In our most recent episode of The Marketing Strategy Show, we interviewed the LinkedIn Ninja, Jillian Bullock.
When we booked this interview with Jillian, we were going to talk about LinkedIn strategies to build relationships via LinkedIn which would then build relationships off line. Over the last few weeks the world has changed dramatically and there is a lot more activity online.
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If you want more information from the podcast check out the transcript below.
Transcript
Hi, and welcome to this special edition of The Marketing Strategy Show. In Australia, and indeed throughout the world, our business seems to be in chaos at the moment because of the COVID-19 situation. We’re unsure of what to do and what to say, but there’s no doubt there’s one thing we can’t do, and that’s put our heads in the sand. You need a sound strategy on how to communicate with your prospects, customers and network. Now in our previous special episode with Bec Derrington, the SourceBottle, we talked about getting the message right. In this episode we’re going to talk about how to use the messages and communicate to your network by social media, and especially via LinkedIn. And to help us do that we had the LinkedIn Ninja, Jillian Bullock. Jillian, are you there?
Jillian (00:45): Hopefully.
Kym (00:46): Good.
Jillian (00:47): [crosstalk 00:00:47] this is crushed.
Kym (00:49): At least for today you are anyway.
Jillian (00:51): At least for today. Okay, cool.
Kym (00:53): Yeah, look, when we first booked this interview, we’re going to talk about LinkedIn and [inaudible 00:01:00] strategies to build relationships and build relationships offline and all of those sort of things. The world was changed us. One of the things I think we discussed before the call was, what do you do on LinkedIn? What are you seeing on LinkedIn? And what’s driving you crazy and what are you seeing on LinkedIn?
Jillian (01:21): Sure. Okay, so what I have been seeing, which is probably a good place to start, is there’s a heck of a lot more activity. I think there’s a couple of reasons for that. Firstly, is that because people are working from home and they’re not used to it, they’re probably very easily distracted. They don’t have the discipline to work from home without the hustle and bustle of what usually goes on in the corporate office, so they’re going to the social medias to connect. I guess when you do more and more social distancing with people, if you want to call it that, I think it should be called physical distancing. But yeah, we’ll go with what’s going on-
Kym (02:04): We’ll go with the public.
Jillian (02:04): Yeah, we’ll go with the public terminology for it. So social distancing. But the more we’re told not to be with somebody, it’s like a teenager got a crush on a boy. You can’t be with him. Well guess what she does, she crawls out the window and goes and be’s with [crosstalk 00:02:16]. So it’s kind of like when you’re told not to do something, we crave it. That’s just human nature. So we want to be connected, and an easy way to do that is to go onto social media. So I’ve seen a massive upturn in the amount of traffic on LinkedIn. And case in point, I saw my accountant engage with me the other day. Now my accountant I know, because I see him a couple of times a year. He hasn’t been on LinkedIn for about 12 years.
Jillian (02:47): He always wonders how I make my money because he’s like, [crosstalk 00:02:50]-
Kym (02:51): What is this stuff?
Jillian (02:54): Of course now he’s on there. I was like, oh even the devil has come over. Yes [inaudible 00:03:01] listen to this. Yeah, so there’s huge amounts of people on there. So I think there’s an opportunity as such to be in front of more people. But the flip side of that, of course, there’s more people on there, the more noise is happening. And the more posts and activity is going on as well. So even Zooms crashing a lot. Hopefully LinkedIn might crash. [crosstalk 00:03:27] all stuffed. So yeah, that’s definitely-
Kym (03:32): That would never happen to Microsoft, of course, would it?
Jillian (03:34): Of course not. No, no, no. Never, never. So yeah, there’s an opportunity happening there now, but that all comes down to what you’re doing with that opportunity.
Kym (03:45): And what sort of messages are you seeing? We talked before about two different sides of the coin, didn’t we?
Jillian (03:52): Yeah. So I think there’s messages of people putting out more and more information about coronavirus, and saying, have you heard this? Have you heard that? Look how many people are dead in China now? And then, oh look, they’ve closed the hospital. And it’s kind of like, well yeah, but do I really need this from you? It’s kind of on the news all the time. I like actually going into my YouTube app because it has a nice little one line of what’s been the latest thing that the premier or the prime minister has put out. If indeed I want to see the hour to hour updates.
Jillian (04:33): So I don’t really need to see it from some sort of management development specialist or someone who’s in IT putting that stuff out. That’s not really the person I would have thought of to go for that information. So I’ve seen a lot of that, and I think if people are like me it’s like, kind of stay in your own lane. If you’re an IT person, then tell me what I need to know for the 40 people that I had at my work that are all working from home. Is my data at risk? That’s what I want to know. I don’t want to know that my kids need to take off times from school and do homeschooling. That’s not what I’m going to my IT guy for. So yeah, I think people need to be a little smart about it. I’ve also seen some really funny stuff with, I’m having a coronavirus sale, 25% off.
Kym (05:26): Oh dear.
Jillian (05:27): Which is always fun to see because I’m like, oh, that’s a good way to crash and burn your reputation. [crosstalk 00:05:33]-
Kym (05:31): Let’s take advantage of the pandemic.
Jillian (05:35): Oh yeah. Yeah. That’s another. I think it was Winston Churchill or something that said, there’s nothing more better than the latest crisis, or something like that. Nothing better than the latest crisis to cash in on, something like that. So yeah, I think that’s going to put your reputation, and crash and burn before coronavirus does. And then, you also see people going, oh, there’s so much doom and gloom on LinkedIn. We should lift the spirits and do a dance off. Or, let’s get people to do 20 pushups from their home. And there’s that stuff coming out as well. And I’m not really sure what it’s for. I’m missing the point of it. Especially on this platform. I don’t know whether that’s… You know how you’ve probably seen them, there’s people singing in the streets in Italy and Spain and that sort of thing.
Jillian (06:37): And people going out on their balconies and playing piano and stuff. I think it’s beautiful. It’s great if that’s the community spirit to its nth degree. Possibly these 20 pushup challenges are people because they’re in isolation and they’re just sharing it. But it’s kind of sharing it on LinkedIn hoping for engagement or something like that, rather than actually embracing the community spirit. So people singing on their balconies is actually entertaining their neighbours on the balconies across the street. So that’s the community, and they just so happen to capture it on a video. Whereas doing 20 pushups in your back garden to yourself and then sharing it sort of isn’t going along the same lines to me. So I’m not getting it. Somebody would have to explain that to me. I just-
Kym (07:30): Yeah, and I think it comes almost loops back to that first point you make about staying in your lane, if you want to call it that.
Jillian (07:37): Yeah.
Kym (07:39): It really is interesting that whole discussion that you raise because I think sometimes we’re tempted to comment on everything. And I think there’s different platforms. So yeah, Facebook is a different platform than LinkedIn. Facebook is probably perfectly okay to comment on that because it’s a personal thing rather than a business network.
Jillian (08:02): Yeah. [crosstalk 00:08:03] business as usual right now either though.
Kym (08:05): That’s exactly right. Maybe it comes back to one of the things we discussed yesterday in the podcast with Bec Derrington was it comes back between [inaudible 00:08:14] as well. What are you trying to do with the messaging? Whether it’s an email to a client, or LinkedIn or whatever else. And what does the audience really want to hear? I mean, there are basics, aren’t they? That we talk about. But they’re even more important now, aren’t they?
Jillian (08:29): Yes. Yeah, they are. They are, but I think it’s sometimes comes down to a limitation on somebody’s creativity of going, okay. Like they struggle with their marketing when it’s business as usual, and now there’s a great big elephant in the room and it’s like, well how do I keep going when my day-to-day business is not bringing in what it normally would? So I’m becoming a little desperate. So what do I do? Do I do a corona sale? I know somebody who’s reduced their service by 95%.
Kym (09:04): yeah.
Jillian (09:05): And I was like, okay, but in six months time when you try and up it again, have you lost the market? Because they’re like, well, if you’ve got it down for 95% off, I’m not going to pay that money.
Kym (09:16): That’s true. But there are some people, I got an email today from Reg the club, for example, down the South coast that I’m a member of.
Jillian (09:24): Yep.
Kym (09:24): And they’ve had to close all the facilities, clubs, sporting facilities. But what they said is that we’ve got 50% of our bottle shop stock, because they got to clear the stock and get some money. I think that sort of thing is acceptable. Right? It makes [crosstalk 00:09:37] sense to do that.
Jillian (09:38): Well, yeah, that makes sense because it’s this forced closure has completely probably obliterated, what, 50, 60, 70% of their income?
Kym (09:48): Mid 90 probably even in most [crosstalk 00:09:51] cases. Yeah. So really, they got stock sitting there and they’re doing it to pay people. I mean, I think that’s good. Or a restaurant, for example, that’s had to close down and doing takeaway. And what they did say, which I thought was really interesting, is their kitchen is still going. So they can order, phone up an order, or order online, or here and you pick it up from the bottle shop. So these are the messages people want to hear rather than, hey, we’ve got 50% off all [inaudible 00:10:17] because of coronavirus.
Jillian (10:18): Yeah.
Kym (10:18): It’s the phrasing sometimes as well.
Jillian (10:21): It is the phrasing, but it’s also people that are consultants and that sort of arena, we didn’t have to shut up anything. We didn’t have to close down. We weren’t forced to close down a very social get together kind of place like a restaurant. So is there a need to pull your services back in 95%? Will that be recoverable in three to six months? I’m not sure.
Kym (10:50): 100%.
Jillian (10:51): We have no answers, because we haven’t gone through this before.
Kym (10:52): No, no, exactly. But I think if you are in that situation, obviously you probably need to go out and find some income. But I think it’s still worthwhile if you have time to be sharing what’s happening with your network. And I think LinkedIn is a perfectly good way to do that. To be [crosstalk 00:11:09] you can say to people, look we cut it back to take away, but it’s only 5%. So who knows if we’re going to be around in three months, but in the meantime, heres our favourite, I don’t know, menu item. Or our favourite recipe, whatever. Just some way of being in front of people to just keep that contact up, because [crosstalk 00:11:28] if there’s a big gap of three months I think that could be a problem for people.
Jillian (11:31): Oh yeah, for sure. For sure. [crosstalk 00:00:11:34]-
Kym (11:35): Out of sight, out of mind, right?
Jillian (11:38): Yeah, for sure.
Kym (11:41): But coming back to what we spoke about, about keeping in line. One of the other really good ones I read today was from an HR consultant/business coach, and he was talking about how to manage and motivate your team while they’re working remotely. I think it’s a perfectly great way to do it. Right?
Jillian (12:01): Absolutely. That sounds spot on. That sounds spot on.
Kym (12:05): An accountant who’s talking about all the assistance that’s available for the peoples, for the government. These are things that people can hear and-
Jillian (12:13): Oh yeah. Yeah, for sure. I think that’s an easy one for accountants to do because there are all these extra bits and pieces that, first of all the government were not looking after, like the sole traders. And they were just missing that boat all together. And I was sitting there going, hello? And then they did something with people bank payroll. There was some sort of, I don’t know what it was. If you pay a certain amount of stuff in payroll, you could get a thing back. Well, that doesn’t affect me, although I’ve got two staff, I actually go through an agency because I don’t know what I’m doing with payroll tax and super and all that sort of stuff. So I just pay more per hour to go through this agency. [crosstalk 00:12:53]-
Kym (12:57): And they manage all that on your behalf.
Jillian (12:57): … payroll tax. Yeah, they do all that on my behalf. It’s easy. And that covers the insurance and all that sort of stuff as well. But of course that means that I’m not registered with payroll tax for my staff. So I was like, ah, okay. So that means that I’m not covered for any of the ascend… And getting accountants to put out information about all these different incentives and cashbacks and this and that. You know, that’s important to me and I need to know that. But some of them are putting out very generic information. Perhaps they had it on something like Hootsuite or Buffer and it was scheduled, and so they haven’t put it on pause. It’s just scheduling out the same old, same old. [crosstalk 00:13:37]-
Kym (13:37): Yeah. Yeah. Perhaps. And I think, well the other thing is to think about with people, it’s slightly off the topic of LinkedIn. If you’ve got an automation sequence set up for the next few weeks, I’ll be pausing it.
Jillian (13:48): Oh yeah.
Kym (13:49): Or having a look at what you’re sending out, right? Than just letting it happen.
Jillian (13:54): Yeah, yeah, for sure. That needs to be totally paused and reviewed before they put the click on again to let it out. Especially if they got workshops coming up.
Kym (14:03): Well, that’s right. So how would you, if you had a piece like we said for the HR manager, the business coach, et cetera, would you just post it on LinkedIn as an article? How would you actually share that with people?
Jillian (14:20): What sort of thing?
Kym (14:21): Like the HR example we said before about how to look after and motivate employees while working remotely. It’s a piece of content that is very relevant. Would you just do it as an article? How would you share that?
Jillian (14:34): Well articles don’t really get as much traction as posts, so I would perhaps split it in between, into different things. They could even incorporate some tips from their IT person or from somebody who has more advice on something specifically, because they may not know. Like this HR person may not know about cybersecurity. I mean, apparently people are able to break into Zooms now. So there’s some, yeah, there’s some warnings coming out saying don’t enable your Zoom to go ahead without the host there and things like that because they can do all sorts of stuff. And I think they’re downloading pornography as you’re going. Something like that. Yeah, it’s great. These hackers have nothing better to do.
Kym (15:24): [inaudible 00:15:25].
Jillian (15:29): Yeah, so there’s all sorts of things like that. But even, I’ve seen a couple of posts with somebody doing a Zoom chat and somebody forgetting they’re on camera and going to the bathroom. And everybody saw the undies coming down and all that [crosstalk 00:15:42]. But there’s a clergyman in Italy starting a service. I’m not sure what he was using, it was like Snapchat or something. And he left a filter on that was giving him clown hats and stuff like that. So I think there’s a lot of tips like that for people that are not used to doing business online. Let us know that there was a filter as a default on something like Snapchat, or whatever it was. So that you make sure you turn it off before you start playing.
Kym (16:16): Or turn your camera off on Zoom or whatever it might be.
Jillian (16:20): Yeah, yeah. Because it’s a lot of bandwidth when you’ve got the camera on. And just don’t take the computer to the bathroom with you. That would be a good idea too.
Kym (16:30): Probably not a bad idea.
Jillian (16:33): Maybe take it out of your ear and say, I’ll be back in a minute people. Take it with you. It’s not YouTube, there is a camera facing back.
Kym (16:42): So the other thing maybe is just, ask people. Not just on LinkedIn, pick up the phone and ask them what they want to know. What are they uncertain about?
Jillian (16:50): Absolutely.
Kym (16:53): So then create a piece of content. I guess it doesn’t have to be a perfect piece of content, right? We’re not after in this time, nothing is perfect at the moment, right?
Jillian (17:05): No.
Kym (17:05): So this is as of today, it changes every day. As of today, here are the things to think about if staff are working remotely.
Jillian (17:14): Yep. But [crosstalk 00:17:15] that’s not the only subject, of course. You need to think about, what’s your business as usual, and staying in your own lane. Right? What’s your business as usual? But also, what’s changed? And almost documenting what’s changed, what you’re going through. So, do you have something that… I mean, I’d love to hear from some productivity experts. There are people that do that. That’s their niche. Where are they right now? Are they letting us know how to be productive while we’ve got two weeks of homeschooling? Which I started yesterday [crosstalk 00:17:54]. And working out my time. Because the kids are asking when recess is. Now for me, your recess is when I have a call.
Kym (18:03): Yeah.
Jillian (18:05): It’s not at 11 o’clock when you used to have it. Sorry, kids. It’s when I have a call because I don’t want you in the office, I want you upstairs watching TV or playing on your iPad, or whatever. [crosstalk 00:18:17].
Kym (18:18): Yeah, yeah. While I’m working. Yeah.
Jillian (18:21): As long as it’s not down here. So there’s some productivity experts that should be stepping up to the plate right now. I’d love to see more of that. The whole, this doesn’t affect me because I’ve worked from home for 19 years, but any kind of discipline stuff. Is it good for people to actually set a timer? You set your phone timer for 30 minutes and you get a project done, because you don’t have the boss coming around the back of you every five minutes like you used to. So yes, yes, the washing has got to be done. Yes, yes, the dishwasher’s got to be stacked. But you’re actually at home to self isolate, not to do that sort of thing. So is that the sort of post that could come out?
Jillian (19:04): Let’s just take something completely different. Give me a subject that somebody might be doing that’s their thing. So I had a client, for example, who’s a copywriter. Okay, a very technical copywriter, does tenders and stuff like that. I’m just opening my book under my cat’s paw. So that sort of thing, right? So is there tender still going out at the moment? That would be the first thing. So if he wants to educate his connections, it would be really interesting to see the amount of tenders that he usually gets notifications of through his email, which he was telling me. Has that dropped off? Is there government tenders still going out? Is it still business as usual as far as the government goes? Is there being more opportunity since coronavirus for tenders?
Kym (19:56): Yep.
Jillian (19:57): Has that actually increased? The number of orders for toilet paper has increased. So, has tenders increased? Right? So what’s happening in your industry? Is it contracting or is it expanding? That’s one thing. Do you have to go through different avenues for something? I’ve got some stuff going with the court systems at the moment with some contracts and stuff like that on a personal level. So I rang my solicitor and I said, are they still processing this stuff? Or is like, because it’s going through the Supreme Court? And it’s like, is it being processed or is it all on hold? I would have loved to have heard from a lawyer saying, okay, in the court system everything can still be processed and done remotely. So the working from home thing has not stopped usual processes. But I had to call to ask that.
Kym (21:00): Yeah, you had to try and find out-
Jillian (21:01): Yeah, I had to try and find out.
Kym (21:01): Amongst everything else you got to do.
Jillian (21:06): Yeah, homeschooling [crosstalk 00:21:04]. Yeah. So I think it’s, and for me personally, I can start putting out more content with, it’s really bad taste to put out a coronavirus sale right now. People are trying to work out whether the country is going to be locked down. They’re not in a conversation of you reducing your prices with a product or service you think people could still use. So we’re not in that mindset right now. So don’t try and sell right now. Give, give, give. This is for, I don’t know how long. A week, maybe two weeks, maybe three weeks until stuff has settled and we know what’s actually going on. Then you need to advise people on stuff you know that’s happening in your niche.
Kym (21:54): They may not know about. Yep.
Jillian (21:56): That they might know about and probably need to know about or haven’t thought to ask because they’re in panic mode. And when people are in panic, it’s like deer in headlights. They’re just sort of staring at it going, oh crap, what do I do?
Kym (22:10): Yeah, absolutely.
Jillian (22:11): And they haven’t even thought of the questions they need to ask. So this is an offer in terms of LinkedIn and what to do on there. Then shift with what’s happening, but don’t take advantage of what’s happening, because you will lose people longterm. This is not the time to do that.
Kym (22:32): Yeah. I mean, if you’ve got something, share it and let people know about it, but just make sure it’s not self-serving.
Jillian (22:38): Yeah. Yeah, just-
Kym (22:40): Just, yeah, like we’re doing with this. There’s no ulterior motive with what we’re doing here, we’re trying to help people think about what they’re doing on LinkedIn. [crosstalk 00:22:49] Whether they buy from me is irrelevant.
Jillian (22:53):
Absolutely. And it’s pretty easy to go, well, oh God, I don’t know how to advertise myself now because everything’s changed. Well it’s like, well think about you getting your point of expertise out, right? Especially if it’s relevant right now. And how can you get that point of expertise out? And one way is to go, hmm, how many people are actually running podcasts on, say a business?
Kym (23:18): Yeah.
Jillian (23:18): Let me go through LinkedIn and check that out. Do a search, business, podcast, host. That easy. And you’ll come up with 2,000 of them. So that’s an easy one to do, shifting with the times because podcasts are, you know, you don’t charge $49.95 for somebody to subscribe to your podcast. And then at the end of every episode say, buy my stuff, $495.95. It doesn’t happen.
Kym (23:45): No, that’s right.
Jillian (23:48): But we are in isolation and we need to hear voices. And I don’t know, you tell me. Is more people listening to podcast since coronavirus? Perhaps they are.
Kym (23:59): Yeah. [crosstalk 00:23:59] I haven’t seen enough stats yet to be able to answer that.
Jillian (24:02): Yeah, but it would be interesting to do. I mean, I know I’ve got a client who has a podcasting studio, and we cancelled our last visit to the studio, because we didn’t want to be in that small room [crosstalk 00:24:15] table. And so what can they do right now? Can they shift their podcasting stuff to having more remote ones being recorded that their clients [crosstalk 00:24:29]? Or, can they actually do some research in the podcasting world? Have podcasts increased since coronavirus? And what podcasts are people wanting to listen to? Are they wanting to listen to mindset coaches? Are they wanting to listen to hope and wonderful story podcasts? Or is it still, like women in Australia, they love murder mysteries. [crosstalk 00:24:55] podcasts.
Kym (24:54): Yeah, the true crime stuff.
Jillian (24:57): Yeah, true crime stuff. And the men want entertainment and laugh a minute stuff. Is that still the case? Or do women want to just laugh at men?
Kym (25:07): Yeah. So what are the trends that are happening that affect people? Sharing that expertise I think is really, really important. And I think everyone’s got that, everyone has their own industries or their own information, but sharing that in relation to how it affects people. And I think just how your addressing it too as a business, right? I mean, not just, hey, we’re following safety procedures and washing our hands. But what exactly does working remotely mean? Hey, we found Zoom. If you’re not sure how to use Zoom, here’s a great hack with that. You can do stuff like that.
Jillian (25:41): Yep. It could be.
Kym (25:42): Is appropriate.
Jillian (25:43): I mean there may be, for example, you and I both worked from home, home offices for years. There may be some info that we could do on that, but let’s not do 18 posts about it.
Kym (25:55): No, absolutely. Absolutely. [crosstalk 00:25:58] It’s been really hard for me to adapt to coming out of an office, back to a home office after so many years, to be honest. It’s a bit strange doing that. And I sort of spent half my life without technology, so maybe there should be something on how to circumvent the Telstra call centre would be a wonderful post.
Jillian (26:18): Yeah, for sure. I mean, I had an assistant once that came out of corporate and she was sick of it. I think she had a horrible boss, blah, blah, blah. She lasted two months. That was it. And her reason for quitting, and she said, it’s too quiet I can’t concentrate when it’s just you and me and one other person now and then, because the other person’s part-time. She goes, no, I can’t deal with this, it’s too quiet. I need the hustle and bustle. I need the cafe downstairs. I need to pretend I smoke and go out with some friends for a smoke-o break because they get a break and I don’t.
Jillian (26:51): And that was her reason for leaving. So is mental health an issue right now? And can people turn to people like you and I and go, if you do this, this and this. [crosstalk 00:27:03]-
Kym (26:59): Here’s the things I do when I’m working from home, or things I do when the kids are driving me crazy when I’m trying to work or whatever it might be.
Jillian (27:11): Yeah. I mean, that mixes up the posts really all. But I mean, I don’t want to contradict ourselves from the beginning and go stay in your lane. But-
Kym (27:17): But it is your lane [crosstalk 00:27:18] kids at home. That is your life.
Jillian (27:22): Yeah, I was just going to add that. There is multiple layers. LinkedIn is my lane, yes, but it’s also, such as yourself, like I’ve got 25 years marketing background as well. So there are, let’s talk about marketing a little bit and how you can shift in this market. Right? But I don’t charge for marketing advice, I just bring that into the background of LinkedIn stuff. But there is a couple of layers that I can add, like how to be disciplined to reach a self-imposed deadline or a client imposed deadline from a home environment. That’s also what I can do. How to get your cat off your desk when she’s lying on all the paperwork, I still haven’t mastered that.
Kym (28:11): Going back to the LinkedIn, how do you feel about LinkedIn invitations and building network in the current environment? Do you think you should just console that we what you’ve got in messaging people? Is it appropriate or does it seem self-serving to you if your write a decent article on any of the topics we’ve discussed to reach out to new people with that article?
Jillian (28:31): I don’t know if I’d reach out to them with the article, but it’s certainly there for people to come over to when you connect. But I think there’s a definite advantage right now for people that aren’t got super high connection numbers. So I’m sort of talking maybe definitely under 2,000. There’s so many more people on LinkedIn now that you can definitely get an answer from somebody without going, okay, my target market is, XYZ people. And then some of them don’t answer you for a year and a half, and you forgot you even sent the request. Whereas now I think they’re more likely to answer it because there’s more people on the platform. So I think definitely that-
Kym (29:16): Right, just connect in the normal way, don’t try and do it any different. Yeah.
Jillian (29:20): Yeah, yeah. No, don’t try and do anything different, but you could actually prioritise that right now. You can probably get more traction. For those that probably have 5,000 to, I don’t know, 50,000 or whatever, then maybe it’s more of a touch point with what you’ve already got. You may have not spoken to somebody for quite a while and you can just reach out and say, crazy times we’re living in. Just wanted to say good day.
Kym (29:51): Yep.
Jillian (29:52): And because they’re more likely to be on there right now. And they could actually have a bit of a chat conversation with you.
Kym (30:02): Yeah, yeah.
Jillian (30:04): I’ve sent some videos to some people overseas through LinkedIn messaging, to actually have that human face there for them. That’s a big one.
Kym (30:17): Yes. So just a simple message out to a network just to say hello.
Jillian (30:23): Yeah.
Kym (30:26): Yeah. Because I mean, [crosstalk 00:30:27] you’re right, people are sitting at home, working from home craving that connection that they no longer have.
Jillian (30:29): Yes. So if there’s women like me that are having a day like today where I haven’t done my makeup, then I’m probably going to do voicemails. But if you are having a video appropriate day, or just don’t care. Or for the men, do the actual video. You can record, just a tip on this, you can record up to two minutes and it’ll still take the recording. But it won’t fricking send. So do you under one minute.
Kym (30:58): Right.
Jillian (30:59): It’ll sit there in error and go, tap again to try and send it. And it’s like, eh, it won’t send.
Kym (31:07): But that’s an interesting [crosstalk 00:31:04], I didn’t know that everyone even knows you can do video recording on LinkedIn.
Jillian (31:08): Yeah. The funny thing is though, it does default to saving it in your own phone storage of videos and photos. So [crosstalk 00:31:22] make sure you delete it.
Kym (31:23): In the library.
Jillian (31:25): Yeah, your photo library. So it’s like, good, thanks for taking up all that data space. So just go through later on and delete them all, because you don’t need them anymore.
Kym (31:35): That’s a wonderful idea. It’s a short little video message out to people to say hello. Just say hi, I’m here. Work from home [crosstalk 00:31:43]. I hope you were travelling okay. I’m doing a lot of Zoom meetings. I hope you’re finding Zoom. Whatever it is that’s [crosstalk 00:31:48]-
Jillian (31:49): Yeah, whatever it is. But if people are sitting there going, oh my God, I’ve got 5,000, 6,000 connections, I’m not doing that. That’s ridiculous. Well, how about your suppliers, or your ideal clients that have stopped buying and stopped using you right now? Or you know that are having it tough because they’re in a market that’s just bottomed out, like event space and restaurants and things like that. They could definitely have a little wave, hello message. And keep it upbeat too.
Kym (32:21): Yeah, yeah. Yeah. No [crosstalk 00:32:23]-
Jillian (32:23): Don’t send a message of, can you believe that I’m dying here.
Kym (32:24): Yeah, can you believe the world’s falling out? And, can you believe the restaurants are closed? Yeah, I know that already.
Jillian (32:30): Or maybe take your mask off before you start the message.
Kym (32:34): Yeah, exactly.
Jillian (32:36): And the nuclear power sign behind you that is like, do not enter. Perhaps do the video somewhere else.
Kym (32:40): Yeah, that’s right.
Jillian (32:43): So yeah, it’s potentially a good time to really connect and do some touch points with people. So take the time to do that, but don’t start pushing sales. [crosstalk 00:32:56]-
Kym (32:56): No. I guess, coming back to, how would you summarise a letter in a couple of sentences, Jillian?
Jillian (33:03): Oh good Lord.
Kym (33:05): We covered a lot of ground here, haven’t we?
Jillian (33:08): Okay, so I think… Oh gosh. Okay. To summarise I would say there’s more opportunity on LinkedIn than ever before. People are coming back, so take advantage of that opportunity. If you’ve got a small amount of connections, use this time to increase those connections. You’re more likely to get a yes right now just from the sheer volume of people. In terms of posting, try and stay in your lane. Oh, I’m doing okay, it’s actually coming out pretty well, isn’t it/
Kym (33:39): You’re doing really well.
Jillian (33:41): I’m surprising myself. So try and stay in your lane, even if your lane is a little bit multi-layered, but don’t start going into stuff that you really only know a little bit about.
Kym (33:53): Into the mathematics of exponential growth, for example.
Jillian (33:55): Yeah. Like, I’m not going to start talking about the coding behind LinkedIn. I don’t actually know. So staying in your lane that way. And change with the times of what’s going on in the world. You need to join the conversation, but not sell in the conversation. So advice, not sales, especially now.
Kym (34:18): Yeah.
Jillian (34:19): Boom. I did it.
Kym (34:20): Jillian Bullock, fantastic. I can’t believe you actually summarised that discussion so quickly and so easily.
Jillian (34:28): I did. There you go.
Kym (34:33): Well I can’t actually believe it. So Jillian, if people do want to connect with you and find out more about, they go to LinkedInninja.com.au.
Jillian (34:42): They can. It’s looking a little sad over there. I’m [crosstalk 00:34:46]-
Kym (34:46):
Is it? Okay. Well they better go into LinkedIn and looking for [crosstalk 00:34:49] Jillian Bullock.
Jillian (34:51): … every day. There’s a lot of updates that I’m doing to the website at the moment, so it’s a little old and a little sad.
Kym (35:00): So we’ll just spell [crosstalk 00:35:00] that out for people too. So J-I-L-L-I-A-N B-U-L-L-O-C-K.
Jillian (35:06): That’s it.
Kym (35:06): Bullock. [crosstalk 00:35:07] the LinkedIn Ninja.
Jillian (35:08): Yep. Come on over to LinkedIn and talk to me there.
Kym (35:12): Jillian, thank you so much for your time and your wisdom as always. And the LinkedIn Ninja not for no reason. [crosstalk 00:35:21] And we really do appreciate that. And we’ll get this out to people. And jump on LinkedIn, you’ll see what Jillian is doing and probably how to do it right as well. Rather than taking the wrong path. Jillian, thanks again so much for your time. And best of luck with everything.
Jillian (35:38): Yes. You’re very welcome. And, you too.
Kym (35:40): Okay. Thanks Jillian.
Jillian (35:41): Bye.
Kym (35:43): So that’s it for me, Kym Heffernan in The Marketing Strategy Show today, we hope you found the tips useful in learning how to better communicate with your clients and prospects during this crisis. Keep well, keep safe, and keep smiling, because we will get over this together. Thank you.
