It's Marketing's Fault

Welcome to it's marketing's fault.

The podcast where we discuss how to do marketing the right way.

I'm your host, Eric Rutherford, and I am thrilled today because I have with me Stephanie Schwab.

She is CEO and founder of Cracker Jack marketing.

She helps executives and founders shine on LinkedIn.

Stephanie has over 25 years experience in digital media with the last 20 focused.

on social media and in addition to her popular university level teaching, Stephanie is a sought after speaker on corporate social media and digital marketing topics.

Stephanie, welcome to the show.

Thank you so much, Eric.

It's, I'm delighted to be here.

It is my pleasure and Stephanie, I was so excited to get this conversation on the calendar and just kind of go deep because LinkedIn is sort of on, or maybe not everybody's mind, but man, it is definitely in the top three, it seems like in terms of corporate, in terms of business building.

And so just being able to talk through that is going to be great, not just for me.

I mean, selfishly, yes, for me, but especially for the listeners who can get, who can learn from you.

So just as we get started, I say LinkedIn is important and top of mind, but for many people it truly isn't.

What's the biggest reason executives and founders ignore LinkedIn?

time is definitely number one, like by yards, you know, miles over everything else.

It's just people don't feel like they have time.

And I get that.

We're all super busy executives, founders, you know, running our companies, working in companies.

And particularly as women, we have even less time because we also typically got other responsibilities for childcare or managing the household that as much as we'd like, men don't have as much of typically.

And so, yeah, time is really a problem.

And I think it's then a desire to make the commitment to say, just like you might make the commitment to going to the gym, because for your health, make the commitment to working on LinkedIn for your business.

And you have to carve out time, you've got to be dedicated to that time.

And just like you don't skip brushing your teeth every night, you don't want to skip engaging on LinkedIn every day.

Two different types of health.

Teeth, tooth health, business health, right?

It's all, it's the same idea.

And that's the hard part is that lots of us don't go to the gym and also don't work on LinkedIn.

I think those are great examples though, and time is a factor.

There's only so much time each day and it sounds like from what you're saying, the consistency aspect of it means there needs to be at least a little time on a regular basis within LinkedIn.

So yeah, I can see that as a major, major issue.

It sounds like just everybody you work with, that is...

like their biggest, almost like their biggest quandary is like, how do I do this in this amount of time?

Yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure.

So time is number one, you know, and for a busy executive, for a busy founder, like, there are so many other things that they have to do, right?

So many other fires to fight and other people to meet with and things that they need to do.

So I get why they wouldn't have the time.

But the second thing that holds them back, even if somebody would say, yes, I'm committed, I'm here, I'm going to spend half an hour a day, whatever, what then either keeps them from starting or keeps them from continuing.

is some variation of imposter syndrome, where people feel like, well, but there's so many other great people out there talking about exactly what I would want to talk about.

Why should I bother doing it?

When this creator, that creator, or this person in my network, they're already talking about the aspects of my business or my industry.

And so then people get held back by not wanting to add their voice or feeling like somebody else is already doing it.

So why bother?

And on LinkedIn, that is like the least important thing ever because each of us has our own little tribe.

Everybody has a different set of followers and your followers wanna hear from you.

And they probably don't even know about that big influencer that's talking about the same things.

They probably don't know about the other person that's closely related in your industry that's talking about those things.

So you still have an opportunity to have a unique voice because you have a unique audience.

And no...

No two audiences are alike.

That's fascinating.

And let's just kind of go a little bit deeper on imposter syndrome here.

Does imposter syndrome affect like, we'll call it, okay, this for everybody listening, I'm using air quotes, but like, you know, super successful, like founders and entrepreneurs, as well as those who are like, I am just trying to get this thing off the ground and this is like my first like attempt at building is, I mean, does everybody experience imposter syndrome?

I mean, I certainly, I've met people who are just like, I have no imposter syndrome.

I'm just gonna put myself out there.

Like, you know, F that, I don't care what anybody says.

You know, like we all know people like that, right?

Who are just like, they're out there and they're living life in public and they're really happy about it or their version of public, whatever that is.

But I think that many, many more, proportionally, many, many more people suffer from some variation of imposter syndrome.

And whether that's holding them back in Unliked In, whether that's holding them back from going out and starting the company that they wanna start or doing the thing that they wanna do or applying for the job that they wanna apply for, I think so many of us, maybe proportionally more women, but men fall prey to it too.

And it's something that like you could just say, we'll get over it, but it's much better to say, okay, here's how to get over it.

know that your audience is unique, it's on LinkedIn anyway, know that they do want to hear from you.

And even if you only get a small number of impressions, a small number of comments, that's your tribe.

Those are the people that really wanna hear from you.

So keep staying out there, keep going out there to talk to those people.

It's I know from my own experience, it's tough just to, you know, to get out there.

I know I suffered and still suffer from it.

You know, it kept me from doing anything on LinkedIn for I don't know, however many, like 10 years while I was, you know, I was I had an account.

I just sort of lurked.

But really, it's been like the last 15 months where I've really started, you know.

putting myself out there trying to write, trying to figure out what my voice is.

Cause man, that, and when you start out, you have, for me, I can only speak for me, man.

I, it just, it's, it's like this.

It's weaving all over the place and I'm sort of getting a feel now, but it's tough.

It is just tough to go out there.

But, but what you said is so true.

It's like, it's not that the world's going to see it even if they did see it.

world doesn't, for lack of a better term, the world doesn't care.

Which is a total mindset shift, I think.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You're not gonna be able to embarrass yourself, right?

I mean, if something, if you do put something out there and people don't react well to it, you can always delete it.

Like, it's not like it's gonna spread around the world like wildfire instantly.

And so try stuff, say things, you know, try this voice on, try that voice on and see what happens over time.

But you have to be consistent at it.

You can't put a post out, you know, on January 2nd and be like, hey, I'm here on LinkedIn.

and then not do it again until March.

You just can't, you know, you have to be consistent and be out there regularly.

And that's how you grow.

That's how you may make connections and generate leads or get employees, you know, all of those things are possible if you're really consistent on LinkedIn.

So let's just kind of jump then into Cracker Jack marketing.

What is Cracker Jack marketing and who do you serve?

Great, so we are a nearly 14 year old agency.

We were founded in May of 2010.

So coming up on our 14th anniversary, we were founded as a fully remote company.

So we did this long before the pandemic and my team members are all over the world.

We primarily, we're digital marketing and we primarily focus our work around social media.

So for every one of our clients, we do some aspect of social media.

And then for some clients, we do performance advertising, blogging, lead generation through webinars and lead magnets, email list building, email marketing.

So we do a full suite of services on the digital marketing side, but in the last year, we've been very focused on helping executives and founders get active on LinkedIn.

So we're taking our 20 years of experience with LinkedIn, because we've all been on LinkedIn since the beginning.

And so we're taking all of that experience and all of the years of doing LinkedIn for corporations and now making it accessible for individuals who don't have the time or are too paralyzed by imposter syndrome or can't come up with the ideas and helping them get on LinkedIn and get active.

Go so tight.

Sorry, I had to sneeze.

I'm like, oh my word.

Sorry, we'll edit.

I'll edit at least my rambling here out of it.

Thankfully it was on mute.

No, I love that though, because it's, you figured out sort of where that sweet spot is in terms of who you're gonna help.

You've got just this wealth of experience.

So what problems do you solve for these customers?

Is it- Is it the time thing?

Is it the voice thing?

Is it something else entirely?

Is it all of the above?

What do you solve for?

Yep, yep, So they all have their different reasons for wanting to be on LinkedIn.

And then we support those goals, whatever those goals are, by starting with recrafting their profile, helping them develop their LinkedIn voice, which most individuals haven't really, as you said, haven't given a lot of thought to it.

So we have a process to help them develop that.

And then we codify that, like we get that down on paper so that they can use it for other things as well.

And then we follow that brand voice to then help craft their posts.

So the problems that are being solved are, well, we're supporting whatever their goal is, but then creating content for them with their ideas, some of our ideas we brainstorm together.

We then interview the executives to get their ideas out.

And then from one half an hour interview, we can usually get two to four posts out of that interview.

So we'll interview the executive maybe once or once, once a week, once every two weeks, to be able to get the ideas out of their head and onto our plate.

And then we go back to them with final drafts for them to review.

And so that helps them get the content that's in their head that they haven't had the time or they're afraid to get out there.

We can be their cheerleaders and say, yes, that's a great idea, let's go.

And help them get that content finished and out into the world.

Yeah, it sounds like just that being that support and encourager and the sort of the hands and feet that get it done.

Because I know from what you were saying earlier, it's a time factor, it's an imposter syndrome.

So they're not the ones that are having to push like post, you know, which can be I don't know.

Yeah, mobilizing.

Oh my word.

Yeah.

There's many times where I've sat there just like.

hovering over the mouse like, oh, I can't, yeah.

So anyway, but yeah, so it sounds like then you totally solve and help them through this.

Do companies realize that they can outsource this?

Is this like an education thing as well?

Because I didn't know if they realized this was possible.

And yeah, I'd just love to hear your thoughts on that.

Yeah, I think it's becoming more and more common.

And if you think about it, we've been doing social media for companies for 20 years.

So lots of other agencies have been doing social media for corporate LinkedIn pages or corporate Instagrams.

And nobody thinks that had to be the CEO posting on their company LinkedIn account, right?

So we have been, we have, we agencies have been doing this sort of thing for a long, long time.

And so it's the natural evolution to say, the people in your organization are also brands under their own right, and why not use the same techniques and concepts in managing their personal brands?

And there are people who will say, no, that's not genuine, you know, it's not, you know, these people that are talking about community and they're not really building a community, it's all kind of fake.

Like, I don't...

I think that that's true at all.

I mean, when these individuals, so we have a client for example, who's really reliant on partners for her ecosystem, right?

She sells stuff, but she sells her partner's stuff as well.

And when every time she posts about one of her partners, those posts go through their whole partner ecosystem and she's building this really amazing community with her partners.

So, She might not have written the post.

She might not have hit post on the post, but she's still reaping the benefit of those connections and people who are emailing her and calling her and saying like, oh my God, I loved your post.

And she of course knows what she wrote, what she wrote, right?

What we wrote for her.

And so she's able to say, yeah, gosh, thanks so much.

I loved writing that.

But like, whatever she wanted to say about it.

And so.

The benefit, I think, so strongly outweighs the potential of somebody saying like, that's just fake.

Because, okay, then all of social media is fake, right?

I just, I don't buy into the need for the CEO herself to be pushing the button on her own LinkedIn.

No, and I agree.

And you're having conversations with them anyway.

So it's like, this is, these are their thoughts, these are their ideas, these are their perspectives.

You're just, you're just taking them and putting them on metaphorical paper, you know.

So it's, it is their work.

who's been writing, you know, politician's speeches for millennia, you know?

Everybody has a ghostwriter.

Lots and lots and lots of people have ghostwriters.

So, and ghostwriting has become kind of back to your original question, ghostwriting's become somewhat of a popular thing on LinkedIn.

Like, a lot of people, you know, if you start to look through your network, a lot of people are like, LinkedIn ghostwriters.

I help people with LinkedIn.

Like, there's a whole industry, for sure, that's related to that.

So I think a lot of companies do know that this is available.

Um, the differentiation for us is that we've been doing corporate social media for a long time.

We weren't, we have an amazing team of writers, but we're not only writers.

We're corporate strategists.

And so we can work with the marketing team.

and the individuals within that organization to come up with the strategy for saying like, let's differentiate the three of your executives and give them different pillars of content and different things to talk about because they all have different reasons for wanting to be active on LinkedIn.

And so we can bring that, you know, years of experience in corporate.

to what might be this little cottage industry of LinkedIn ghost writing, we think we're elevating that and making it more corporate and more sort of professional maybe.

No, that makes sense.

And that that's fascinating.

Would you elaborate a little bit on that?

Because I had not thought about this idea of this corporate strategy, so to speak, with different executives and working with marketing to do that like, it makes sense, but like I had never connected those dots.

What would you just elaborate on that?

Just what's that look like a little more?

I'd love to hear.

Yeah, yeah, sure thing.

I think it is something that really differentiates us.

And there are, of course, other agencies that do it, but I think we've been doing it quite well for maybe one of the longer periods.

And that is that a lot of ghost writers, and you can get a cheap ghost writer from maybe from another country, and who will give you three posts a week or five posts a week, and they'll be sufficient.

they'll be okay.

And they'll just say, here, here's your posts, go, well, I have a good day, you know?

And that's what I think a lot of ghost writing is.

There's a bigger proportion of that than there are of teams that are coming in with strategic experience and talking to the client about what are your goals?

What are you really trying to get to?

And especially when you're doing it for multiple people in a company, as we always are.

then you need to also say, so how do we make sure that the three of you don't sound the same?

And that you're talking about different topics that are relevant to you, the CEO, the CMO, and the director of sales, or whatever it is, whoever the three people are that we're managing.

And, you know, how are your individual goals somewhat different from the company goals?

So one of our CEOs, for example, has a number of really close charity or involved charity organization involvements.

And so his, one of his goals is to help his charities.

Of course he wants to help his company, but he is really involved in helping his charities.

Another one of our CEOs is a Latina woman and really wants to make sure that she is uplifting and telling stories from her own experience, but of other Latina women as well.

So we want to find those unique and interesting and differentiated things that each individual is talking about and not just spinning out like chat GPT written posts on any topic.

Like that's not going to help anybody really.

And so we can we can understand what the bigger picture is for the company, why those three or four people have been chosen within the company to have the service.

how they each can promote the company differently.

And then once we develop their individual voice, we also often have different writers write for each of the people in the company so that we're even more differentiated.

Wow, that is ghost writing is just one of those.

I don't know.

It's like a gift, I think it just to be able to write in a way in someone else's voice.

I and I've it just.

It boggles my mind that you're able to do that.

That that's huge, incredibly talented and skilled to be able to do that.

Yeah, it helps that we have a lot of experience.

We've been doing it.

You know, we've been able to adapt to clients for years.

So, you know, we don't want every one of our clients to sound the same, same for our executives.

We don't want every one of our executives to sound the same.

Now that makes sense.

And so you mentioned even within the writing, even within, you know, the voice and everything, this idea of lead generation.

So is that like, one of the goals or does it depend on the company?

How do you, how do you get leads through this type of content?

Mm-hmm.

So it's an excellent question.

And when clients come to us and say we just need more sales We want executive LinkedIn because we need more sales.

We mostly say that's not our job So we work, you know in social media really is at the top of the funnel and maybe the middle of the funnel at best You know It really it's at the attraction phase where maybe new people will see you or people that are from your network that haven't seen you for a while will see you and then maybe you can get them to be in a conversation with you or grab a lead magnet or book a call, right?

That could happen through LinkedIn, certainly.

But actually converting that person to a lead or a sale happens well outside of our purview.

You know, that's gonna come back into the individual and they're gonna have to make that happen.

And so...

Sometimes people are really good at that and sometimes they're not so good at that.

We can give them ideas and help, but that's kind of not our job.

We want to get you those conversations.

We want to get you those recognition, the impressions, the engagement, people DMing you, or people who have viewed your profile.

We will report that back to you.

We'll take a look at your profile every day and we'll report back to you and say, hey, did you know that Eric Rutherford looked at your profile today?

He's really interesting.

Should I reach out to him?

And then we'll reach out on the principal's behalf to people that have viewed the profile and looked interesting.

But we have a separate service to get into social selling which is another story.

Like that's more in the DMs and doing more cold outbound.

And we can do that.

But for the majority of our clients, we don't.

Majority of our clients understand top of the funnel, awareness building, getting the conversations going, and then they take it from there.

No, and I like how you've sort of defined that those two different groups, the top of funnel and then separate service for greater engagement, follow up.

Because really it makes sense that the profile, everything, the pose, that is top of funnel so that they are wanting to reach out and engage with that individual.

It was interesting you said you know, if people are checking out their profile, you'll let them know so that they can have the opportunity to reach out to them and just have a conversation.

What, what have you, what have, sorry, let me try again.

How have you seen that help individuals in businesses in terms of relationships, sales, whatever?

I'd love to hear.

Yeah, so we of course road test everything that we do with our own profiles.

And so I'll just give you an example that I just recently had, which is I reached out to somebody who had viewed my profile and they said, yeah, I've been really fascinated by your content.

Your LinkedIn is amazing.

You do such a great job with it.

I would love to talk to you about how you could help me with mine.

And so that was like, I just reached out to say, hey, you know, I just saw you looking around and they truly wanted to be engaged.

And maybe whatever held them back from messaging me, I don't know, you know, maybe they were busy that day.

Maybe they had some, you know, hesitation fear of like reaching out to me thinking I'm some big influencer which I'm not with my like 6,000, 6,500 followers, whatever it is.

But I think that it was me then opening the door that enabled them to come back and say, I really do wanna talk about it.

And we have a call booked.

So, and the same thing happens with our clients all the time.

So like our client who works in a lot of partnerships, if one of her partners, if one of the people who works for one of her partners views her profile, she always reaches out.

and says, hey, thanks for stopping by, maybe talks about an event that they're going to be at together, have been at together.

It's very easy for her to make that direct connection, but she wouldn't have known that person was looking at her profile had we not alerted her diet.

She could have looked at her LinkedIn, but that's our job.

We're in her LinkedIn every day to make sure that she knows about it.

I think that takes some pressure off.

It's just this idea of, hey, how are you doing?

Can I can I answer any questions for you?

It's just there's no selling involved, right?

It's just a hey, just seeing how you're doing today.

like walking into a store, right?

And the salesperson says, can I help?

And you say, no, I'm just looking like, fine, great.

You know, but if they want, if you want help, the salesperson's there for you.

I think it's a great perspective to have.

It really is.

It's not, I mean, you're just being friendly.

Mm-hmm.

So as we've been talking through this and this idea of creating content, the content you guys are creating, trying to have a voice as an executive or founder, there's this idea of influencer, right?

And so depending on where you're at, that can have a positive or a negative or it can make you feel really weird.

Does using LinkedIn mean I have to try to be an influencer?

I don't know if you ever have that conversation with people or not.

It's really funny actually, LinkedIn just announced that they're doing away with their creator program or creator designation.

So up until two years ago, maybe everybody was on LinkedIn, same, like we were all in the same place, right?

You could pay for premium, you could pay for sales navigator, you could have a few extra bells and whistles, a little more connection, whatever, but otherwise everybody was the same.

And I think it was two or three years ago that they started this creator program.

And if you...

turned on, all you have to do is toggle a switch, creator mode, suddenly you could create newsletters and you could have a link in your bio and you could have people ring your little bell to get notified about stuff on LinkedIn, so all these things opened up to creators that the general public didn't have.

So of course, when we work with clients, we're all like, take advantage of everything you can get, so let's turn on creator and let's make sure that you can do all these things, right?

So, but people who weren't in the know weren't doing it.

So a couple of weeks ago, maybe a little bit more, LinkedIn's just said that they're doing away with that, that everybody's gonna be a creator going forward.

And so I like that because it takes away kind of this stigma of, oh, well, I'm a LinkedIn creator and you're not, right?

You're just a regular LinkedIn plebian, whatever you are, right?

And so...

Yes, of course, there are huge influencers, huge creators, huge influencers on LinkedIn with hundreds of thousands of followers or more.

And those are the people that get thousands of comments on every post and their stuff is like, it's super valuable and it gets spread far and wide.

And that's wonderful.

Like I'm involved with a couple of those really big creators through some groups that I'm in.

they're super knowledgeable and so nice.

Like as opposed to all the other social platforms I've worked on, the people of LinkedIn are genuinely nice.

Almost, you know, almost everybody is really, really nice wanting to share information and knowledge, which is great.

But the influence that you as an individual have is on your network.

And so we are all influencers in our own right because we have a following.

We have people that we're connected to or that are following us.

And we have the ability to influence all of those people all the time.

And that comes full circle back to what we discussed in the beginning, which is why not post, even if you think you're repeating stuff that other people have said, because you will be influential to your network.

So, and interesting statistics, only about one to 2% of people on LinkedIn ever create content.

And only like nine to 10% comment.

So there's 90% of the people on LinkedIn who are just reading.

That's all they're doing.

So if you don't put content out there, you will never get in front of those people who are reading.

That's significant.

Like just by putting content out there, you suddenly become part of like the 1% that 90% are just, like that's a huge difference.

I...

It's amazing, right?

And it's true of the internet in general, right?

In the internet in general, about 1% of people create content, 10% engage in it, and 90% of people just consume, right?

But it's even more obvious on LinkedIn when you realize that like, when I look at people who come up for me in sales navigator or in a search, Most of them have not posted in the last year or ever.

So these people are just consuming.

They're active on LinkedIn, but they're just consuming.

That's a, just in general, that's a little, I say it's hard for me to get my brain around a little bit, but yet I was there, like 18 months ago, that's what I did, and it's like, okay.

So they, but those people who are just reading like a DM or something like that, they could still engage with though, even though they are not necessarily commenting or doing anything like that.

Yeah, yeah, or just the other day, somebody just booked a call through the link that I have in my bio, in my headline and bio, and I have no idea how he found me.

I have no idea what he read that made him wanna book a call.

He has never commented on any of my posts, but he booked a call to talk about LinkedIn for his personal brand.

So, you know, like you just don't know who's out there reading your stuff, and that's why you have to produce content.

because then people will come out of the woodwork.

I love that and I think we just, we either aren't aware or we just forget or that imposter syndrome creeps in and it's like, man, I don't know if it's worth it, but like, you don't know the results you're going to get.

However, if you don't do it, your results are going to be nothing.

Right, right, it's question mark or zero.

Wouldn't you rather at least question mark?

Yeah, it's like the ceiling's a whole lot better on by trying than by not.

So let me ask as well.

photos and videos because if you're on LinkedIn and you've been there for a while, you've seen it's you're seeing a lot of discussion or just post some of its photos, some of its videos, some of its just text.

How beneficial are they?

And like, do I have to use them or is it helpful to use them?

I guess that's even the bigger question.

Yeah, yeah, such a good question.

And it's such a big debate out there in LinkedIn land.

So I think during the pandemic, a lot of people started posting like very more personal photos.

They started using LinkedIn more like Facebook, you know, and like, you know, here I am in my house with my margarita that I just made or whatever.

I mean, and it wasn't that they were value lists images, but I think that there was definitely a trend to be more personal and that has swung the other way.

And that's not to say that you can't post the picture of you and your family going on vacation, or you working from some beautiful location.

I think that that's all fair game.

But I think that there has been the pendulum swing has won the other way to more professional versus less.

Then there's this big debate about selfies versus something else.

So, like, should I constantly put a picture, put a selfie of myself into my into my posts?

One of the biggest creators, LinkedIn creators in the world, Yasmin Alec, has said he doesn't usually put pictures, mostly because he just doesn't have time to go and get them and figure it out.

He's a busy single dad and runs LinkedIn, runs his super, super successful LinkedIn, one of the biggest creators.

And he's like, yeah, most of my posts are text posts and they work for me, so I'm not gonna worry about it.

But other creators have encouraged me to test.

the idea of putting a selfie in my posts, which I have tested quite a bit actually.

And there's a lot of reasons for wanting to put a picture of yourself into your posts.

Number one, it builds a much stronger relationship with the person, because they feel like they can get to know you better.

Two, it brands you, because then if people start to see your face in their feed, they'll be like, oh right, that's Stephanie's post.

I'm gonna go take a look at it.

And three, it does help the algorithm a little bit when there's something beyond text.

Like I find that a image post or a carousel will typically, or a video, I haven't done very many, but a video, will typically get a little more play in the algorithm most of the time.

However, if you put in an image that is just like an AI generated whatever of your thought, I can't see how that's adding value to a post in any way.

So I don't really know, because we've not done it for our clients.

We don't believe in doing that.

And so we haven't even tested that.

But I can't imagine that that's helping people's posts because it's now getting, it's a dime a dozen, those AI images.

And I'd much rather see a picture of you.

I'd much rather see something that's helping me remember and feel closer to you.

But here's the numbers on the experiment that I ran.

I didn't use Selfies in a month's worth of posts and then I did use selfies for a whole month in all of my posts and I got 36% more impressions with the selfies and Half a percent more engagement which is a lot on LinkedIn half a percent is a lot Because we're talking about you know, one to four percent is its typical engagement So that was a huge, huge learning for me.

And now I put selfies in about half my posts because I know that they're beneficial.

Wow, I had no idea that it did that much.

Now with a selfie, is that just like me taking a picture of me?

Like I'm having a cup of coffee, I'm walking down the street.

you know, I'll try to get my kid to take one when we're off somewhere, you know, or my team shoots video of me for Instagram for our corporate Instagram.

And so I'll take some stills out of that.

Or, you know, any pictures of me really doesn't have to be, you know, doesn't have to be a selfie.

And it doesn't have to be professional either to something, you know, B-roll stuff.

That's fascinating.

Oh my word.

I didn't realize it had that much impact on engagement, on just people seeing it.

That's fascinating.

Yeah, for me, of course, your mileage may vary, but that, you know, I ran a pretty concerted, pretty, pretty concentrated experiment on it and definitely came out positive.

Well, even if, even if, I mean, those are significant numbers.

So even if, you know, if people do that, they don't quite get those numbers still, you're making a, I mean, that's significant.

It's not hard to do it as long as you have enough pictures.

That's what I always run into because I hate having my picture taken.

But as long as you have enough pictures, it's not hard to do that.

And so it's worth it.

And that's something you meant right there.

It's that idea of I'm gonna take a picture of myself or have a picture of myself and then I'm gonna post it.

And like, I think that's where imposter syndrome comes in too, right?

It's like, cause I don't like, I don't wanna post my picture, right?

It's hard enough for me to just write and like stick that out there, let alone.

from.

Yes, yes.

Do you think it gets easier the more you do it?

I think so.

I've started to sort of slightly disassociate myself from those photos.

They're just photos.

They're just images that are going onto LinkedIn.

Like, I don't have to worry about, as long as I think I look okay in them, you know?

Like, I'm not going to post a picture of me in my pajamas, but, you know, as long as I think I look okay, yeah, I'll just post it.

But that's also when it makes it much easier to hold, hand it off to somebody else.

If we're a ghost writing for somebody and we say to a CEO, give us a library of pictures of you and let us choose one to accompany a few posts here and there, that is way easier than having to choose it for yourself.

Yeah, because then it's like, okay, I'm not doing it, I'm not posting it, I'm just handing it off and whatever happens, happens.

day.

I can't stand my blouses and iron.

Like, you know, you get through all that crap.

Yeah, but it's a good, I mean, it's a good, it's a good point.

It's like, I don't know if it ever gets easy, but it gets easier.

And yeah, and I like how you talk about sort of that disassociating yourself with, with both with pictures with your post, because I've found that at least with posts, it's like, well, I don't know, we'll just we'll do another one.

And you know, we'll, we'll do another one tomorrow.

So Throw it out there, see how it does.

That's all you can do.

And if a post flops, a post flops, who cares?

It's okay.

You know?

think that's something too.

It's just this idea of, you know what?

It doesn't matter, right?

Because it's not a one-shot deal.

You are out there, you are posting, and you're honestly, you're only, it's only, you just do it again, right?

It's just keep moving forward.

And it's practice, right?

The more you do it, the more comfortable you get with it, the easier it comes to you, the less you get personally involved, like upset about posting and your selfies and whatever.

Like the more you do it, the easier it gets.

That's definitely true of almost everything in the world.

It is.

And just what is like for people listening, they're like, okay, I maybe they're on LinkedIn, maybe they're maybe they're, they're just maybe they're engaged on LinkedIn, maybe they post on LinkedIn, maybe they're just like, I just I just read on LinkedIn.

What is like one thing they can do?

Like low hanging fruit in terms of either their profile or just beginning this process of LinkedIn, what's one thing they can do with that?

The first thing we do when we work with clients, before we even talk about topics, is we do a profile audit.

And so having a really good looking profile, it's like a landing page.

You know, if somebody happens to click over from your comment or your content or found you in a search, you want your profile to look great.

And so you need to have a great profile picture to take up most of the frame.

You should have a really good banner.

If you don't have a banner at all, that's really bad, but you should have a really good banner, ideally that says something about what you do or who you are, the company that you work for.

You should have a really punchy, interesting headline.

So the headline is not your job title.

The headline is not the company you work for.

The headline is what you do and who you help, like the audience that you help, so that it's really, really clear.

And then maybe some, you know, other more interesting things.

Like I say in my profile, I'm an American in Spain.

A lot of people connect with me that way.

But first I say that I help busy founders and executives shine on LinkedIn.

So that's, that's the most important thing that I do.

So that's not my company name.

That's not my title.

Right.

So you want a really great headline.

And then ideally, if you're in creator mode or now once they roll out creator mode to everybody, you can also put a link in your profile, which I, which I have for a 15 minute consult.

And so that becomes a little lead generating landing page right there, um, where it's booking a call in my calendar, my calendar direct.

So that's, that's the most important thing is spend time with your profile and make sure that all the boxes are checked and all the things are done.

And, uh, you'll be, you'll be in much, much better shape to start to have engagement, engaged conversations.

I love it.

That seems doable.

Right.

That's it.

It's like that's not like, oh, you need to go out and you need to scale this mountain and you need to do, you know, and then swim this river.

It's I just need to clarify some things.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Having a better profile really will make a difference once you start getting out there and engaging a little bit.

And that's the first thing you can do.

Then you can take a little breather, then you can decide on some topics, and then you can do a little writing, right?

But if your profile's not great, you could write all sorts of content and people will come to your profile and be like, why would I get in touch with this person?

They don't even have a banner, their headline says nothing.

So start there.

Gotcha.

It sounds like that adds some credibility to for who you are.

I mean, you could be you could be the CFO and have a Fortune 500 company, but yet look like you have no experience whatsoever.

Yeah, yeah, well, just a boring, you know, just look like dime a dozen, you know, like everybody else with a bad profile picture and no banner.

And your headline says CEO of whatever company like.

So just another CEO.

Hahaha! that just another CEO but that but that is the perception that is the perception it's like there is nothing that makes me interested in this person.

Exactly, exactly.

You've got to find those things that make you interesting and make sure that they're front and center.

Oh, I love it.

I love it that just as we're beginning to wrap up any takeaways you'd like to leave with our audience.

I know we have we have covered the gamut of why and the fears and what they can do any last takeaways.

I think, as we've said, get out there and do it.

Stop worrying about what other people think.

LinkedIn is a big, big pond.

There's a lot of room for a lot of fish.

and you have your own little tribe within it.

So, you know, it's hard.

It's hard to carve out the time.

It's hard to get into the right head space, but it's well, well worth putting some time and effort into.

And of course, okay, shameless plug, if you don't have the time or you're terrified of doing it by yourself, then, you know, we can come in and give you a hand on it.

I love it.

So for everybody, everybody out there, if you're listening and you're like, I am just like super hesitant about LinkedIn, just go for it.

Like it just begin taking those baby steps.

Um, yeah, Stephanie.

So if listeners are like, yes, I want to know more about you.

I want to know more about cracker, jack marketing.

I want to figure out how I can, um, begin this journey.

where would you like him to go?

So come to my LinkedIn profile, which I think is pretty spiffy.

And that is linkedin.com slash in slash Stephanie Schwab.

So just my name.

And you'll find me there.

And Crackerjack Marketing, our agency is crac And yeah, but I'd be happy if you came to my LinkedIn page.

You can book an intro call with me right there on my little mini landing page.

and I'd be happy to talk to you about LinkedIn.

And I'm really, any questions that anybody has about LinkedIn, just DM me or send me a message in one of my posts, respond in one of my posts.

I'm happy to talk to anybody.

I think that's how you and I got started, Eric, was just like a 15 minute phone call about to chit chat about LinkedIn.

And I love doing that.

So happy to do that with anybody.

I love it.

Yeah.

And so if you're listening, make sure to check out her LinkedIn, check out Crackerjack Marketing.

Stephanie is very, she's just very kind and friendly and super, super knowledgeable.

And so yeah, I appreciated our conversation before and that's really what led to this conversation.

So for everybody out there, we're dropping those links in the show notes.

Make sure to check those out.

Stephanie, this has been so much fun.

I've learned a lot and it's just been a fun conversation.

So thanks for joining me today.

Thank you, I've enjoyed it so much, Eric.

I really appreciate it.

All right, let me get my mouse going to the right button here.

All right, so let me.