes, I'll do this, because it's quite a complex sell and we said, well, we need to talk to someone about this as one of the first things we do. But it's an old-fashioned sort of slightly cold calling, and getting in front and talking about it, because it's just not the kind of thing we believe because we tried in other versions of this previously, we tried to do it purely digitally, and it just didn't cut the mustard. Even if you got people to click on something and go, Oh, that's interesting, they would never follow through because it was just too complex an offering really, which, again, that's a whole nother conversation. But what's worked well, this time is like, you know, still targeting those people and doing sort of a lower level campaign and LinkedIn so that you know that there should be a good chance that the people you're calling are then going to see either before or after the call are gonna see posts about the thing you've talked to them about. So yeah, the other way round, absolutely. I think I mean, again, if you've you can, and if you've got the budget and the ability, the resources to, you know, do to the rest of the targeting of them and other channels, and I definitely say should yeah.

Sally Green 3:36
So what would you say would be your top LinkedIn piece of advice?

Sam Birkett 3:41
Gosh, I think, I mean, it's something that's so boring, because everyone always says this, but it's consistency. I think it's that, again, the age-old thing of, you know, if you start doing something on LinkedIn, keep doing it for a period of time, and then measure it. So I think it, I can refer to anyone, I think people can become quite spirited when perhaps they sort of a company page, and they say they start producing all this lovely, you know, if you've done like, you've prepared, you've done all your great stuff about who you're going after, what the outcomes you want, what are the metrics you look at, and what's the messaging and all of that stuff beforehand, and then you go, right, so we've got a nice war chest of content here that we're gonna roll out over the next six months and you do that, and then you've got, I don't know, 40 followers after six months, and you're thinking, Well, we were really hoping for 400, you know, and you might go, it's all purely organic so far. So just it's sort of again, I suppose, you got to learn as you go along. If you keep that consistency of, well, this is the message, don't get dispirited and think, Oh, well, it's clearly just not working. I mean, I think you've got to be consistent over a longer time, particularly with followers and the great thing about followers I found, I think, is that I mean, there are a few unfollows that people have, but mainly it seems people if I don't know, I mean, again, this is my presumption, but it seems that people are quite discerning on LinkedIn to actually follow a page or a person and say, Yes, I want to have updates about this and once you've gained that follower, then of course, you know a lot more about them, you can go in and check your follower audience all the time and see exactly the individuals who are following you straightaway and what they're doing and then you can target them, of course, on any paid advertising campaign you're doing. But I think, yeah, just keeping that consistency over a decent long enough period. But whilst you're doing that, as I say, I mean, keeping an eye on the metrics you set yourself, but also then saying, Okay, do you know what, is this really the watering hole for our audience or not? And you can kind of tell that from obviously, someone who follows you, but also what level of activity they have, and it's all might follow you and they use LinkedIn like I say, once every year or something, and they just do a nice, Oh, I'll follow them, but I'm not gonna say anything or do anything. But then you've got the people, of course, who are very active users, and you can get them but I think you just have to ask yourself that ongoing question, don't you, about is this our channel. But as I say, consistency of what you put out there, and I guess that just feeds in from everything else you're doing really isn't it, consistency of message and building your brand, and then any particular campaigns you're looking to run, is keep that consistency going. Yeah, I think that's the main thing. I mean, of course, the big thing, actually, I mean, if you've got a reasonable sized business saying you perhaps you're new to LinkedIn, the employee advocacy is really big. So when you've got people sharing, it's really interesting, one of those maps, where I think I mentioned could have been offline, to you Sally, about when LinkedIn themselves came in, and talked to me years ago, and they said, right, they put this A3 sheet of paper and said, This is your network, and I went what? Okay. And it shows all these hubs and spokes and nodules about, you know, all these people I was connected with and what they're involved with, and everything, I thought, Wow, it's amazing graph and data representation, visualisation and that was great, but it just hammers home to the fact that, like, with networking and stuff, you know, if you get one follower, who or sorry, rather, you get your employees to reshare your stuff, then it's likely there'll be lots of people in their network who are relevant to then follow the company, and respond to the stuff you share as well.

Sally Green 7:21
The other thing I read the other day, is that if you want people to share it, tell them to. Put it on the bottom of your notes, say, please share this with other people, because you'd be surprised how stupid people are. Not stupid, they're busy and haven't got time. But if you just say please share this, you will get a considerable number of people sharing it.

Sam Birkett 7:40
Oh, definitely, definitely. I mean, it's that thing, isn't it?

Sally Green 7:43
And sharing is much better than just doing a like.

Sam Birkett 7:47
Yeah, exactly, I mean, that's the thing, that sharing is really crucial and as you say, actually specifically asking people to share it and then I suppose as well, once that, that from that is like create a reason for sharing it, you know, so yeah, perhaps it's a poll or something you're putting out there or an article or something where you ask a question, or you know, you I mean, that's obviously the ultimate thing, I suppose from an organic LinkedIn standpoint is that if you can regularly create posts, because some posts will just dive bomb and just won't get any interactions fine. Others will just take off and sometimes you think, I don't know why that's been so popular, but it has, and you see them come up on your own feed, don't you? And I always question and think, why are people responding to that? You know, did it hit a critical mass? Is there something about it? It usually seems to be quite sort of personal or sort of emotional kind of thing, or, or something's to do with good causes, or something like that, that seems to really come out or something novel. I mean, again, these are kind of marketing 101 kind of things, I suppose about what appeals to people. But yeah, as you say, I think if you can achieve a thing where you've got the right audience doesn't have to be millions people just be the right audience who are genuinely engaging because that's the thing I'm monitoring. I have clients I work with, we look at, you know, we're looking at, first of all, building the audience, but then we're looking at creating more engaging content and when I mean, engaging, I'm looking at well who is actually engaging with the posts and ideally, you know, if we can get, you know, follower advocacy, where you're then going, Oh, great. Yeah, that's interesting. You raise a very interesting point there, and this thought leadership article and but I think this and then someone says, oh, no, I disagree, perhaps it should be this and then you're creating your own sort of group and forum based on your own posts that aren't you?

Sally Green 9:26
Yeah, that's exactly right.

Sam Birkett 9:27
Which is ideal, because then you're in the conversation. So that's really, really powerful. But it's, I say tough to achieve. I don't know. I mean, I suppose it's something you have to really work quite hard at to achieve. But you can.

Sally Green 9:40
Yeah, I think is what you said before, it's not something that's going to happen overnight. It's not just you know, post a few little things and that'll be... it'll all suddenly take off. It's something that as you say, you've got to be consistent over time and just keep going at it and if you get some that get no response whatsoever, anything Oh, no, I really like that, but nobody else does. Don't be discouraged. Just keep doing it.

Sam Birkett 9:58
Yeah, definitely, that's the thing, and I know they say that about a number of platforms and you know, you're carrying on and you're just you know if you see there's progress happening, I mean, it can quite often be that cascade effect, where suddenly, you know, you've got 10 followers, and then 10 brings 30, 30 brings 80. But again, I mean, actually, I would also then say, I mean, as I said, about observing your metrics, your objectives, and you could say, Great, now we've got 1000 followers on LinkedIn, this is amazing. It's absolutely going great guns and you go, okay, good, but what are they doing? What are you doing? What are you hoping to do with them? You know, and so

Sally Green 10:34
That's exactly right.

Sam Birkett 10:35
You can, like with any of these platforms, actually you can fall into the whole vanity metrics thing can't you, as you say I've got 50 likes. That's so exciting and then you go, brilliant, what's that contributing towards the longer term? I don't know, anything? I mean, it could be I mean...

Sally Green 10:48
Yeah, moreover, if those likes are your mum, your granny, your sister, you know, that's not so fantastic, is it?

Sam Birkett 10:54
Yeah, exactly and as I say, I mean, even though I said about, yeah, employee advocacy is very important and it is, and you should be getting everyone in your company to reshare stuff and comments on it and everything all the time, as much as you can. But then you can look in and see, okay, well, every time we post, we get, you know, at least 20 likes, and this is brilliant, and the you go, ahh, every single time that's all of our employees. So I'm not saying it's a bad thing. I mean, I'm saying it's a good thing. But it's just you just need to look at this in a sanitised way and understand what that means, you know. But the good thing is if they're regularly doing that, and if they're all going out, and depending on your type of business again, of course, you know, if you want a consultancy, then it's ideal because they're all going out and winning business and having conversations building their own networks and then, you know, and your alumni as well, actually. So I mean, I'm the sort of alumni member of a few companies, and I regularly feel this need to like or comment or share stuff that they send out, if I find it interesting. But I have that connection and so there's also yeah, former employees who may be interested in doing that and it's quite likely that they're going to be in a related job industry, etc. with other people who are their new customers and who knows, referrers. So yeah, it's all very helpful in that way.

Sally Green 12:10
So definitely have a go at LinkedIn, however scared of it you are, just go and have a go, even if it's just doing a few posts, and then eventually you will get brave enough to run a campaign.

Sam Birkett 12:20
Yes, exactly and the great thing is, because I think the actual campaign manager tool is pretty good. You just switched on, switched off. Yeah, you can limit it straightaway, to say, Oh, my God, I've only got £100 budget, it's like well set that as your ultimate budget. Set how much you're prepared to spend in a day. I mean, there are other considerations to go into about, you know, specifically setting up paid campaigns and going through the whole process, which I'm sure I've created a document or a guide somewhere, actually. But one of the key things on that is about you know, they will give you some advice and some help about how to try and set it up and then there's also I think LinkedIn learning probably like a whole set of modules on this as well. But yeah, there's a few little pitfalls there, where if you if you set a really, really small budget, or the old one, if you're an international marketing, I mean, okay, for a small business, you're not gonna be shortlisted, if you were, you can quite often fall into the pitfall where you sit at one campaign, and then you set a daily budget, and then you find out that all of the budget was spent in the East in the morning, and then nothing's left for Europe and the States. So you're thinking, how comes we keep on getting all these people from, you know, as Pakistan or Sri Lanka or wherever, or Japan or China? Well probably not China as much, perhaps with Japan, certainly, you know, wherever Malaysia, we those were great. Yeah, they're good leads. They're all coming in. But they're all coming from the Far East. But we've got nothing from like, Saudi Arabia onwards, there's nothing from anyone. Why is that? And that's a lesson I learned quite early on about, you know, just splitting your geographies or splitting on, you know, whatever else want to split it on. But yeah, there's probably a whole nother podcast on some of those pitfalls, setting up campaigns, but as you say.

Sally Green 13:59
But that was really useful, because it's made me feel more comfortable about the whole thing, actually, I think. Thank you very much Sam, you've made me feel that actually, I should be braver and just don't find it overwhelming.

Sam Birkett 14:10
Yeah, definitely.

Sally Green 14:11
Because it can't bite you back. I mean, it's not going to hurt you. You're not going to get it so wrong, that you're going to damage your reputation. Almost certainly. Really.

Sam Birkett 14:20
Exactly. Exactly. Yeah, I think it's fine and I think the good thing is that, you know, there's lots of really good sort of preview tools, and you can see what you're doing and what's going on how it's working and I love the fact that in LinkedIn, it's really easy. Even if you're doing organic stuff, you just put something out and then edit it. Yeah.

Sally Green 14:37
Yeah, absolutely, or take it down or all of those things.

Sam Birkett 14:39
Or take it down or yeah, whatever. I mean, it's fine and yeah, it's definitely well worth it and I think particularly, I say, I keep coming back to this, you know, the paid stuff. It's just targeting is so granular and useful. I find so that's a big tick.

Sally Green 14:57
And I know also you can... there is one way that you can target people that have gone to your competitor's website?

Sam Birkett 15:03
Yes, I think you can, is that the website or was it potentially I think trying to remember where you could do that. And then you could certainly do, I think followers as well or people who are interested in is that some interested thing or Yeah, sort of checking out particular groups, etc and so particular companies. So I think you could do that as well. Yeah. I mean, there's lots of really good stuff, as I say.

Sally Green 15:30
Once you've got your brave socks on, you've started, there are some really interesting things you can do on campaign manager.

Sam Birkett 15:36
Oh, yeah and that's again, what I find so enthralling about it is the fact that there's so many different ways you can try and do a campaign and then as like the calibrating is for me, because it's not... I've never operated in the spaces of saying, Well, I've set up the campaign and off it goes, Great, I'll check in next week and see how it's going. I sort of I set it up and then if you've got the luxury of managing it, if you manage it from I mean, I'm sure there's lots of great automated tools and things these days, which do this for you and help you. But I mean, I've always found, particularly if you're running with that masses of budget, is to go in and then do manual calibrations and updates and I find it very rewarding and interesting as well, quite frankly, you know, you just use think why I think this version of the advert should do really well. This is the shortest piece of copy we've got in there and it's a great graphic and then we've used another version of it with the same graphic, but we've done a long-form post talking about this about the other, and then you go gosh, the long form was performing much better. Interesting and so switch one off, keep the other one on, do another version of that one. I mean, okay, yeah, you can potentially go down the rabbit hole and then end up spending too much time and is it worth it? But you learn every campaign you do, I can guarantee you'll learn something, and do it slightly different than next time. So that's great as well, I think it's a great learning platform as well.

Sally Green 16:56
Completely. Well, that's brilliant. I hope this has given people who are listening to this a bit of courage to go out there and have a go and we'd be interested to know your responses if you have never done it before and you've always been very worried about it's too expensive and I don't know how to do it. If you do have a go, let us know what your experience was, you know, were we right to encourage you to do this? Or are you thinking No, it's still too expensive, I don't know how to do it. But it would be really interesting to have people's experiences of first-time LinkedIn campaigns.

Sam Birkett 17:25
Yeah, definitely. No, it'd be great. Yeah, as you say, I'd be really interested to hear from people, as you say, who particularly are getting into this, or someone else who violently disagrees and says, no, no, this is the way you should be using it or, or perhaps, no, I used it in a totally different way, to these ways and this is another interesting aspect, whatever it may be, but you say in particular, people who are just starting to use it, that would be really interesting. Find out how they observe it and how they experienced it. So no brilliant, that's all good.

Sam Birkett 17:51
Yeah, really interesting.

Sam Birkett 17:52
Good fun. Well, thank you. Thanks for the questions Sally.

Sally Green 17:55
Thank you very much for all your time. Sam. Thank you very much, Sam for being such a good speaker, it's fabulous.

Sam Birkett 18:01
Oh no, well it's a pleasure going into this and I think you know, we'll be getting some more, said this year, we will try to get some more people in to talk to us and interview as well. So I think it'd be great to do a bit more of that. So watch this space, I think what's the space listen to this space in the future everyone. Take care!

Sally Green 18:21
Brilliant. Bye Sam!