Code 020- LinkedIn Marketing Strategies for Your Fly Fishing Business with Valerie Morris
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LinkedIn Marketing Strategies
Valerie Morris, from Tintero Creative is on the podcast to share some of her best tips on leveraging LinkedIn. We talk about how to connect with new contacts, where to get the biggest bang for your buck, and why you need to shift your mindset with LinkedIn.
(Click here–>> Valerie Morris Podcast Transcript or scroll to the bottom to read the full PDF Transcript)
Show Notes with the Valerie Morris
06:16 – Kevin Finn was on the podcast here and talked about how to put together a great content marketing strategy.
08:50 – I noted catcha.com and how Dan can leveraged linkedIn.
12:30 – I noted the BNI Podcast and why noting the little things about yourself is important.
26:30 – AgoraPulse is a great tool to schedule posts.
28:40 – Schedule status updates ahead of time.
36:30 – Valeria has written over at Social Media Examiner and at Tintero Creative where you can find some linked in articles.
47:47 – Social Media Day Denver
48:33 – I noted the Financially Covered Podcast here with David Chudyk.
You can find Valerie at Tintero Creative here:
LinkedIn Marketing Strategies
- Shift your mindset
- Use as a networking tool
- Update your summary section and cover photo
- Add the quirky small details about yourself to find things in common
- Get referrals from others on linkedIn
- See who is interacting with your content and reply
- Post regularly about what you are doing
- Use video to post updates
- Schedule updates ahead of time
- Use 3 hash tags per post
- Take a day to create 20 short video
Top Tip, Tool and Takeaway for LinkeIn
Tip – Put your face out there
Tool – Use the Linked In Mobile App
Takeaway – Linked in is the silent giant
Resources Noted in the Show
Read the Full Transcript with Valerie Morris:
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or continue reading below……..
Valerie 0:01
Yeah, and I think a lot of people might write off LinkedIn as, Oh gosh, like I’m in the outdoor industry, who the rest of the people in my industry aren’t really on here. But especially fly fishing. I just know there’s a lot of people that make good salaries that want to get away for a day.
Dave S 0:26
That was Valerie Morris describing why LinkedIn might be one of the best social media platforms right now. Welcome to today’s session of the marketing podcast.
Unknown speaker… 0:35
This is outdoors online co the marketing podcast that helps you elevate your business through online marketing master sessions. Join Dave each week as he helps you grow your online influence via interviews with leading entrepreneurs from around the world.
Dave S 0:52
There you go. Valerie Morris from tin Taro creative calm describes how to post content use video, get referrals and interact to leverage LinkedIn today. Tons of content so much that I believe you probably will not be able to handle it all. So turn off the earbuds and let’s jump into it with Valerie Morris from Tim Taro creative.com. How’s it going, Valerie?
Valerie 1:16
Hey, Dave. I’m pretty well excited to be here.
Dave S 1:18
Yeah. Great to have you on here. I’ve been reading quite a bit of your content you have out there online and I, you know, I guess I think I might have connected with with jld, which he His name’s popped up a number of times, obviously, he’s a big podcaster. So, but we’re gonna dig into today, I think focus on LinkedIn and all that. But before we get there, can you just talk about how you first got into online marketing and how you brought it into your current company?
Valerie 1:44
Yeah, so it’s interesting because I actually started out getting into marketing because of my design background, which originally stemmed from the architecture world. So that’s what I my first career was it In the field of architecture and between the economy kind of taken a tank in 2008 2009, and then just new opportunities arising with social media, I was able to use the design background and get in with some different marketing positions. And partly because of my interest in it, and just my, frankly, partly my age, people were like, Hey, you, you know how to use Facebook, you can do all this social media for the agency. And I’m sure the clients would not like to hear that that’s the way that they selected who was doing the work, but at the time, it was brand new for, for businesses to really think about using social media. And so I just kind of dove in headfirst into everything, and really learned as the industry was growing up. And about eight years ago, I broke off and started my own agency and over time, I’ve just discovered the importance of original content and authority building. And I just soaked up everything that I could from other people who are also figuring it out. It’s been an interesting evolution just to watch the industry grow up over the last 10 to 15 years. And just to see, a lot of us were learning it as it’s being developed, you know, when I went to college couldn’t get a degree in social media marketing. But now it’s a thing. So it’s just really interesting to see some of this stuff just grow up from being, you know, something brand new to being something that’s being leveraged in a really strategic way.
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Dave S 3:38
Yeah, exactly. And that’s cool. So that brings you back, or we’re looking back 2005 2010, which, you know, and I haven’t been there the whole time, but I’ve seen the evolution as well, the shorter the shorter term. And yeah, it’s amazing. It seems like I mean, I guess the one thing you count on is change, right? It’s always changing. How do you want How do you keep up With the change in everything does it feel like it’s how fast is it changing?
Valerie 4:04
You know, I’ll be honest, there are some times where I even feel overwhelmed with the amount of change. But I think the biggest thing is that if you’re going to be in digital marketing, you have to be, I think one of the best skills you can have is just that love for learning. And I’ve just always been somebody who loves to consume content myself, I loved magazines as a kid, I my favorite places is the library even to this day. And so just being willing to consume information is one of the best things that you can do, because it is going to change constantly and you do have to stay alert to what’s going on. And one of the things that I found is, you know, depending upon different seasons of life and in seasons in political cycles, were times when you want To be on social media more than others, but even when there’s times when it’s doesn’t feel as fun to be on it, it’s still important to keep a pulse of what’s going on. Even if you don’t spend a lot of time but you at least get a feel for if there’s something you need to go research some more. So I use that save button on Facebook a ton. When I see articles or things that I want to research further, I look on Twitter a lot. I surf LinkedIn a lot to see who I’m connected to and what they’re saying. And, you know, I’ve heard a lot of other digital marketers say this, but you know, the people around you really do impact you. So if you surround yourself with other high achievers, and other people who are really trying to grow in digital marketing as well, you’re just naturally going to learn from what they’re learning as well.
Dave S 5:49
Exactly. And I love that you say that because that’s, that’s exactly why I have this podcast I’m, you know, I’m serving, you know, a little bit of my own scratching my own itch, but I mean, I’m really Focusing on the companies that, you know, that I’m already working with. And it’s kind of niche focused with, you know, in the outdoor space, and especially with the fly fishing companies. And I talked to him every week. And you know, the struggles, you just talked about a bunch of struggles that I hear about all the time, and I’m trying to be that person, right? I’m the in between, you’re that you’re the super expert. And I’m bringing this to the person that has a fly fishing company. So I love it.
Valerie 6:25
Sure, yeah. Well, I’m in podcasts. Honestly, in the last few years, I’ve become a really fun thing to consume. It took me a while to kind of get into appreciating them. And I’ll be honest, there’s some times where I’m like, I’m on information overload. I can’t listen to another podcast episode about business ideas. because, frankly, the ideas start churning so much, and I just want to go do some of those ideas before I get some more kind of in my head, but But yeah, I love it. Especially, you know, if you have a long drive, which if you’re in the outdoor industry, you’re probably Probably maybe a little bit more remote, a little bit longer drives into town. I live out in the country. So for me, I pop on a podcast and I can easily listen to one or two episodes, you know, for one errand, you know, and it’s a really efficient way. If you can’t have your computer right next to you and sit down and, you know, read a full article podcast is a great resource for that.
Dave S 7:25
Exactly. Yeah. I’ve had a number of guests on Kevin Finn, who was the founder of buzzsprout was on he talked about his marketing plan, which is pretty much he you know, he talks about they have a big podcast, but they also everything they podcasts, they also put on YouTube, and I also blog about it. So it’s like, yeah, the triple whammy, but while we’re probably not gonna have time to dig into a ton on the content marketing, I’ll put links in the show notes for all the stuff you have going so people can connect with that if they have questions. I did want to focus on LinkedIn. It’s um, you know, it’s a struggle. I think a lot of people obviously we know LinkedIn is important. We know we should be on it. But I think a lot of people maybe don’t have it optimized. And I was hoping today you could start maybe just give us maybe a I don’t know if it’s a top 10, but just a number tips that can help, you know, everybody optimize their LinkedIn. could could we dig into that a little bit?
Valerie 8:14
Sure. Sure. Well, I think the first thing that I recommend people really kind of shifting is it’s all in the mindset. It’s amazing to me how I still come across people to this day that say, isn’t LinkedIn just for when you’re searching for a job? And they just don’t realize that there’s this huge goldmine of really high caliber professionals that are paying attention. And it’s one of those platforms where people go on and they don’t usually go on and just like, burn through an hour and you know, go mindless on it. If they’re on LinkedIn, they are there for a purpose. They are paying attention Usually they are very aware of who the people are that they’re connecting and interacting with, very aware that those people can input some high stock in who those people are and what they bring to the table. So it’s a great place to get exposure by posting on your personal profile and things like that. And so if you just shift your mindset, it will shift how you set up your profile, it will shift how you are engaging with other people. It will shift what you decide to post or not post. And, you know, once you can get into that mindset of, Hey, this is a great networking tool, and it’s a great tool for me to keep myself relevant to my network. It’s do wonders for you.
Dave S 9:49
That’s awesome. So, so if you if let’s take a person I just talked to somebody last week, Dan, he has a business. He’s more in the early stages, but he’s trying to get this going. He’s got this site, it’s, I guess it’s go kacha.com. And it’s a, he’s Brent. He’s kind of neutered. I’m not even sure if he’s on LinkedIn. But let’s think about him for this thing. And he’s because he had these questions. He was kind of asking me like, what, you know, where do I spend my time, the most bang for the buck? So if he’s on LinkedIn, and say, he’s there, what’s the first thing he should do to make sure he’s optimizing things?
Valerie 10:23
Yeah, well, I mean, this is like going down to the very basics, but just make sure that your profile is fleshed out to meet your business goals, as best as possible, you know, and if he’s in the outdoor space, you know, make sure that, you know, people know that within a split second of seeing his profile, but at the same time, it’s something that you still want to look professional. So, you know, your profile could show you out, you know, in nature and whatnot, but don’t have a fuzzy photo of you. And make sure that people can see your face. The other thing that a lot of people kind of Forget about is that cover photo that goes behind your profile picture. It’s kind of like the banner photo for a Facebook page. And I like to use something like Canva or Photoshop and find the dimensions just do a quick Google search for the dimensions for the LinkedIn cover and throw text on top of whatever image you are going to put on that photo. Because it’s, it’s just prime real estate where you can, in a split second share with someone, hey, I am the best guide in such and such area, or, you know, providing, you know, great company retreats, you know, whatever. You can put some words on there. You can’t put text in it on LinkedIn, but you can make a photo that has text as part of the photo, and then upload that photo. So I love making sure that you’ve got some of that Visual stuff in there from the beginning. And then you know, you fill out your, your recent roles and your experience and your education and all of that. The one piece that a lot of people miss out on is the summary section or the about section that’s towards the top. And if you have a media scattered background, or even if you just want to be really direct about what you offer to people, that’s the place to do it. You know, someone like me that started in architecture, but now made the shift into marketing. You know, I tell people, I actually feel like I use my architecture degree more now than I did when I worked in the industry. And I can explain some of the reasoning behind why I say that in my summary section so someone’s going and looking through like, Why does she have all this marketing spirits and then there’s this random, you know, time period where she worked in a architecture. What’s up with that? How does that apply? You know, you can kind of tell a story and weave all the different experiences together. So don’t forget the summary section, don’t forget the cover photo. And then just make sure that your profile is as filled out as possible. And, you know, a lot of people forget, you know, sometimes these these quirky things like, you know, hey, I was an Eagle Scout, or I went to such and such college, there’s a lot of people who kind of will pick up on small details like that, that they have in common with you. And, and that might be the one reason that they work with you over somebody else. Exactly.
Dave S 13:40
Exactly. Yeah. And I was just listening to another podcast, it was the, the BMI, BMI podcast, it was the founder of that. And he was talking about how that’s a critical that’s a critical point of what they do. You know, the the networking thing, but those little things, right, you’re talking to somebody or you’re introducing somebody, it’s like, oh, you have this in common and instantly, you might have lifelong, you know, who knows, right? Who knows where that goes?
Valerie 14:03
Yeah. And don’t be afraid to infuse some of those personal punches in the next.
Dave S 14:09
Okay, perfect. So let’s go back to Dan. So Dan is on there. He’s got his profile, it’s set up. And I can tell you a little bit about his business is basically he is connecting, you know what he calls his guru. So these fly fishing experts out there, you know, with rivers, and he’s trying to, you know, essentially create a membership site, right, so people can go and they can be involved in this and those gurus so he’s trying to find these people, right. That’s his big thing. So it seems like LinkedIn might might be a good place to do this.
Valerie 14:39
Yeah, yeah. It’s interesting. My husband is a huge mentor. And he loves bow hunting specifically, and this was a long time ago, but he set up essentially a Facebook or Facebook, a LinkedIn group, around bow hunters, professional professionals who all Love bow hunting and he actually met a guy who lives about an hour from where we do. And they’ve been hunting buddies ever since this guy’s in the mortgage industry at the time he was in the finance industry. And they were, they were isn’t it was a great opportunity for them to create, like a referral relationship on the professional level, but they use their common interest to men. Honestly, they built this friendship that has, you know, lasted now for a long time and, and it’s just interesting to me how, you know, visit LinkedIn doesn’t have to be all business. When you have that camaraderie around a specific topic. You can find some people that are really passionate about guiding and fly fishing and looking for the routes and, and wanting to connect. So you know, that’s one one avenue that I know works really well. And the other side of it is think through who he could connect with that also no other guides, you know, he the guides themselves may or may not be on LinkedIn, if they’ve realized that there’s a lot of professionals who like to get away, do company retreats, you know, enjoy nature as a team, those kinds of things. There’s a lot of professionals that you can be networking with and showcasing your fly fishing company or, you know, your business there. But there’s also a lot of people who have their, their go to guide, or they know somebody in specific locations. And so, you know, he could be using LinkedIn as a tool to meet other people who could help connect him to other guides, you know, and it’s and it’s really just opening up those doors to building that network. You know, one of the big things with LinkedIn A lot of people forget about is that LinkedIn is really just the beginning. It’s the starting point. And you want to really the best relationships that come out of LinkedIn. They just start on LinkedIn, they don’t stay there. You know, you turn it into a in person coffee meeting, a meet up at a conference, you know, a zoom meeting, or you know, something like that, where you’re putting a face and a name outside of the social media platform. And then you can use the social platform to stay connected long term. But you know, if you can leverage LinkedIn, to build enough of a relationship where you could say, Hey, I’m looking to connect with other Fly Fishing Guides. I know you love fly fishing, do you have any, any people that would be good for me to connect with and then next thing you know, you’re getting email introductions, or LinkedIn recommendations you have like you should talk to so and so. He’s building his network one step at a time.
Dave S 18:03
That’s great. That’s great. Yeah. So when you’re on there, are you maybe you can explain to somebody who’s, you know, brand new to it, are you? You know, how are you finding those people connecting? Is there a protocol as far as reaching out to them? You know, can you search for, say, if it was Fly Fishing Guides or fly fishing topics? Is that something you could do there?
Valerie 18:23
Yeah, it’s interesting, you’d be surprised at how many people put that as an interest, or put hobbies like that as an interest. You know, the other thing is, you could, if you do a search like that, and just, you know, use the search bar at the top of the platform window, just search fly fishing and just see what comes up. Now. LinkedIn is going to filter out, you know, and show you people who are first connections or companies you’re already connected with that relate to that term or whatever you searched for. But then they’re also going to show you things like, second connections. So you know, if you You and I are connected and you search fly fishing, you might come across some of my other friends who are fly fishing experts or enjoy it as a hobby. And they, but you’re not connected to them, you and I have the common connection is that you both know me. So that’s a second connection. And so that’s the nice thing is that you can realize like, Okay, if I did a search, and I’ve been connected with, you know, these other five professionals who really enjoy I know, enjoy fly fishing, they’re connected with these other people, I could go ask them and I would say send a send a personal message to your mutual connection saying, Hey, I’m looking to connect with so and so or more more flyfishing connections. I noticed that so and so came up on a search and that you and I have this person in common if you feel comfortable. You know, I’d love an introduction. The other thing that you know, is Maybe more of a long term approach is to be posting regularly about what you are doing. posting regularly about your desire to be connected with more and more people have a certain that meet certain qualifications. And the more you talk about that, the more people are going to just know you as, hey, the fly fishing network or the outdoor network expert. And so, you know, if you put that call to action out there from time to time saying, Hey, I’m looking for connecting with these types of people, you will naturally come across them. People will start to refer them over to you the other thing that people and I’m even guilty of this from time to time in forgetting to do pay attention to who likes or interacts with your content around that subject matter, because those are the people who are interested in that topic. And so you could reach out to them and say, Hey, I, you know, thanks so much for commenting on my article from last week, you know, here’s what I’m working on doing. If you ever come across anyone that you think would be a good fit, feel free to pass them along, you know? And it’s just a simple thing of like, Hey, I see you. And I know that we’ve got this in common. maybe ask them a few questions like, Hey, have you gone on any trips recently? You know, just focus on the relationship, and it will naturally open up opportunities for you to say, Hey, here’s what I’m working on. You know, and a lot of people forget to pay attention to who is interacting with their, their, their posts, or with other people’s posts. You know, if you’re following a bunch of things that are related to fly fishing, you’re going to see a lot of other people interacting and commenting on your networks posts and You can kind of get a feel for well, gosh, this person has commented on like five posts in the last week, I should be connected to them. And then once you’re connected, send that private message.
Dave S 22:11
There you go. There you go. I love that this is a tons of good stuff to dig into here. I guess one of my questions you mentioned about posting about, I guess I’m thinking of the difference between posting about something versus content because you can actually repurpose blog posts and things on LinkedIn. Right. Can you talk about the difference between those two, you know, whether you’re putting actual blog posts or versus I think you’re talking about something different with posting.
Valerie 22:33
Yeah, so LinkedIn has the ability for you to publish a long form article. And so you could take you know, an article that you’ve written or an article that you’ve posted on your blog already. recommend putting it on your blog first, just so that if there’s ever any question, it’s the timestamp shows that your website had it first. But an admit By the way, I’ve never seen any issues with republishing the full article or most of the article on LinkedIn as well. But, you know, you can simply do a copy paste of that same article, and republish it as a publication. And when you go to create a post on LinkedIn, it’ll, it’ll give you the option to write an article. And so you can select that or you can select, just do a regular post, you could upload a video, there’s all sorts of things that you could do. But, you know, writing articles is great. I love that because at the end, or throughout the article, really, you can link over to other other articles you’ve written over to your website, give people a call to action. I will say, you know, one of the things I’ve noticed just in social media at large is that when there’s a new feature, the platform’s tend to give a lot of preference to that new feature. So the publication feature has been out for a while. And there’s some other new features that sometimes will give you a little bit more traction. Video, for example is one of those. So you could write a blog article, and then go, go set up your smartphone. I mean, honestly, the cameras on smartphones these days are amazing. You know, get yourself a little travel tripod or something where you can, you know, hook it to a tree if you’re out by a river. Make yourself a video that talks about the same content that was in the blog, and then upload that video to LinkedIn. Now LinkedIn is starting to offer LinkedIn live. But it’s been a slow rollout. I’ll be honest, I’m not everyone has it and based on that, I mean, it’s been a long time that they started rolling it out and testing it. So you know, for that to be a feature for everyone I think is still a ways off so but at the same time, just putting up a recording video that’s already been recorded previously. still works great. And you know if you can tie basic concepts of fly fishing, to some sort of communication principle team building principle, you know, business application, something you learned, I think that’s a cool thing to do. Because especially if you end up doing a lot of like, you know, small team retreats for corporate professionals who are looking to you know, just get away from from it all for an afternoon or for a day or for a week. I know I can picture in my mind right now, like a ton of people that I know that do that kind of stuff. And so if you can kind of tie people in and get a feel for like, hey, when I come out with this guy, this is his personality. This is what he offers. This is his vibe. People are going to be naturally either drawn to you or repelled by you, but you’re going to find the right people. And video can help convey that in a way that nothing else can. And you might get people who really care less about fly fishing. But they appreciate the analogies and the lessons that you’re tying from fly fishing to the real world. And so you’re essentially helping to increase the, the eyeballs and all of that with within the algorithm for that post. So, you know, there’s just some fun things you can do with video if you’re willing to kind of take the initial idea and then repurpose it in a few different ways.
Dave S 26:45
is are there any ways to automate the process and LinkedIn and, you know, either posting or publishing or anything like that? I know I’m in a big automation phase right now where I’m trying. I don’t know if there’s any things there we could touch on.
Valerie 26:58
Sure. Yeah. LinkedIn is Not always the easiest when it comes to automation, you can’t schedule those full length articles to go out. But you could go and queue them all up as drafts so that it’s just a simple click of a button to publish them when you are ready to. So that there is that that capability. Videos are a little bit harder to schedule ahead of time. And I’ve I’ve just found it usually works better to just upload them natively. But I like to use a tool called agorapulse for scheduling most of my social media general posts Okay, so I’m going to share an article as a regular posts with like a blurb and the link to the article or some sort of graphic. I will schedule that using a Gora pulse or some other scheduling tool like that. And that just allows me so much more ability to think through Okay, throughout the upcoming month, and actually this time a month here around the third, third week of the month, middle of the month, I’m already thinking through, what am I posting for the upcoming month, and getting that all queued up. And then if I have a plan for posting, full length article or a video, I can know what holes I want to fill in. I like looking at a whole month at large, so that I can think through Okay, I don’t want to talk about too much about, you know, this one topic here at the beginning of the month. And then never again for the rest of the month. It allows me to think through if I’m spacing things out appropriately, I’m touching on everything I need to there’s any holidays or big things. And then, you know, this year, we’ve just had a lot of a lot of hiccups, a lot of curveballs thrown at us, just with life events and worldwide events. And so having things kind of queued up especially scheduled allows you to kind of either roll with your personal life punches, let’s say you get injured or you get sick, you don’t have to worry about things, they can just continue to roll out. Or you can just reschedule stuff that you had originally planned to post and stay silent. You know, there’s something major going on in the world. So I do I do like some of that. Like I said, LinkedIn is not always as easy for scheduling things, but you can schedule just regular old posts. And so I like to do that at a minimum, and then I can add the other stuff as kind of like the cherry on top.
Dave S 29:37
Perfect, perfect. And are there ways to also I think I’m just posting like status updates, is that something or anything similar that you can do? That would help?
Valerie 29:46
Yeah, so those status updates are what I would schedule ahead of time. Okay. Let’s think through. You know, what, what to what you want to talk through what’s strategic for your business. You know what’s going to be relevant on LinkedIn. And I also like to throw in. I personally like two to three hashtags, on those posts, those types of posts, really any posts that you put on LinkedIn, you can start to use a few hashtags, I found that doing just a couple helps the exposure a little bit. But this isn’t Instagram, don’t put 30 hashtags on a LinkedIn post. People are gonna just scroll right past that and kind of tune it out.
Dave S 30:29
Yeah, or the Yeah, the hashtag trick. I guess one of them is you put your 30 hashtags in the comments and then that way, right people don’t
Valerie 30:37
just to look a little desperate. Then
Dave S 30:40
Yeah, go on LinkedIn. Okay, so so just like kind of more like Twitter, put a couple two or three
Valerie 30:45
pairs, put a couple, two or three, weave them into the sentence or put them at the bottom of it. Just so that you know, in a split second, somebody knows what your post is about. Even if they don’t read the full post. They You can start to associate your name and face with certain skill sets. And you can just stay top of mind. And at the same time, then those posts become more more searchable by other people who are searching for, you know, especially if it’s a very specific thing. You’re talking about, you know, Alexa briefings. You know, somebody might be out there searching for that or, you know, if you work in the insurance world, talking about open enrollment, you know, people are out there searching at different times of the year for search certain seasonal types of topics. And they’re looking on LinkedIn for high caliber content that’s relevant to either reshare or interact with.
Dave S 31:46
Gotcha. And how often should you be posting Is there any sort of a rule of thumb on you know, any of the stuff we’re talking about and how, you know, should you be in there every day really interacting or maybe give it give us a general thought there,
Valerie 31:59
sir. Yeah. You know, I, I have some people I’m connected with that post, maybe two, three times a day. And to me that feels like overkill, honestly, because they see so much of their stuff it I get a little numb to it. So I think you have to kind of strike the balance between being too much, and then not being seen at all, because remember that people use the platform at different times of day, different days of the week. So you want to make sure that you’re at least posting frequently enough that different people are going to see your posts throughout the month. So I’ve got some clients that you know, we post one maybe two times a week, and then I’ve got some other clients that want to be a little bit more aggressive, but I never recommend doing more than one day. And generally we just focus on weekdays, just because that is more of the professional office hours time. Every once in a while we’ll post something on a weekend or an evening. And, you know, just to test it out and see, because I have had posts do really well here and there, most of them tend to fall flat. If it’s on like a Saturday afternoon. You just never know. I mean, I, I’ve seen some people do really well with evenings. And certain professionals, they’re still thinking about work even at 830 at night. So just you just don’t know, but I think the best thing is to kind of test it out, but I would not recommend doing more than one a day.
Dave S 33:34
Okay, good. Good. That’s good. That’s great to hear. Yeah. So you want to be like you said, be out there. Be frequent enough that people are seeing your stuff and you’re kind of top of mind and sound seems like the flight like we talked about this fly fishing example. Seems like a pretty good resource that I’ll bet you a lot of people aren’t utilizing you know, and like we said for Dan, you know, if he’s trying to connect with gurus, you know, he could, you know, maybe one person here there and all sudden You know, he’s connected to some people he would have never been able to. It seems like that makes it makes sense to me.
Valerie 34:05
Yeah, yeah. And and I think a lot of people might write off LinkedIn as Oh gosh, like I’m in the outdoor industry, who, like the rest of the people in my industry aren’t really on. Yeah, that’s right. But especially fly fishing. I just know there’s a lot of people that make good salaries that want to get away for a day. And it’s a great way to make your outfitting company stand out amongst all the rest, and where they don’t even do any research. They just know exactly who to call. So, you know, when I talk to people about figuring out where they want to focus their efforts, there’s a couple questions I like them to ask themselves. One is do they enjoy the platform? And there’s a couple of questions too. But what other questions is, can I make a dent on this platform? You know, there’s some platforms where it’s so noisy, it’s it feels impossible to get noticed. You know, it feels impossible to get the followers or the interaction. And I think LinkedIn can be a really big opportunity if you’re willing to leverage it in the right way.
Dave S 35:26
Yeah, yeah. And that’s exactly I mean, that’s the point is I think that you could be on LinkedIn you know, because fly fishing I think there I’m not even sure exactly how many companies or people out there but yeah, you could be the the big person out there if you do it right. You could be the person when people click on like, Oh, yeah, fly fishing. Yeah. Go over to Dan or Dave, right. They know what’s going on. And for me, it’s fine because I have a travel company on the side. I’m working with, you know, a company there. And probably another good example, like you said, If I wanted to maybe find some people who had money and wanted to get a trip to a desktop For fly fishing, you know, and I was top of mind, they might be like, yeah, Dave’s got this travel company head over there.
Valerie 36:06
Yeah, yeah, it’s interesting. I’ve worked with a few nonprofits that have used LinkedIn as a great tool to network with people who, you know, they make enough disposable income, that they have the means to donate. And, you know, we’ve been able to put posts out there that talk about specific projects going on. And not every post is going to resonate with people. But we’ve had a few posts where it has resonated and caused people to connect, and then go meet for coffee, and then give millions of dollars towards certain projects. So it’s, it’s really interesting for me to see again, back to the point of use it as a tool. Don’t, don’t rely on the post and put a link in They’re saying, hey, donate, but tell a story. And then open up the door for relationship. Pick up the phone, go meet someone in person, go do that maybe uncomfortable thing to get to know them as a real person and build a relationship. Just use LinkedIn as that starting point.
Dave S 37:19
That’s perfect. That’s perfect. And, you know, I was thinking a little bit about, you know, I guess as we start to kind of wrap this this up here a little bit. You know, anything else I know, I’ll put a link to the show notes or some articles you’ve written out there. You know, I know on Twitter, I noticed you were posting a few different LinkedIn or is there any article there specifically, you want to know that we should definitely if somebody wanted to take this conversation a little further that comes to mind?
Valerie 37:43
Um, yeah, there’s a couple that I’ve written recently that are live over on Social Media Examiner about LinkedIn. And I will definitely share, share over those links for you. Honestly, there’s that The best place to find any of my content is over on my website and tear, creative calm and take a look at the blog because I put any of my new articles up there. So and we can link to back to your show notes as well. So and I can maybe throw in some quick links for some of the top LinkedIn articles. Perfect.
Dave S 38:20
Perfect. That’s great. And yeah, I guess just before we get out here anything else on if you think about it, I guess we’ll go back to Dan to wrap this up. You know, if he’s trying to find these leads, or you know, clients or you know, I guess with a focus there anything else we missed? That might be a good little tip to take us away and I guess what I call this I kind of call this my Triple Threat the top, top tip top tool, top takeaway from today, and maybe we could just start there any anything else for another top tip?
Valerie 38:46
Yeah, you know, the biggest thing that I think people are scared to do, and especially on LinkedIn, where it feels like such a professional platform is to show your face Whether it’s a photo of you in action, or it’s a video of you, talking about what you do, tying in some analogy, explaining something, showing your face can help show the personality and help really sell your brand in such a subconscious way that people don’t even realize they’re being sold on your personality, or your philosophy or your approach to things. So don’t be afraid to put your face out there in the content you’re putting out in your cover photo. You know, and you can do it in a way that’s helpful and educational and doesn’t feel like it’s all self promotion. Yeah,
Dave S 39:48
perfect. Perfect. And what about a tool, anything for LinkedIn, any tools that we haven’t talked about here that you would highlight?
Valerie 39:56
You know, like I said, I love to use a scheduling tool. I love To use something like a Gora pulse, or there’s a ton of other scheduling tools out there. The one the one thing, though, that I think a lot of people overlook, is the power of blink Austin’s mobile app. And, you know, granted, the world’s a little different here at the moment. But whenever I would go to conferences, or go to live events, and I would meet people or I would sit in on sessions that speakers were running, I would pull up my phone right then in there, pull up the app and search for that that person. Because I just knew that if I wait till I get home from that event, that stack of business cards, or that stack of notes is going to sit there for a few weeks. So take advantage of that the mobile app, it’s just so easy. I’ve just found it’s really great even just for surfing content and interacting with people that you already connected with. But just go find people as soon as you can. Even if it’s you know, you get back into your car after an event. And you go connect with all those people. Or you get done with doing a guiding trip, and you go get in your car, and you sit on the mobile app and you connect with all the people before you forget all of their names, you know, go do that right away. Because that’s only going to help improve your network. It’s only going to help keep people feeling loyal, and have a positive connotation with your face and name and what you offer and bring to the table. So yeah, I mean, as opposed to some of the other mobile apps that social media platforms have. LinkedIn is really great. That’s awesome.
Dave S 41:48
That’s it. That’s a huge, huge tool. And then and then what would be the takeaway from everything we’ve talked about here? I know we’ve been focusing on LinkedIn, but But what would you leave? What would you leave Dan with as he’s heading out, if he’s listening to this
Valerie 42:01
You know, I think just realize that LinkedIn is one of those like, silent giants in the background. You know, a lot of times when we think about social media and digital marketing, we think about the flashy things like Facebook and Instagram or YouTube, you know, some of these things that maybe get a little bit more of the flair, and they feel more fun. But depending upon what your business goals are, LinkedIn can actually provide you a better return on your investment as far as what you’re investing in your time, energy, your strategy. So just don’t forget about that silent giant giant because I think it is perhaps one of the most effective social media platforms out there right now. And a lot of people are just missing the boat when it comes to it. They’re just, they’re just not even thinking about it. They don’t have it on the radar. So don’t just Count LinkedIn and just do some research and play around with it to see if it’s going to be the right fit for your business and your your goals within your business.
Dave S 43:10
That’s perfect. And then what about and I guess I just wanted to catch it just before we get out of here because you know, content marketing is another big thing you have going what would be if you had to say just quickly, the biggest bang for your buck? This is kind of a general question but for content marketing, what would you tell somebody if they were struggling to know You know, there’s so many avenues with the content thing? What would you tell them if they just asked that ask you that question.
Valerie 43:34
And the best the best bang for their buck is to plan a route video recording day. Get comfortable in front of the camera after a few takes of a few videos. And you can just bust out I mean, I busted out 20 videos in a day. Couple outfit changes. Get you all your equipment set. The lighting, the sound, all of that kind of work out your nerves after a few videos. The nice thing about that is once you have video content recorded, you can hire out help if you need for video editing, uploading to different platforms like YouTube and into different social media platforms. You could have writers create blogs and social media posts from those video clips. There’s so much information that can be in so many different pieces of the puzzle that can be done for you. Once you record the videos, and if you just block out one day or a half a day and bust out a ton of video content as much as you can. You don’t have to worry about it every single week or every single month. A lot of my clients we do this with them and they get six to 12 months worth of content Recorded in one sitting. And it just makes things so much more efficient for them and for us. But, you know, even if you’re a solopreneur and you’re doing this on your own, you can mimic the same concept. And essentially this is just batching batching the work but you know, it really will save you time and give you a lot of material to work with to create other content if you want to kind of make it more fancy than just the video.
Dave S 45:29
That’s sweet. I love that tip. And one on one random one before we get out here, I guess we talk you know, we’re talking fly fishing, but I have you know, this is the outdoors and we’re focused on that niche. Do you have outdoor activity you love to partake in?
Valerie 45:42
Well, it’s interesting, because my husband and I actually live on 10 acres. Our house is made to look old, but it’s it was really built in the 1980s. So it’s it’s a modern home, but it’s a log home. So we’ve we’ve kind of learned how to kind of deal with that uniqueness. But we have six angora goats. And we run a hobby fiber farm where we sell the the mohair we during the pandemic, we got chickens. We’ve been talking about that for years got chickens and bees. And you know when we’re recording this here at summer, we’ve got a huge garden going. So we we’re not, we’re not huge preppers Yep, we’re not, you know, Doomsday errs, but we do like the idea of being more connected to where our food comes from. Just being more responsible with the resources that we have. So, you know, when I got plugged in a day for digital marketing, I’m often getting my hands dirty out somewhere on our homestead.
Dave S 46:50
That’s perfect. Yeah, I love that. Sounds like you have the place that I’ve looked at the look. That’s awesome. I love Yeah,
Valerie 46:58
we love it. We love it. A lot. gets up.
Dave S 47:00
All right, Valerie. So in the next couple months, anything new coming out for you or your business you want to give a give a shout out to as we as we head off here.
Valerie 47:08
Yeah, you know, honestly as a whole, we’re just removing and shaken helping people get their business online and you know, as a result of the pandemic, a lot of people have just been really focused on improving their online presence so and a lot of the speaking opportunities that I would normally be engaged with are are all virtual, I am speaking at Social Media Day Denver and a couple other local events here in Colorado but as most of the world has gone local, so have I so a lot of a lot of our focus is just working on making sure our clients have everything they need to be successful, and and to be thriving during this time.
Dave S 47:54
Perfect, perfect so they can just head to Tarot creative calm to find you and follow up with you
Valerie 48:00
Yeah, that’s the best place to find me.
Dave S 48:02
All right, perfect value. Hey, thanks. Thanks for coming on. This has been awesome. This is the first big LinkedIn dive. So I know people are going to be excited about this. So just want to thank you for sharing your wisdom today.
Valerie 48:13
Thanks for having me.
Dave S 48:14
All right, we’ll talk to you soon. Today’s takeaway, LinkedIn is the silent giant. Utilize the tips today to post updates regularly on LinkedIn. Wherever I’ve been lately, I was on the financially covered podcast with David Chuck, we talked about podcasting and how to get going on podcasting. You can head over to outdoors online.co slash media and check out some of the shows that I’ve been on lately. It’d be great if you could take a moment and leave a rating and review if you have time and support the show. And also click that subscribe button if you haven’t done so already. I can’t wait to connect with you on the next show. And help you elevate your fly fishing brand online.
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“Don’t forget about the Silent Giant.”
-Valerie Morris
Conclusion with Valerie Morris
Valerie Morris provides some amazing tips to leverage linked in today with a focus on fly fishing companies. Linked in may be the most effective Social Media network out there now. We hear about the top tip, tool and takeaway from the episode today.
