I sat down with LinkedIn strategist and rock star Mary Fain Brandt to talk about spam, LinkedIn etiquette, and LinkedIn Live. If you would like to connect with her, you can find her here on LinkedIn.
Daniel Glickman
Hi, everyone. Daniel Glickman here with Mary Fain Brandt. And we are going to talk about LinkedIn. Mary is a LinkedIn strategist. I’m really excited to have her here because she knows a ton about this topic. Mary, tell us a tiny bit about what you do.
Mary Fain Brandt
Thanks for having me. I’m so excited to be on LinkedIn Live talking about LinkedIn, my favorite platform. I’m a LinkedIn strategist, trainer, and speaker. It all started when I was looking for a job on LinkedIn. I realized that entrepreneurs and business owners were missing out on some huge opportunities. And LinkedIn is free. So why not create a brand presence on LinkedIn and start attracting your ideal clients by having a rock star profile and a strategic content strategy. So that’s what I do. I love talking and training about LinkedIn.
Daniel Glickman
I want to start off by talking about spam on LinkedIn. The minute you receive a connection request, it is immediately followed up by a pitch. Especially if it’s from certain countries or people that you don’t know. That really limits our ability and causes us to stop accepting other connections. What’s the deal with that?
Mary Fain Brandt
We all get them on every platform. But we think that LinkedIn is the business professional platform. So why are these people doing it? I call them spam stirs. There’s a couple of techniques that you guys should learn to do. So the first one – certain countries. They’re big spammers of certain industries, like web designers and SEO. As soon as you accept that connection request, I’ll get a message like, “Hey, Mary, I saw your website, I can show you how to get a better SEO program and more leads over on your website.” No, thank you. You don’t know me or my business.
LinkedIn was built for relationship building. It was built as a networking platform. And somehow, it or the people went off on this tangent. There’s a couple things that I think are really helpful to know when you’re getting spam. First, if you accept a connection request without a message, you have a 50% chance of it being spam. I always tell people don’t accept them. If someone’s not going to take the time to send me a message on why they want to connect, why do I need to connect with you? And if you send a message with your connection request, you have a 53% higher chance of that person accepting it.
When you go to send that message, please don’t do this. “Hi, Mary, I see we have some mutual connections. I’d like to add you to my network.” It is so boring and generic! There’s a person behind the profile; get to know that person. Where do they volunteer? Where do they work? Where are they commenting? What are they commenting on? What are they posting? Find a post and say, “Hey, Daniel, I saw that post that you did last week or that live show. I really like the work that you’re doing. I’d love to add you to my network and learn more.” Doesn’t that sound more human?
So, you definitely want to send a message, and you don’t want to accept a ton of message or connection requests that don’t have a message.
I do a lot of training and speaking, and I always say “Hey, guys, if we’re not connected, get connected with me now. However, you need to send me a message with that.” So they get busy and send me a message. When they do that, they get accepted. For the ones that don’t, they’re gonna sit in my inbox until I go back and vet them. So that is my tip on how to start sending better messages.
Also, if you guys look at my name on LinkedIn, it has cupcakes on the beginning and the end. There’s a strategy to that. Put a symbol before and after your name. If it’s a spam or automation, it’ll have that symbol in their message. They didn’t even take the time to type the message.
Daniel Glickman
Can you repeat that?
Mary Fain Brandt
I have a cupcake after my name because I own the LinkedIn Bakery. The symbol is on brand for me, but you can put any symbol you want. If the message you get is automation, it’ll have that symbol or a gobbly goo because of something in the automation they are using.
Daniel Glickman
That’s amazing. So, normally, I would ask “how could we automate LinkedIn?” But that’s bad because we all have experienced it from the other end. So how do we prevent ourselves from looking like a robot? How do we make sure that we seem like real people when we connect?
Mary Fain Brandt
Everything I do is organic. I have built a network organically. I love doing this work organically. It just feels better to me. It’s human to human contact. There’s someone behind that profile. LinkedIn is about building a network and nurturing the relationships. So we have to send personal messages. If you send a personal message, you’re going to get so much more out of it.
Let me tell you what happened to me in the last ten days. I’ve been reaching out and accepting messages or connection requests from people that sent me an inmail. I’ve had about seven phone calls over zoom or phone. From that, I have one person that wants to be a referral for me. So she asks, “what do you have?” I have a one-on-one coaching program and I have an online course. She asks me to send her all of that information because she works in the recruiting industry.
I had a phone call with another person the other day, and I’m going to be a guest on their YouTube channel.
I have someone that I reached out to that is a rock star on Linked, and it took her a while to get back because she’s super busy. I want to have her on my on my show and my message was, “Tisha, I really like what I see on your LinkedIn. I can tell that you’re a rock star; you’re someone that has a message to give to my audience. I would love to talk to you and see if you’re a good fit to have on my show.” We have that phone call next week.
For me, it’s about building and nurturing the relationships one at a time. I don’t need to have 10,000 connections, but you know what I want? 1,000 rock stars. It’s not about the vanity number. It’s about having true, meaningful relationships on LinkedIn.
Here’s my message to you guys – build your network, one rock star at a time. Make the connections with people that are not just ideal clients. I landed a client just two days ago from a LinkedIn message, a phone call, and follow up. It’s all about the follow up. All of this greatness happens one person at a time. I would rather have 1,000 rock star people in my network versus the 10,000. I have 10,000. But do I connect with all of those? No, but be strategic.
Here’s my call to action to you guys – I want you to find five people on LinkedIn that you don’t know. Send them a personal message and find out what kind of connection they are. Are they a referral partner? Are they a brand ambassador? Could you collaborate with this person?
Mary Rose and I met on LinkedIn; she reached out to me, I reached back, and that led to lunch. I hired her for branding. And now we’re LinkedIn local San Diego co-host. We host two to three live events a year.
Daniel Glickman
That’s great. So LinkedIn is all about the one-on-one work. So does that mean that posting in the feed is not as effective? Should we try to target individuals for one-on-one conversations, as opposed to a blanket target like we do on Twitter?
Mary Fain Brandt
Who is your audience? My audience for my career stuff is female based, so my messaging is geared towards women working and pivoting their career. If we’re talking about posting, it’s about Quality over Quantity. Unlike Twitter or Instagram, where it’s post, post, post.
Tim just said, “Mary, do you think commenting is more powerful than creating content?” I feel that you need to do both. Commenting can get you in the door with someone. If you’re not connected with someone that you want to be connected with, you can’t just send them a generic message. Find their posts and start commenting. They’re going to see your name, which opens the door to send them an inmail message. Say, “Hey, I saw your post on content strategy. I really like tip number one and two. I’m going to try implementing those. I’d love to add you to my network.” It’s all about connection. H-to-H, Human-to-Human connection.
Daniel Glickman
So give us an overview. What did you do on LinkedIn today? What was your day like? What activities were you doing?
Mary Fain Brandt
So I’ve messaged some people, I accepted four new people into my network, I scrolled the news feed to see what’s going on, and just kept up to date. Tim and I have messaged back and forth. Another potential client and I have messaged back and forth. On Friday, I don’t put out any content typically; my content is Quality over Quantity. When I first started, I thought I had to post everywhere, everyday. That’s not a strategy. So I didn’t post any content today. Today is about what’s going on, wrapping up the week, and working on some other projects. Next week, I’ll be live on LinkedIn. Wednesday, I was live with a client. So I’m live at least three times a month on LinkedIn. Because you need video.
Daniel Glickman
You need video. Yes, and shout-out to wave.video.
Mary Fain Brandt
I love wave.video. That’s how we create some of the awesome videos that we put out.
Daniel Glickman
That is heartwarming for me to hear. So let’s talk about how LinkedIn works with other channels. Do you customize your LinkedIn content? Are you reposting stuff on LinkedIn and your other channels?
May Fain Brandt
Combination. I can’t sit here and organically do things every day, so I use Agorapulse – shout-out to Agorapulse. But I do leave room for organic posting if something’s hot or something just happened. I’m the queen of post it notes; I have them all over my office. I have notes of posts that I’m going to create organically, probably today, and put it out on Monday.
I really want to drive home three things.
Quality over Quantity – Are you Speaking to your audience? Is it relevant? Is it timely? Does your audience need it or want it? Does it engage, entertain, or educate them?
How to Tag Respectfully – We all know how to tag on Facebook and Instagram. You can tag on LinkedIn too. When I teach this, sometimes my students will go out and tag 25 people. I have to message them and say, “no, that’s not how you tag on LinkedIn.” To get more views on a post, you want to tag strategically. Here’s an example: I was on the “Who Do You Know Show” that’s in Austin. I tagged the three co-hosts and the company in a post that said, “It’s fun to be on here” and linked to the show. And that thing blew up! I think we got 4,000 views and 75 comments from just me resharing something. And they’re all good comments. It’s not like, “Hey Mary, how are you?” It’s like, “Hey, great show, I learned a tip. I’d like to learn more.” It’s about tagging people appropriately. Don’t just tag the same 25 people every time. If I shared a video that I created with wave.video, you know what would be smart? For me to tag Daniel. “I love wave.video. Thank you for providing such a great tool.” That’s a great way to get more exposure and more visibility.
Daniel Glickman
Because guess what I’m gonna do when I get tagged like that – I’m gonna share it.
Mary Fain Brandt
Exactly.
Daniel Glickman
It always surprised me that when I’m a guest on a podcast, which is something I do fairly often, when they send me the episode that they posted, nine times out of time, they will not send me their social profiles to tag them in. So I contact them back and ask for the profile, because I’m not going to spend time looking for it.
Mary Fain Brandt
When you’re on shows, you need to give your guests the links and the profiles so they can tag appropriately. Tim says shout-out to relevant tagging. Tag with kindness and respect. That’s what I want to say.
Daniel Glickman
And it is a hack to tag a lot people. But when you do it a second time. Can you please stop?
Mary Fain Brandt
Don’t tag the same people over and over and over. And when you do tag someone, give them warning. Be respectful you guys, just like you would in person. We have to take that respect that we do in person, online.
Another way to get more engagement and reach on your post is by using hashtags. But again, this isn’t Instagram or Twitter. More is not better. They say three to five hashtags is the most that you should use on LinkedIn. And here’s a pro tip – create your own hashtag. Daniel, do you have your own personal hashtag?
Daniel Glickman
I have a couple, Yes. One for CMOConfessions and one for Simple Lucid.
Mary Fain Brandt
I love that hashtag for CMOConfessions. You should use that all the time, because then people can just search that and find all of your posts. Everyone should create their own hashtag. I need to come up with a new one. Tim, I know we talked about this a few months ago, I know you’re watching. I had Li Connectors for LinkedIn Connectors, because that’s what we call our members in my private group. But I need my own hashtag that’s just Mary. So if anyone’s watching, and has an awesome hashtag idea, you can drop that in the comments so I can listen to my own advice and have my own personal branding hashtag. You should use two to three hashtags that has to do with the content, whether it’s marketing or LinkedIn Live. I use LinkedIn Live every time I go live.
Daniel Glickman
How do people search for LinkedIn Live?
Mary Fain Brandt
You can search for hashtags on LinkedIn.
Daniel Glickman
Oh, the hashtag LinkedIn Live. Okay, got it.
Mary Fain Brandt
If you’re going live on LinkedIn, why not use that hashtag? Or the hashtag online marketing or online summit, whatever it is that you’re talking about. You definitely want to use those relevant hashtags. And then, of course, your personal hashtag. That way, people can always follow you and find your content.
Daniel Glickman
What is the downside of using too many hashtags? What could happen?
Mary Fain Brandt
LinkedIn keeps everything on lockdown; they don’t really tell us what’s going on. But among my peers, we think that they punish your posts. It’s not shown as much. None of us really understand the LinkedIn algorithm. There are times where we think we’ve got it, and then it changes. What we’ve seen through trial and error, all of those posts that look like they are copied from Instagram do not rank high in the LinkedIn algorithm. So don’t do it. And Tim says, “it looks spammy.” You can use the same content if it’s relevant for your LinkedIn audience, but massage it up a little and only use three to five relevant hashtags.
Daniel Glickman
That’s great advice; very practical. So there’s a theme here about spam and spam. It seems to be a big issue.
Mary Fain Brandt
I have one more tip – we all hate spam stirs on any platform. LinkedIn hates them, too. So when you get a spam message, here’s what you need to do – delete, report, and block them. They won’t see that you did it. But you need to report them so LinkedIn can take their profile down. We have a responsibility to help LinkedIn because LinkedIn listens. I was listening to a podcast and they’d actually gone through and removed a bunch of profiles that had been reported for spam. So we have a responsibility to help them out. They have 680 million users on the platform. So if you get that real spam message – delete, block, and report them.
Daniel Glickman
It’s feels like they’re never ending, so I’m not sure if it actually solves the initial problem. But if we do it once in a while, maybe it helps the algorithm.
Mary Fain Brandt
It’s like picking up a piece of trash; if everybody picked up one piece of trash on the street, we will see a difference. So if everybody starts reporting the spam and fake profiles, we will see a difference.
Daniel Glickman
That’s exactly the right analogy. Is there anything that you want to add?
Mary Fain Brandt
Don’t forget to add symbols so you can tell when a message is automated. You should always add a personal inmail so that your connection request will get received and approved.
Let’s talk about the art of connecting. The first thing you want to do is send a connection request with a personal note. Not that “Hey, Daniel, I see we have mutual connections.” Something like, “Hey, Daniel, you’re the founder and owner of wave. I love that platform. I use it all the time. I would love to add you to my network.” Send a great message. Then after they accept it, stand out and send a Sunday voicemail. Use the LinkedIn app and to send that voicemail. “Hey, Daniel, thanks so much for accepting my connection request. I’d love to learn more about your podcast or your live shows.” Hearing your voice puts a personal touch on it. Then if you’re really a rock star, you’ll send a video.
I did this to a gentleman that I was talking to – we had a phone call and he sent a thank you on LinkedIn. I sent a video saying, “Hey, John, thanks so much for taking the time this morning. It was great talking with you. I’m looking forward to being on your YouTube show.” And he’s like, “Wow, that’s really cool.” He didn’t even know that you could do that. So be a rock star on LinkedIn. Stand out by using voicemail. Tim, I used it with you this morning because he was asking me questions. I couldn’t type all that, so I just whipped out my phone and left a voicemail message. It’s more personal that way.
Daniel Glickman
It worked on me. And then the video is particularly effective because you can see the person.
Mary Fain Brandt
Three touches – you send the message, they hear you, and then they see your face. So it’s all about h-to-h, human-to-human. Bring back that human factor in our online networking because we’re not networking in person. It’s all networking online. So we have to make it personal.
Daniel Glickman
So for those of us who are busy executives that don’t have the time to spend on networking and building the connections, how do we deal with it? What do we do?
Mary Fain Brandt
All you need is 20/30 minutes a day on LinkedIn. Whether you do 10 minutes in the morning or 15 minutes in the afternoon. Who do I want to connect with? Who am I looking to bring into my network? Who am I looking to partner with?
For example, recruiters are great for me because I’m a career coach. So when a recruiter comes up, I’m asking, “Who are they? What type of recruiting do they do? Be strategic. Don’t just connect with everyone. You can master it and have a great LinkedIn network with 30 minutes a day or less.
Daniel Glickman
Fantastic. That was a perfect closing for the show, because it summed up some great points. We got a lot out of it. Mary, where can people find you if they want to know more about you?
Mary Fain Brandt
Mary Fain Brandt – if you Google that name, I’m the only one that will come up. You can also visit my website at MaryFainBrandt.com, or email me through hello at MaryFainBrandt.com
Daniel Glickman
Fantastic. Obviously, Mary is a LinkedIn strategist. I added Mary’s contact info into the show notes. Post your comments. Thank you for watching and for being here. And thank you, Mary, for being with us today.
Mary Fain Brandt
Thanks for having me. This was so much fun, Daniel. I’m sure we could sit and talk for hours but we’re both busy. So, Ciao everyone. Have a great day.
