SUMMARY

LinkedIn marketing is becoming increasingly popular among technology partners but why is it so important?

The business platform is incredibly valuable and beneficial to your growth because you’re meeting your future (and existing) clients where they are! But the persistent question for many MSPs - how do I actually make this work for me?

Here are 7 tricks and tips from our industry experts - Jessika Phillips, Scott Millar, and Shannon Murphy, to get more leads, referrals, and clients from LinkedIn marketing.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

1.How should you interact on social media to increase awareness as an MSP?

Social Media is a relationship-building tool. The best way to show up is to think about how you can take what you’re already doing in your business and translate it authentically online. That's going to create a sense of belonging. You want to connect with the right people.

Show up in a way that's authentic to you, that has your own tone of voice. Also, think about who you're already connected with within your community that believes what you believe or can add synergy. Especially on LinkedIn, every time you meet someone. If there is somebody that is your ideal person, connect with them. Engage with them. That’s going to help then start building that momentum to keep it growing.

If your clients are a little more introverted and maybe not as out there in the community, help connect clients to clients, and be the connector to utilize those connections.

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2.How to grow your network with your potential customer base?

Know your buyer’s personas. Think about what you post before you post it.

POST –

P stands for Personalized. Word of mouth is now a ‘World of Mouth’ and how people can refer to you. So you want to connect with the people you're already doing business with because those are the ones that are going to be more likely to refer you on.

O stands for Open-ended. You want people to be able to respond back. You want a two-way dialogue to happen. Post content that people know that they are welcome to respond to.

The S is Style. People should be able to read your post and know that it’s your content. It sounds like you and has your personality.

The T is all about Timeliness. If you use real people doing real things in real-time or something that's relevant to today, you're going to get more engagement, build deeper relationships, and get people coming back to you more often.

The majority of MSPs are servicing a local market or a particular industry or niche. If you can position yourself in that marketplace as the technology leader and address the pain points that your existing clients are talking about to you on a daily basis. Come up with actionable solutions in the content that your existing clients can walk away with and take an action on today. That can really drive the engagement in the content that you're posting out there on LinkedIn.

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3.Use FAQs to create your content.  

There's a 10-by-10 formula. Write down the top 10 questions that your customers are currently asking. You can create content on that as a video or blog content. Share content that you're sourcing and find ways to collaborate. Also, tap 10 questions that you wished your clients were asking, but they're not the expert, so they don't know how to ask them.

Think about how you can take this content and collaborate with somebody else to expand its reach, activate it, and accelerate it even more. There’s also the peer aspect of answering FAQs. Take a stance and then ask for the opinion of peers who are also leading and have great communities.

A really good tip for MSPs is their help desk-- a log of all of the pain points your clients have. That's the content toolbox that’s listed out for you.

You want to be known as an expert and lead people to you. You can also use the 10-4-1 formula, where out of every 15 posts, create personalized persona-based content.  

And then 4 could be other sourced content as well. The 1 is then that soft call to action. Where you promote yourself in a way that doesn't feel salesy.

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4.For MSPs working within small business communities for a majority, reciprocity is a really important point to underline.

The concept of being a magnet versus a bullhorn is how you approach showing up. When you're showing up in a way of thinking about what content you want to create and what content will your community enjoy? Then think who's already the expert in this field and already has this trusted built-in community around it that we could align with?  

The conversations are key. Not only is that going to build a better rapport, but you can also look at ways that you could collaborate together to expand your reach.

Feature your clients all the time and say, “here's something cool that they're doing”. Shine the light on them. By shining the light on others, it also shines a light on you.

If you're an MSP who has team members, they can be your best evangelists. You can shine the light on them, too, and cool things that they're doing within their role and collaborate with them to see what they're hearing day-to-day on working with your clients. By doing this, you shift the mindset from just selling and promoting yourself, but to creating a sense of belonging with all of that community, that's going to be what creates the momentum to expand your reach and keep people coming back to you and sticking with you like a magnet.

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5.How to grab attention in the feed? How to stop that scroll to get people to look at your content?

Posting out on a consistent basis. If you're connecting with the right people, you will definitely get the engagement that way. Think about how to make it craveable? What is going to leave people wanting more and coming back to you again and again to get more of that?  

If you want to stop the feed, think about how can you care for others’ content. CARE, being another acronym—

C stands for Capturing the attention first. And that's creating consistent content that is showing up with clarity and conviction about what you're sharing.

A stands for Articulating your message so people know what they're coming back to.  

The R is all about Relationships. Who can you bring into the conversation? But also, how are you going out, if somebody is engaging with you?

The E part of CARE is all about creating a better experience.

Do what you're comfortable doing. That's a really key thing to this. Identify which media you're going to use for it. Most MSPs just don't have the time of the day to be marketing in the first place. So if you can just pull out your phone, do a quick two-minute video on your phone, and post that to LinkedIn, that's out of the way for the day.

Remember, lifestyle content always wins

You’ll find videos that get engagement are the ones that are literally just you picking your phone up over a hot topic. It's something that's close to your heart. It may have just happened. And you want to transfer some of that motion into the video. And you don't care what the surroundings look like. You're just getting to the point and the topic. You'll find that they have much higher engagement than the professionally shot videos.

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6.What are some things that you could be putting out on LinkedIn with your peers?

If you know you're going to an event, think about who you want to connect with before you get there. Reach out to them if you're not already connected and say, “I see that you are the expert at this, maybe we can collaborate on some content while we're there together”.  

If you're at an event, take a selfie with the speakers, your fellow peers, members of your community, and a fellow business owner. Post it on LinkedIn, and tag those fellow business owners. That's a great way to just show that you're out, and you're continuing your learning.

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7.Top three tips that the guests shared with the audience for getting more exposure on LinkedIn, mastering this organic side of things.

Jessica: One is, starting from the inside out, thinking through for what purpose are people going to come back to you and how can you create content that's crave-able? Just pause first and get clarity on what it is that you do best because it's not really about what you do, but how you do it that's going to leave people wanting more and coming back to you.

Tip two is to be consistent. And three, be personal. So, personalize your stuff.  You want to personalize your content like you're having a conversation. Get inside the inbox on LinkedIn and send audio messages. Be memorable, not generic, because the community is not for sale. It's something you have to earn overtime.

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Scott: The first one is to build an audience. Go back to your ideal clients. Look at the existing client base, the ones that you love working with, the ones that are the most profitable, look for similar businesses and manually build up a list and then find them using tools like LinkedIn Sales Navigator or the search in LinkedIn.

The second step is to educate that audience by positioning yourself as the local technology leader. And the third step is following up with that audience. You're building that targeted list of prospects. See what hashtags are they using and then start interacting directly with their content in the feed.

TRANSCRIPT

SHANNON MURPHY:

So hello and welcome to our webinar, Convert Seven Times More Clients with LinkedIn Social Selling. I'm Shannon Murphy, chief marketer at Zomentum, the revenue platform reinventing partner sales. Today I'm joined by Jessika Phillips and Scott Millar.

Let me tell you a little bit about Jessika first. Jessika is a social media strategist known for relationship marketing. Jessika's mission is to inspire people to love more, give more, and be more through the art of authentic relating.

She founded NOW Marketing Group in 2010 with only a laptop and a vision. The company is now a Forbes-recognized agency partner and works with 100 plus clients around the world, choosing to serve, not sell. And that's a big, big focus of this webinar series. We want to help you guys show up and hopefully create great relationships that also help you sell. Jessika presents a weekly video cast, Magnet Marketers, and hosts one of the largest social media conferences, Social Media Week Lima. Welcome, Jessika.

JESSIKA PHILLIPS:

Hey. Thanks so much for having me. I'm excited to be here.

SHANNON MURPHY:

And, of course, let us not forget Scott, my friend, Scott, who also just welcomed a new baby a few weeks ago. A systems engineer at heart, Scott sought an opportunity at a young age to generate leads for his break-fix computer repair business using online marketing techniques. This evolved into the managed service space, where Scott has worked for now 15, over 15 years. Now as the founder of IT Rockstars, he's helping fellow MSPs and IT business owners generate more leads and win more sales. Awesome. Thank you, Scott, for being here.

SCOTT MILLAR:

Thanks for having me, Shannon. Excellent to be here, really excited today.

SHANNON MURPHY:

Yeah, did you have a little sugar before you jumped on the line?

SCOTT MILLAR:

Yeah, something like that, yeah.

SHANNON MURPHY:

All right, so we wanted to do-- I'm doing a LinkedIn April, guys, right? So we have another session in two weeks going through Sales Navigator. But I consistently, in Zomentum, we're a sales platform. I've been doing these series since November. And consistently in the chat, we have the chat always blowing up, asking questions about LinkedIn and how to make the most of this professional platform.

So today's session is really about interacting organically on social and building awareness for you and your brand becoming what Jessika likes to say, like a magnet, right? So we're going to dive right in. And first question for you both, we'll start with you, Jessika, is how do I interact on social media to increase awareness as an MSP?

JESSIKA PHILLIPS:

Yeah, the first thing, I think, when we think about social media is to think more of the social and less of the media when you're trying to approach it. I think many people think, OK, it's a social selling platform. But in reality, it's just a relationship-building tool. So if you approach it like that, the best way to show up is to think, how can I take what I'm already doing in my business and translate it authentically online, and the best way that's going to create the sense of belonging and, like you said, what I love to say, being a magnet versus a bullhorn to really connect with your ideal audience, because we're not trying to reach everyone anyway. We want to connect with the right people.

So showing up in a way that's authentic to you, that has your own tone of voice, if you will, and that is really leading with the heart of serving over selling-- the selling will happen naturally, as relationships do. But you focus on being social first. And that's how you approach it with the mindset, versus I'm just coming here to be helpful, to connect with others, and help them connect to solve a problem faster or reach a goal faster by me being there.

SCOTT MILLAR:

Yeah, I think, I think just to build on that, from a MSPs perspective, is really knowing the type of customers that you're looking to do business with, looking at your existing client base, the ones that are the most profitable, the ones that you like working with, and the ones that your team get along with as well, and attracting in similar types of businesses. So from the LinkedIn perspective, what we've seen that works really well for MSPs is looking at Sales Navigator specifically. And you mentioned that you've got this as a topic for another webinar in a couple of weeks' time. So I won't go into the details here.

But it's extremely powerful, the Sales Navigator tool, if you know who it is you actually want to do business with. And I speak to a lot of our peers that are just happy to just pick up any client that's going to land on their lap. But if you can plan a little bit around who your ideal customers are, you'll actually be able to target them precisely on places like LinkedIn. So hopefully that makes sense.

JESSIKA PHILLIPS:

Can I add one more thing to that, too? Yeah, and I think that's awesome. One more thing to that is also think about who you're already connected with, right, in your community that believes what you believe or can add synergy, maybe already has a trusted built-in community, like us here, right? We all agree with how to serve on LinkedIn. So we're connected now there. And I can go engage with your social post and share it out.

But think of who you're already connected with, too, that you can just start building this momentum off of and how you're showing up. Especially on LinkedIn, every time you meet someone. If there is somebody that. Like Scott says, is your ideal person, connect with them. Engage with them. And that's going to help then start building that momentum to keep it growing.

SHANNON MURPHY:

Mhm, yeah, and I think connecting with all of your current clients, right?

JESSIKA PHILLIPS:

Exactly.

SHANNON MURPHY:

We're talking about those in the community that share ethos and mutual support, but even if your clients are a little more introverted and maybe not as out there in the community, are you connected with them on LinkedIn and utilizing those connections? If you're maybe prospecting and looking at another business, wouldn't it be nice to know that two of your clients are already connected with them, right? You don't have that visibility unless you do it.

JESSIKA PHILLIPS:

Then you can help connect clients to clients, right, and be the connector. That's the beautiful thing on LinkedIn, is it is that professional connection network, right? And now they have so many built-in tools. I know Scott just talked about Sales Navigator, which breaks down, but even the newsletters that they've enhanced this past two weeks, to be able to send helpful content, it's perfect for MSPs, talk about the latest, maybe this new ransomware stuff or whatever. But giving that helpful pieces of content that then is delivered to people right in LinkedIn from you then helps to continue building that rapport with your current customers and others.

SHANNON MURPHY:

Mhm, yeah, and that completely links to what our next question is, which is how would we grow our network with our potential customer base? I think Scott talked about being very focused on who you're targeting. But do you have any other additional tips, Jessika?

JESSIKA PHILLIPS:

Yeah, I love that one. Scott, I'm a big believer on knowing your buyer personas. The other way is the content that you're producing, really think through, I like to say, the post. Think about what you post before you post it.

And POST-- I'm a fan of acronyms, but it'll help you remember to know if it's good content that's really going to connect with your ideal community, is the P stands for personalized. So is it personalized to the ideal person that you're trying to connect with or have already connected with? Because you don't want to forget about your current customers.

Word of mouth is now world of mouth and how people can refer you. So you want to connect with the people you're already doing business with, because those are the ones that are going to be more likely to refer you on. So pretend like you're talking to those people. And personalize your content specifically.

And make it open ended. That's the O part of post. So you want people to be able to respond back. Social media-- LinkedIn is a social network. We want a two-way dialogue to happen. So the questions within content that you're posting helps people know that they are welcome to respond.

The S in post is style. So it's all-- it sounds like you. I should be able to read Scott's post and know that it is his content. It sounds like him. It's his personality, versus Shannon's is going to have a little bit more of her personality.

And then the T is all about timeliness. So real people doing real things in real time or something that's relevant to today, if you put that formula into your content that you're sharing on LinkedIn, you're going to get more engagement, build deeper relationships, and get people coming back to you more often as the leader in what you do.

SCOTT MILLAR:

Yeah, and I think-- just to build on that, Jessika, from an MSP's perspective, how they have that style and what it actually is, it's something I always try and get my clients to believe, my MSP clients, is that they need to position themselves as the local technology leader. Majority of MSPs, they're servicing a local market or a particular industry or niche. But if they can position themselves in that marketplace as the technology leader and addressing, I guess almost like the pain points that your existing clients are talking about to you on a daily basis, addressing those pain points in the content and coming up with actionable solutions in the content itself that your prospects on your existing clients can walk away with and take an action on today. That can really drive the engagement in the content that you're posting out there on LinkedIn.

SHANNON MURPHY:

Mhm, yep. And I'm actually going to launch a post right now asking-- I think this is a nice segue-- asking about how easy it is for our attendees to find material and subject matter to post, right? Have a notebook ready, because I think Scott and Jessika are going to give you some good tips, not just how to format it via Jessika's post framework, but, of course, Scott just gave you an excellent point right there, of what are these FAQs that you're commonly being asked? Why are you not creating content for that quickly?

JESSIKA PHILLIPS:

I was going to say, that's the key right there. Honestly, there's a 10-by-10 formula. I got to credit Stephanie Liu for this. She's a LinkedIn Live person. But also, she just has a great framework on how to create content that is endless.

And it's a 10-by-10 formula. And Scott just hit it. It was, one, the top 10 questions that your customers are currently asking, just write those down. You already should know what those are. And that's this content that you can create as a video or blog content or share content that you're sourcing and finding ways to collaborate, but then tap 10 questions that you wished your clients were asking, but they're not the expert, so they don't know to ask it. There you have 20 pieces of content that you can create in a multitude of different ways.

And think about, how can I take this content and maybe collaborate with somebody else, then, to expand its reach, to activate it and accelerate it even more to answer this question? How can I create this content? And think of maybe bring it in Scott if I'm writing something on MSPs.

He's the expert in it. I can quote him or link up with him and we could collaborate on a piece of content, to now that it's expanding its reach. Just like what you're doing here at this webinar now, you have two other people that are expanding your content's reach, that we both have trusted built-in communities, as do you. And now we're expanding our network overall with our content.

SHANNON MURPHY:

Mhm, yep, and I think it could even-- it's the expert angle, like you said, maybe quoting an expert and maybe getting them to interact with you, especially if you already have a good relationship with them. I think there's also the peer factor, too, right, of I know a lot of MSPs are active in peer groups, right? So if you're going to answer maybe an FAQ and you know somebody else has a similar opinion to yours, or I always say this, because it can get dicey if they're like no, I completely disagree with your perspective on how to address this, right? You don't maybe want that. Well, or you can handle it. I'll let you decide.

But the peer aspect, right, of answering that FAQ and then tossing it to one of your friends by tagging them and saying, what do you think, right? I've seen experts in the content marketing community do this repeatedly, right? They take a stance and then ask for the opinion of their peers who are also leading and have great communities. And that's how you can. So that's what Jessika means by taking that 10-by-10 formula and then also leveraging your friends and peers.

OK, and then so I would say right now, I wanted to just clarify that, because we have 44% here saying it's difficult. So I wanted to really underline and underscore what we mean by that so that hopefully that's a tactic that you guys can implement when you walk away from here.

SCOTT MILLAR:

Your question in that poll, though, is-- it's actually finding the material, the subject matter. A really good tip for MSPs, their help desk-- a log of all of the pain points your clients have is right there in your help desk system. That's the content toolbox, right? They're listed out for you.

And you can build out reports to show you which ones are the most common problems that your clients have. Those are actual topics you can have as your content that all MSPs have. Everyone has a help desk system. So that's where I would be going for this. So it's actually extremely easy to find the content that you can 10x or 20x for your LinkedIn activities.

SHANNON MURPHY:

Yeah.

JESSIKA PHILLIPS:

You just hit it too, Scott-- real quick, sorry to add on.

SHANNON MURPHY:

No, go ahead.

JESSIKA PHILLIPS:

Finding it-- you don't always have to be the person creating it. You want to be known as an expert, right, and lead people to you. But we use with our clients, our MSP clients and others, what's called the 10-4-1 formula, where out of every 15 posts, we will create personalized persona-based content, the conversational stuff that we're sharing.

And then four could be other sourced content as well, where it's like I'm looking at Scott's content that's great that is also aligned with our community, that I want to share it out then. And I will write something, maybe some commentary on what he posted and say, this is a great way. I think you have one on video content, Scott, right, and how to use video on LinkedIn. And maybe sharing that with my community, because I know that they would find it helpful.

And by doing that, not only am I sourcing the content, I am also building rapport, then, with who I'm sharing it from. And then the one out of that 10-4-1 is then that soft call to action. It's like promoting yourself, or maybe you're giving a free scan of something that's going on or a free consultation or whatever, but doing it in a way that doesn't feel salesy.

But LinkedIn also has some built-in tools, though, if you're not familiar with it. Their Pulse is all sourced content, that you can find anything related to what you're looking for. And then if you have a brand page, they even make it even easier. If you go to your company page, you go to the settings there, and they will source in content based upon what you say your brand page is about, because you can put three categories there, and then also hashtags.

So a little feed-in content for you to find-- it literally feeds it to you and says, here. Here is some content you may find useful to share with your community. And it tells you how good the content is performing as well. So not only is it serving it up to you, it's telling you what the chances of success are.

So just remember, you don't always have to just generate it from thin air. There's other content that's out there that could be helpful for your community. And you can share it with them.

SHANNON MURPHY:

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So I would definitely urge people to-- and maybe we can find some articles to share before that, before we jump off. But absolutely. I had taken a break away from LinkedIn Brands myself and then was going around this momentum page and noticed that our social media coordinator had set it up to monitor specific hashtags so that they're trying to facilitate it, making it easy for brands to share content that's related to their core offerings, right? And so that was, oh so easy peasy out of the whole LinkedIn feed to just find what you need and share it out.

So I think if you're not getting what you need in your personal feed-- because I would say that, and you guys probably agree, that can be a little wonky sometimes. I find myself following people and then never see their content.

SCOTT MILLAR:

Yeah, all the places you're connected to, Shannon.

SHANNON MURPHY:

Yeah, well, what do you mean? Are you cluttering my feed? No.

SCOTT MILLAR:

We're speaking right here now, aren't we?

SHANNON MURPHY:

Yeah, I would like to see more of your content. And I feel like sometimes I won't see it until I go to your page, like you posted an update and I'm like, OK, Scott and I have like good alignment. And I interact with his posts. Why am I not seeing him?

But I feel that utilizing the company feed, as Jessika is suggesting, or when Scott was talking about LinkedIn Navigator, you can make custom lists there. And then you can see the updates that are coming from those people. And you can like those easier. So, unfortunately, the feed itself not working so well. But there are workarounds.

So I want to talk a little bit more about this magnet concept. Jessika, you've talked about sharing others' content to grow awareness over time, as well as you've talked about knowledge sharing, which I think really comes down to also educating your buyer on some level, too. You're going to make them a better buyer no matter who they go with. And that makes them respect you.

Do you want to talk about reciprocity? Because I think that for MSPs working within small business communities for a majority, that that's a really important point to underline.

JESSIKA PHILLIPS:

Yeah, absolutely. So again, the concept of being a magnet versus a bullhorn is how you're approaching showing up, that you only want the right people to stick with you, right? How frustrating, as Shannon was just talking about, when you're not seeing the content that you want, right? People want to connect with content that resonates with them.

So when you're showing up in a way of thinking about what content do I want to create so it's not difficult, ongoing, think, one, what content will your community enjoy? And then who's already the expert in this field and already has this trusted built-in community around it that we could align with? And it doesn't necessarily even have to be somebody that's directly in your same type of business, but it could be a community partner that maybe enhances that experience.

So when we're showing up on LinkedIn, we can look at, OK, like I just mentioned, I want to go connect with Scott's content and engage with it and not just expect him to come to my content and like it and then I only engage there when he's communicating on my channel. I want to go start that engagement first by engaging with others' content, not only brand pages, but also the personal channels, and making a comment, not just a like. The conversations are key.

Not only is that going to build a better rapport, but you can also look at ways that you could collaborate together to expand your reach. So maybe we're creating a content doc on the top 10 ransomware new tactics or whatever or spam tactics, whatever. And we're creating this piece of content. And I could feature somebody for each 10 points and let them come up with what they're seeing.

And then I source the content or you source the content on your channel and promote these other individuals in the process. By doing that, again, you're going to expand your reach, grow in your momentum, because it's something they're going to continue sharing again and again if they're featured in it. And you're going to grow by being the person that's created it that is now seen as the expert that's not only creating the content, but also that others are sharing it from, because you're hosting it and you're building a good rapport with everyone from that.

SCOTT MILLAR:

Could you do that with your prospects? Could you get onto their LinkedIn brand pages and tagging them as one of the parts of the content, one of these 10 that-- yeah? OK.

JESSIKA PHILLIPS:

Yeah, absolutely. We feature our clients all the time and say, here's something cool that they're doing. Here's something that we were just having a conversation about. And you're shining the light on them as well. By shining the light on others, it also shines a light on you.

The whole goal is how can I build a better relationship? And it doesn't even have to be somebody that you already have as a client or whatever. But I like to say, the goal on social, and LinkedIn specifically, is to take who is following us and turn them into real fans. How can I connect with them in a way that's going to move them from just a follower of mine to a true fan that's wanting to share my content out?

How can I take a client and turn them into an advocate? They're featuring them, engaging with them, shining the light on them, the community and to collaborators. Who can I collaborate with in this community to accelerate and activate my content to have a better reach?

And then my team members, too-- so if you're an MSP that has team members, they can be your best evangelists for you. And you want to take your team members and turn them into evangelists. So you can shine the light on them, too, and cool things that they're doing within their role and collaborate with them to see what they're hearing from a day-to-day on working with your clients. By doing this and shifting the mindset from just selling and promoting yourself, but to creating the sense of belonging with all of that community, that's going to be what creates the momentum to expand your reach and keep people coming back to you and sticking with you like a magnet.

SHANNON MURPHY:

Mhm, absolutely. And I feel like in terms of expanding our reach-- right, because that's the goal when we're becoming a magnet-- I know, Scott, you've talked about pairing up with networks that can be really good referrals, too, right, where you have good synergy with communities. Do you want to talk about that a little bit?

SCOTT MILLAR:

Yeah, when I ran my own MSP and worked for MSPs in the past and that local perspective, the types of businesses that would be able to refer you to other businesses-- so a really good example-- I'll give you two. So the one was, the first one was architects. So they're out doing plans for new buildings. So they immediately know the companies that are going to be moving offices or expanding offices. They're going to need that network in their Wi-Fi and all that type of stuff, new columns, lines going in. They're perfect referral partners to have.

The same is true here in the UK from a cybersecurity perspective. So what the police have to do-- what you have to do if you've got a data breach in the UK, you have to report it to the police, the local police. So what we've seen in the past for other MSPs is they are actually-- they're partner up with the local police force and doing events and things like that. And it's almost acting like a referral source, but also positions yourself as the MSP in a way that's much more, as I say, as the local technology leader, because the types of people that you have that you're partnering with there-- a police force is a really good example of that.

I think also it's probably worth mentioning, because we've talking about those networks, and it's something that-- this is probably more of a tactic than a strategy. If you look at, OK, who are those referral sources connected to? So you'll quite often find that when you go onto someone's LinkedIn profile, the privacy settings are just the default settings. So you can quite quickly, if you're connected with them, see actually who they're connected with, and also see what groups they're in.

So LinkedIn Groups, it's maybe not a big thing. I personally don't use LinkedIn Groups. But if you scroll right down to that referral source or that LinkedIn profile, you can see exactly the groups they're a member of. And that can actually-- there's some real gold within some of those groups that you'll find. So hopefully that's two little tactics that will be effective for your audience, Shannon.

SHANNON MURPHY:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely, absolutely. OK, and then so we've talked about sourcing content, obviously, building this-- taking your offline community and trying to replicate that online as well by being social and having that reciprocity-- sorry-- as well as looking to find new communities. And then I think, OK, so I'm getting into this process. I'm doing all the appropriate planning. I'm learning how to structure my posts. How do we grab attention in the feed? How are we stopping that scroll to get people to look at our content? Can you address that next?

SCOTT MILLAR:

Yeah, well, I'll start. And this is just the way that I've been doing this for the last 36 months now, is posting out on a consistent basis. When we first started IT Rockstars, we had a challenge, actually, I had a challenge. And that was, OK, I'm going to go on LinkedIn for the next-- it was 60 days in total, and do a little video for every single day for 60 days.

And that's how I grabbed the attention. It's a cool challenge to do. I would start at a particular point in your business. A really good time to do it, it's the start of the new year, like a New Year's resolution. But that was one thing where you will, and if you're connecting with the right people, at your target audience as well, you will definitely get engagement that way. So that's one tactic. I know, Jessika, you've got probably a different tactic.

JESSIKA PHILLIPS:

No, I think that one's great as well. But I'd say start by thinking about how can it be craveable? What is going to leave people wanting more and coming back to you again and again to get more of that?

And that video, that's great. That's one great way. It's engaging. You can create episodic content.

But I like to say first, start from the inside out of thinking like for what purpose are people going to want to connect with me? What am I showing up for and as? And how am I going to leave people feeling overall? Like how can I outcare the competition?

So if you want to stop the feed, think about how can I outcare? And CARE, being another acronym-- I'm fan-- it was capturing the attention first. And that's creating that consistent content that is showing up with clarity and conviction and what you're sharing.

It can be the video content. Some people do short written with a visual, like Gary Vaynerchuk is great with that, right, great visuals that clearly articulate. So that's the second part of CARE, articulate your message so people know what they're coming back to.

The R is all about relationships. We've already talked about that part, right? Who can you bring into the conversation? But also, how are you going out, then, if somebody is engaging with you?

I love to use the inbox. I love to use LinkedIn Messenger, because I feel like when somebody connected with me or if I see that they're having a celebration or something, I don't just use one of the LinkedIn built-in congrats on your promotion. I want to send an audio message and let them hear my voice and me telling them congratulations, right? They're going to be like, oh, somebody took some extra time to care a little bit more. And now by default, they want to keep coming back to my content because of the reciprocity of wanting to do that. And, granted, you do have to be genuine in what you're doing and how you're showing up.

But the E part of CARE is all about how can I create a better experience? So exceptional experiences, so if I'm using LinkedIn and creating this content, is my type of content-- if my way is best shared via video and that's how I articulate myself the best, do a video. If it's the LinkedIn articles because of the blog, you have a really great storytelling ability via your written word, then use the LinkedIn, the article sharing, which goes into the Pulse community and keeps people coming back.

Mark Shaefer is really great on this as it relates to relationship marketing. If it's the best with short-form post content, where you're creating craveable questions, like what kind of Easter candy is your favorite, and you get people doing a poll on Peeps or whatever and build that community there, but give people a reason ...

SHANNON MURPHY:

Jessika froze on us, I think. Yeah, I was going to say daily, to her point, things like photos, right? If you want to create your own funny like memes or whatnot, maybe you do like one daily and they could all be about funny IT problems or things like that. I don't know. That could maybe be-- if that's your best type of content--

SCOTT MILLAR:

I think one of the points she made was what you're comfortable doing. That's a really key thing to this. So at the time, I wasn't at all comfortable doing video. It was a New Year's resolution. And that's why I had the challenge of, OK, I'm going to post videos for the next 60 days.

If you're a nimble MSP and you don't have that marketing channel that's going to be creating content for you, to say to you what that's going to be-- is it going to be a written blog post? Is it going to be a post? An article, newsletter is something that you should definitely look at.

And identifying which media you're going to use for it-- and I think for MSPs-- and I'll go back to video again. Most MSPs just don't have the time of the day to be marketing in the first place. So if you can just pull out your phone, do a quick two-minute video on your phone, and then post that to LinkedIn, that's out the way for the day. And you find that for a lot of MSPs, that is the most effective way that you can gain traction on LinkedIn.

SHANNON MURPHY:

Yeah, absolutely. And I think you've even said to me before, lifestyle content always wins, right?

SCOTT MILLAR:

Yeah, so you can go and get-- hire a marketing agency, get them to do a professional video for you that will cost you $50,000. The video will look awesome. Welcome back, Jessika.

SHANNON MURPHY:

Hi.

SCOTT MILLAR:

But you'll find with video the ones that get engagement are the ones that are literally just you picked your phone up and it's a hot topic. It's something that's close to your heart. It maybe just happened. And you want to transfer some of that motion into the video.

And you don't care what the surroundings look like. You're just getting to the point and the topic. You'll find that they have much higher engagement than the professionally shot videos. So yeah, I would-- I'm just a big advocate for video in general.

SHANNON MURPHY:

Yeah, and so I think that's just an interesting point, too, that people think LinkedIn, it's business, it has to be really polished and, I guess, buttoned up. And you've seen a lot of success yourself just being more real.

SCOTT MILLAR:

Some of the best videos I've had-- this was a few years ago when I was having to get up at 4:00 AM with my daughter. And I would just pull out the phone and my hair was all over the place. They would get some of the best engagement because aw, there's Scott again. He looks terrible today. Let's see what he's got to say today.

But because people were like, oh, why is he in that situation? They start watching the video. And then the algorithm takes over, like oh, they've shown some interest. And then it's out to other people.

SHANNON MURPHY:

Awesome. Awesome. So I think we, in our practice session, right, we always prepare for our chats with you guys, we happened upon a fun concept for creating content, which is this idea of cocreating with our networks. And we were talking a lot about in-person events, right, and getting reach that way. Scott, you were talking about how in the UK, businesses have to report to the police if they've had a security breach, right?

SCOTT MILLAR:

Yeah, that's correct. So I mentioned that previously, that if a business or an organization, if they have a data breach, they have to report it to the Information Commissioner's Office. And most businesses will also report it to the local police as well.

I didn't find out what the rules are in the US. I'm sure maybe someone in the chat can chime in what the process there is. But certainly here, that has to happen, that we're having to report it to the police. So, as I mentioned, what MSPs are doing now is they're actually, they're doing events with the local police force to leverage some of that network.

SHANNON MURPHY:

Yeah, and so that's an in-person event, right? But you can promote that before, during, and after on social media, right? So I just want to remind everybody on the line what sorts of in-person events are you going to that you could leverage and create content with others? Maybe it might not be something with your community, but maybe something with your peers.

And I feel like, Jessika, you have some good tips on that, too, of OK, you're going to go see a bunch of fellow MSPs for the next week at an event. What are some things that you could be putting out on LinkedIn with your peers?

JESSIKA PHILLIPS:

Yeah, I think creating the plan ahead of time, first, right? If you know you're going to an event, think about who do I want to connect with before I get there? And reach out to them if you're not already connected. And say, hey, I would love to meet you. I see we're both attending this event.

And I want to ask you this question and shine the-- I see that you are the expert at this. And I want to shine the light on you, right? And maybe we can collaborate on some content while we're there together, and so find those moments.

I actually do this at Social Media Marketing World. I just spoke there a few weeks ago. And I am known as the s'mores lady because I create a s'mores night, where I'm from the Midwest. And what are we known for? It's campfires and corn and cornhole, things like that.

But they had the third, fourth level of the hotel, these fire pits with a pool there. And so I bought s'mores stuff, DoorDashed it to my hotel, and then invited people that I wanted to connect with over for s'mores. We had 60 something people out there in front of the fire pits just building rapport together, having a good time.

And it was less about like business and sales. I wasn't just having them come there so I could try to pitch them something and all that. It was about having a shared experience where we're laughing together, we're enjoying a new experience together.

And by doing that, we have now a deeper connection. So when I do reach out and say, hey, you want to come on a live video with me, or hey, would you like to collaborate on an article, they remember me. They remember the experience that they had and the first time we shared s'mores together. And it's something that they'll always-- you know the saying, people don't always remember what you said, but they remember how you made them feel? They'll remember that. And that's a great way of connection then moving forward.

SHANNON MURPHY:

Yeah, absolutely. So for MSPs, there might be local business events that you could offer to sponsor. But take it further than just your logo somewhere and a bench for people to come talk to you. Like Jessika was saying, maybe get creative, right, and be that host, if you will, in a way, too.

Right, you've all hosted a backyard barbecue. This is really no different. Get everybody over there. Make it fun.

I think another tip I'd like to just give briefly, too, is if you're at an event and you want a way to leverage to some LinkedIn, take a selfie with whoever, the speakers, your fellow peers, members of your community, a fellow business owner, whoever it might be. And take that selfie. Post it on LinkedIn, like we're having a great time at x event and tag those fellow business owners. And that's a great way to just show that you're out, you're continuing your learning. If it's at a conference for MSPs, that's also-- we want to work with people who are continuing their education and learning about the latest tactics or threats, if you will, right?

SCOTT MILLAR:

Yeah, and I think, to Jessika's point on the s'mores-- I know what they are, by the way. I've had them. And I can't wait to meet you, Jessika, and we can have some together.

But this is really about building relationships, isn't it? Because, Jessika, you mentioned that you didn't-- you were at Social Media Marketing World and you weren't talking about marketing. You were building relationships. That's what this is about.

JESSIKA PHILLIPS:

Exactly, but you still-- and to, yeah, to both of your points, too, and Shannon, like what you were saying, also don't forget to put that back as part of your profile, right? If you've attended a event, remember, people are trying to check you out. So they see all of us.

Let's say we meet up at the next event. All three of us are together and we're taking a picture. And they know me, but they don't know Scott. What's the next thing that we're going to do? They're going to look and say, who are these people that she's hanging out with that she's having fun with? And they're going to go check out your profiles and try to see what you're about.

People, they're always lurking. They're looking at what you have to do and they're scanning you out if they're looking to hire you, and because I may be singing Scott's praises and be like, oh, you need to work with him. And they're going to go look at his profile.

So if we're both at this event together, make sure it's part of your profile and that you have your expertise listed there. And if somebody is only looking at that and they're not talking with you, because studies say 60% of the buying process is over before somebody talks to a person within a company. They're lurking. They're searching you out. There analyzing you based upon all the information that you're providing.

So you've got to remember, I need to put my best foot forward and showcase who I really am with the photos, with maybe my helpful resources, linked under the highlights section with the events I've spoken at. Put there whatever it is. But make sure your profile is a good representation of who you are before somebody talks to you.

SHANNON MURPHY:

Mhm, absolutely, right? I think when you're the face of the company, you need to-- as much as you might get on your marketing people about the website, guys, you've got to take a look at your own profile, too, and ask for help if you need it, right? So that is optimized and everybody can see that you're the expert that they do want to work with.

So do you want to leave some time for some Q&A? So I'm going to shift us over to concluding. And I would say if you each had your top three tips that you would like to share with the audience for getting more exposure on LinkedIn, mastering this organic side of things, what would you say they would be? I'll start with you, Jessika.

JESSIKA PHILLIPS:

OK, good, because we don't know what the next time my internet's going to go out just randomly. So I'll try to not stop in mid-sentence here this time. But I'd say the top three tips, one is, again, starting from the inside out, I did share a free resource-- hopefully it's OK. It's free. I'm not telling you anything at all.

But it does walk you through the process of thinking through for what purpose are people going to come back to me and how can I create this content that's craveable? But the first tip is just pausing first and getting clarity on what it is that you do best, because it's not about really what you do, but how you do it that's going to leave people wanting more and coming back to you. So what is going to be your thing that you're known for, right? What is your thing?

And who do you want to sell to, to Scott's point of knowing your buyer, your ideal customer or your buyer persona, avatar, whatever you want to call them? But really knowing that, and if you can get clear on here's who I want to communicate, with here's how I'm going to stand out amongst everybody else that says they do the same exact thing that I do, then you already know then what to write, who you're talking to. But you have to start from that inside out. So that's tip one.

Tip two is be consistent. And three, be personal. So personalize your stuff. Send messages in the inbox and don't be so like caught up on just being professional all the time. I do have that watch, yeah, checklist here, too, for you.

SHANNON MURPHY:

And we'll share the link guys, too, just in case anybody is like, I can't click it. I gotcha. Oh, sorry, third tip? Or did I miss that?

JESSIKA PHILLIPS:

So the third tip-- what was it? What order did I put them in? OK, start From the inside out. Two, be consistent with what you're doing.

And the third is be personal. So make sure it's not just about selling. You want to personalize your content, like you're having a conversation. Get inside the inbox in LinkedIn and send audio messages. Be memorable, not generic, because the community is not for sale. It's something you have to earn over time.

SCOTT MILLAR:

OK, I'll do my three quickly. So the first one, excuse me, build an audience. So, as I said, go back to your ideal clients. Look at existing client base, the ones that you love working with, the ones that are the most profitable, looking for similar businesses and manually build up a list and then find them using tools like LinkedIn Sales Navigator or the search in LinkedIn. You can get a month's free trial. LinkedIn Sales Navigator, that's all you need to build this. So that's the first step.

Second step is educate that audience by positioning yourself as the local technology leader. And the third step is following up with that audience. So no matter how awesome the marketing is that you're doing, to start this relationship off, you're going to find that you're actually going to have to do a little bit of outreach.

So that might be a LinkedIn message. It might be a phone call. It might be an email. But actually follow up with the content that you're posting out there on a regular basis. So that's my three tips.

SHANNON MURPHY:

Awesome. Awesome, guys. And so I did share the resources in the chat. I've shared our LinkedIn links to each one of us individually as well. So all of the resources here, as well as us as resources, like connect with us. We're social, right? We would love to hear from you.

And get in those Q&A right now. I know that one thing I can bring you guys through is that Ross was having a question. So I know it was a little convoluted and we couldn't show it, but we were articulating how to maybe hack your brand page, the page that you use for your company, and have a feed for that.

So I'm going to show you guys really quickly how-- because I have lovely guests who were talking. So I was able to go and workshop it again, because it was not easy to find. And now I know why LinkedIn doesn't have a help article on it.

OK, so you're an individual and high-level leadership of the business. If you are not already an admin of your company page, this is what you would need to do first, though. You need to become an admin of the company page.

Then I'm going to select our company, Zomentum. And then this is what Jessika was talking about, hashtags that you can associate with your page. Right, so our social media coordinator has already set these.

And it says about-- I don't know why I says "About Zomentum," because I guess this is how we're defining ourselves. But I feel like that's-- I don't know, sorry, the content person in me thinks that's awkward copy. What it really is showing me is all of the content that is related to those three hashtags, right?

So if you want to set those for your brand page, go in. Use your admin view. And now I can see any time somebody is using hashtags. Oh, did Jessika drop? Did we lose her?

Any time that you see a hashtag or that LinkedIn is seeing a hashtag, I now can see this content. So if you're not getting content in your individual feed that you feel like is really great for you to share, this is a way that I would suggest hacking it. Is there anything you want to add to that, Scott? Am I doing this right?

SCOTT MILLAR:

Well, I'm learning here as well. But what I've seen here, this is glued back to my targeted approach. So you're building that targeted list of prospects. What hashtags are they using? Well, you can use that to find them right here in this feed. And then start interacting directly with their content in this feed.

And I think it's what you mentioned, Shannon, already. Sometimes your own profile feed can be a little bit questionable. I did see Dave pop up there at the top of your feed. I'm only joking, by the way.

SHANNON MURPHY:

Yeah, OK.

SCOTT MILLAR:

So that tagging mechanism, I think that's awesome. And that's certainly something that I've learned here today on the company page.

SHANNON MURPHY:

Yeah, yeah. And we'll go over Sales Navigator next week, guys. And that, I found just getting more adept with it myself that you can, to Scotty's point, know who you're targeting. We'll show you how to create custom lists. And that also gives you the ability to-- we're a little pixelated here-- that also gives you the ability to create a feed that you can preview.

And sometimes it's not even about interacting with that individual because they're a prospect beyond the like. It might be you create a list of experts whose content you want to share, right? Maybe it's not as easy for you to create content yourself all the time.

But following other MSPs and experts that you respect, right, see their content in your feed. Share it. Give your commentary at top. That's a simple way to do it.

SCOTT MILLAR:

The cool thing with the Sales Navigator tool as well, if you are servicing a local market, you can put in your zip code or your post code and you can say, OK, show me all of the companies within a certain radius of that zip code. And then you can find those content creators also within that zip code that you can be collaborative-- collaborating with.

SHANNON MURPHY:

Yeah, absolutely. And so I wanted to ask you a question, too. I think there's something to be said for-- we're talking about attracting and expanding our audience. But what do you think for content that is also nurturing our existing clients? Would we want to still be keeping the same tact? Or is there a way that we could slightly shift if we're trying to also stay top of mind with our current clientele?

SCOTT MILLAR:

Well, I actually think, as I mentioned before, if you're positioning yourself as the local technology leader and if you're creating content that educates your prospects and your existing clients with actionable things that they can do in their business today, it doesn't really matter if it's for existing clients or if it's for new leads that you want.

If you are providing helpful content that's useful to your target market and your existing clients-- and for most MSPs, the IT decision buyers, the ones that make the decisions on buying IT, it's usually the business owner or the finance director. And if you know what their pain points are in their business and you're helping them with the content on those pain points, it doesn't really matter if it's-- the content itself, if it's servicing the prospect or the existing client. So I think just keeping that in mind, that be as helpful as you can in your content.

And don't get stuck in the technologies. As MSPs, we love to talk about the awesome new technologies. We hear about some vendors buying other vendors and everyone's ranting all over LinkedIn about it. But just remember, your prospects and your existing clients, they've got completely different frame of mind. And keep in mind what their pain points are and how you can be solving them in your content.

SHANNON MURPHY:

Mhm. Absolutely. I love that. Well, guys, I'm sorry, Jessika is not here with us to field that question as well. But to be fair, she notified us of some internet issues before we hopped on the line.

SCOTT MILLAR:

Maybe she has s'mores that were burning in the background. That's maybe what it was.

SHANNON MURPHY:

What?

SCOTT MILLAR:

Her s'mores, maybe she was making s'mores and they were burning. Who knows.

SHANNON MURPHY:

That was that purple haze. There was that. Sorry, we also have, I think one came in from LinkedIn Live right now, another question. We have a few minutes.

Yeah, Greg Walters is asking, "LinkedIn newsletters are getting more and more attention. It sounds like you guys advocate for them. What results have you realized from the newsletter function? And does success with LI require Navigator?"

So I can't say that I am currently utilizing newsletters. I do think that they're a nifty tool. Personally sometimes, as much as I may like and respect a certain expert, I will be hesitant to sign up for their newsletter because I think LinkedIn needs to better, I guess, address the issue of I'm happy to see that in my notifications, but do I want more clutter in my email inbox? Personally, me, I'm trying to reduce there.

So I would like it if they could make it variable, where you could subscribe. But really, I'm just seeing it in Feed or notification when I log into LinkedIn versus email. But, oh, Greg says the same, that he's trying to declutter as well. Scott, your impressions of them, I guess, as a marketer as well as personally?

SCOTT MILLAR:

Yeah, I'd probably agree with what you're saying there, Shannon, just my experience so far. I mean, it's fairly new, the newsletter feature. So yeah, jump right in and check out. But what I'm experiencing with it at the moment is I'm getting-- I've probably had over 100 LinkedIn newsletter notifications in the last three months.

SHANNON MURPHY:

Ooh, that's a lot.

SCOTT MILLAR:

And that's mainly from my target audience, who are MSPs. So that tells you what all the rest, a large section of MSPs are doing. So I'd be actually running in the other direction and be trying something else out.

SHANNON MURPHY:

I was just about to say, that is pretty telling because I'm not seeing that quantity. So that very much speaks to you work with MSPs and that's what you're seeing in your network. OK, so getting a little crowded.

Jessika, what are you thinking about? I think you've probably even deployed these. We were giving commentary, but said that neither of us have done newsletters. I'm sure you've played around with this a little bit more than us. Greg's question before you hopped online was that he was wondering what results we might have realized from the newsletter function.

JESSIKA PHILLIPS:

Yeah, so again, to Scott's point-- and I apologize, I'm joining from my phone now. My Wi-Fi, I had a storm here yesterday, today. And it's kicking me out.

SCOTT MILLAR:

We thought you were getting s'mores or something like that. We thought--

JESSIKA PHILLIPS:

Yeah, I was just like mic drop, I'm out. I'm going to go eat some s'mores. But no. Anywho, hopefully the angle is OK. Anyway, but so newsletter perspective, I have seen great results, but it's all about how you show up. If you're just being redundant in the content and it's not valuable, it's not craveable, that's one thing, right?

The second thing is I try to be collaborative in the newsletters. So what I mean is instead of getting 100 in your inbox, think about how you can collaborate with someone else and maybe give the highlights of the week and feature other people's content. So if you can name it the newsletter of Everything You Need to Know This Week on Data Security or something, whatever, and you are now bringing in your top content, and then also being the facilitator of content of others, and then bring it into the inbox and say, hey, you know what? I will host the newsletter.

I'm going to feature your content. So I'm going to collaborate with you. But also, you feature your own. And then deliver that into the inbox. So instead of a person needing to open 12 different newsletters, they can open one and they know that your newsletter is going to be the one that's going to filter in all the content that they want to read for the week. That's going to be the one that they're going to continue going back to.

And then also, the key point is share out. So I try to collaborate with others and create one newsletter that is going to source in all the content that they're going to want to read, the best of the best, and share that out. And then people will continue coming back to it and also refer it on.

SHANNON MURPHY:

Yeah, absolutely. I was just sending a chat out to everybody as well, saying those are the newsletters I keep in my inbox, the ones that give me digests or curation of everything, right? Those implicitly have more value, because it's multiple voices and curated, right? I'm not going to be looking at any crap content, versus those that I'm seeing weekly. And people have off weeks.

JESSIKA PHILLIPS:

By the way, I do have a free video on this, on how to activate that. And also I popped out, so I don't know what you showed on the company pages, but how you can source that content, train what feeds into that curated content and utilize it. I will put it in the chat here. And I also sent it to you, Shannon, the free YouTube link that walks through the screen share on how to do that.

SHANNON MURPHY:

Yeah, absolutely. I shared it briefly, but we're going to be resharing this later at probably a bit of a delay. So it'd be nice for everybody to have that more immediately. Feel free to share it in the chat. And I will grab that, too, and put that in our resources.

We will be sharing out this recording with all the links to the resources as well. And I will add that in. So I guess we're a little over time. So we'll probably be heading out, if there are any other questions.

But thank you. The majority of you have stuck with us till the end. So I really appreciate it. I hope we've given you some ideas. I know LinkedIn can feel like this black box. But hopefully these are some very easy, approachable ways to just get started.

And that's the biggest part. Just get started. Start doing it. Shut down that inner critical voice on your posts, because it's really, it's all about repetition, right? And you'll find your style.

All right. Greg says, "Great job." OK, thank you all. Have a great evening-- well, Scott, evening. Tell the new baby I said hi. And the rest of you, have a great rest of your day.

SCOTT MILLAR:

Thank you.

SHANNON MURPHY:

All right, thanks, all. Bye.

JESSIKA PHILLIPS:

Bye. Oh, s'more great questions-- I like it.

SHANNON MURPHY:

Sorry, I'm just copying and pasting some things that I can send to y'all, so OK. Perfect. Thank you. Oh, Ross, great, looking forward to s'more great sessions.

JESSIKA PHILLIPS:

I see that. I see what you did there. I like it.

SHANNON MURPHY:

OK, these peeps need to live in fear. They might turn into s'mores soon. Bye, everyone. See you later.

JESSIKA PHILLIPS:

Bye.