The Journey of LinkedIn Storytelling | Stories With Traction Podcast

 

 

PODCAST EPISODE SUMMARY: In this episode, Rachel Simon and Matt Zaun talk about their journey with LinkedIn and how they’ve leveraged the platform for business growth.

RACHEL SIMON BIO: Rachel is the Founder & CEO of Connect the Dots Digital, where she focuses on LinkedIn corporate strategy and how companies can utilize the platform with their employees for maximum results.

For more info, check out Rachel HERE.


MATT ZAUN BIO: Matt is an award-winning speaker and storyteller who empowers organizations to attract more clients through the art of strategic storytelling. Matt’s past engagements have catalyzed radical sales increases for over 300 organizations that range from financial institutions to the health and wellness industry.

Matt shares his expertise in persuasion with executives, sales professionals, and entrepreneurs, who he coaches on the art of influence and how to leverage this for profits and impact.

For more info, check out Matt Zaun HERE. 

 

*Below is an AI-generated transcript, which may contain errors.

 

Matt Zaun 

I'm so excited for this episode because this episode is going to outline a journey, a journey of different mistakes, different victories, reward, kind of behind the scenes if you

The Will on how I went from point A to point B regarding LinkedIn, but also how my guests went from point A to point B regarding LinkedIn.

I'm joined by Rachel Simon. Rachel's been a part of this podcast. For quite some time we did three episodes earlier this year, the last one being in May.

So we did one March, April and May. So go check those out. I would include them in the show notes.

In March, we outlined stories on a massive stage. In April, we talked about refining your stories through LinkedIn. And then in May, are your stories resonating?

Are they actually landing with your audience? I'll include all those in the show notes. But we wanted to come back on Rachel and myself and really outline our journey from start to where we are now.

So I'm excited to have Rachel back. Rachel Simon is the founder and CEO of Connect the Dots Digital, where she focuses on LinkedIn corporate strategy and how companies can utilize the platform

With their employees for maximum results. Welcome back, Rachel.

 

Rachel Simon (Connect The Dots Digital)

Hi, Matt. It's so good to be back.

 

Matt Zaun 

Thanks for having me. Well, thanks for your time. I appreciate it. I recognize based on all the episodes that we did that people love to learn from you and what you have to say.

I can just see based on the sheer amount of downloads that your episodes bring in. So this is something that is on the forefront of people's minds.

For multiple reasons. One, I think a lot of people find it in. Trigging they want to engage more with LinkedIn and utilize it as a business tool, but also there's a lot of confusion.

So I think a lot of people listen in to kind of unpack elements of that confusion. Now we've talked in the past about how LinkedIn has changed, how it transformed into a more glorified resume type platform into the social media platform and networking tool that it is today.

What I want to dive deeper and kind of peel back the curtain. So to Speak and go. Behind the scenes to kind of share with everyone what we went through, our journey thus far when it comes to LinkedIn.

So do you remember when you first started to engage and why that was the case?

 

Rachel Simon (Connect The Dots Digital)

Yeah, I joined, so I joined the grudgingly in 2011 because I was working in my former role at the nonprofit where I used to work.

And I had just started with them. had encouraged them to let me run their social media strategy. And it was very much focused on Facebook at the time, kind of in 2010.

I felt like there was a huge opportunity to share stories, to really build an audience community through social media because it was pretty new for all of us.

And somebody was like, we should probably get on LinkedIn. I'm, I would, I'm going to guarantee that I said, I'm not looking for a job.

Why do I need to be on LinkedIn? But I joined and when I look back, you can download all of your old content.

So I went back and did that like a year ago and my first couple posts were just so terrible.

They were embarrassing. But I was using it, you know, I really wasn't using it. And, you know, fast forward, I left that job in 2015, went into marketing consulting, had that client, got me really into LinkedIn.

And it really was in 2018, 2019 that I started sharing content more regularly. And I actually took a course, joined a course in 2019 with a woman, Madeline Mann, if you're familiar with Madeline, she had a program the time strategies that I was using on LinkedIn with my clients.

But I needed that accountability for my own content strategy, and it really helped me start to develop and find a more engaging voice on the platform.

And then the rest is kind of history from there, because I fell in love with it. It just got to be so fun because I started building these great relationships with people because I was sharing content and commenting on other people's content.

 

Matt Zaun 

So what's really funny about that is I didn't even realize this when I asked that question to you, how close the years match up with our starting points.

Okay, so you'd mentioned 2010. For me, it was around that time as well. I think it was 2009. And I had a colleague at the time say, hey, I know you're into like motivational inspirational stuff.

Are you on LinkedIn? And I was like, no, I don't get my inspirational anything from LinkedIn. And I viewed it as a glorified resume, just like you at the time.

Right, I wasn't looking for a job. And then I just let it sit for years. And then for me, it was September of 2019, where I went to a workshop through the National Speakers Association.

They were actually giving a workshop on how speakers can utilize LinkedIn. And I was like, this is amazing. I was like, I got to get on this.

And then very much like you, what you said, I started posting for for me, it was months and I felt like my content was terrible.

I felt like it was going into a black hole, didn't know if anyone was really paying any attention. And then from there, after the wrap started to figure it out.

And so glad I did, because, you know, a few months later, the world shut down due to COVID. All the networking events were shot.

No one was doing networking events and networking events in person were radically different than zoom calls in many ways.

So I wasn't getting the kind of networking that I had before. Bill LinkedIn really saved a lot of elements of my marketing.

So it's super charged by networking in a big, big way. I was able to connect with so many more people in a quicker manner and then see those results.

So from a networking perspective, when you were engaging, did you see how it changed your ability to network?

 

Rachel Simon (Connect The Dots Digital)

Definitely. So my goal at the time, I'm going to have my business was pretty new. So I incorporated Connect the Dogs digital in January of 2018.

So I had been doing just like freelance marketing consulting for the sort of the summer of 2015 until that time and had worked on more and more with LinkedIn specifically and was like, I'm going to go all in on this.

feel a lot of opportunity here. But there were a lot of big names who had pretty large followings in the last

Linkedin trainer slash coach slash expert space. And, you know, anybody who's started a business. I don't everybody everyone of us has that imposter syndrome like well why would anyone take me seriously when all of these people have already been doing it are more established than me.

But I wanted to learn from them. I started following a lot of people. A woman Brenda Miller who's awesome had at the time.

She would put together something she called her lint and rock star list. And so I would go I went through her list and I followed a lot of those individuals and started checking out their content and it started to comment on their content and build relationships with those people.

And it helped get me more visibility along with starting to build my credibility in this space. So it just starts slowly, slowly, slowly, you know, and today.

A lot of those people that I started off just following because I wanted to learn from them our friends of mine and where we collaborate, we help each other out, learn from one another still, but it's on a very like, you know, basis versus me feeling like I have to, you know, I'm not good at, I'm not worthy to float like Wayne's world.

 

Matt Zaun 

I'm not worthy. That's awesome. So I want to mention about you, you said it was slow, right? Like it was a slow process.

And I cannot stress enough how agonizing it was for me to really engage when I I'm interested to hear your perspective when you were first launching content.

But for me, I remember Rachel, I kid you not. I would read article after article after article, book after book after book, just like almost ripping my hair out to try to figure out if I read enough books enough articles, maybe I too could create content that people would appreciate.

And I literally, that was my process early on. I was going to post once a week. And I remember I had these stacks of articles, like when it came to like forms and business and world like different news, different events.

And I didn't remember all of the ones that I had, but I had articles on speaking and articles on.

had no idea what I was even doing, but I would read all these articles and I'd be like, maybe I can, I can write my perspective about AB and stuff.

And and it took so much time and research, you know, so agonizing to get one post a week. And then once that happened, I committed to the posting every day, which was very challenging when I was first starting to do it.

Just wish people could see how agonizing it was for me personally. Did you find it really tough at first or did it come like second nature right out of gate for you?

 

Rachel Simon (Connect The Dots Digital)

I think it's hard. No matter. I would be interested to know if anyone finds it like content creation just to be like easy breezy from the get go because it is very challenging.

My earlier content when I was first starting similarly, I was like, I'll try to post once a week and I think I was kind of sharing articles and trying to put my spin on it.

And again, that course I took is what really helped me figure out what to talk about. And one of the things I did while I was going through the modules was I, and I still have this notebook.

I took a notebook and I wrote out on a piece of paper profile and I literally bulleted out every single component of a LinkedIn profile.

So that I would think about every piece, every bullet on that page is a potential post topic. Or, you know, I can write a post about headline profile photo, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

So, and I did that for profile for network, for content, engagement, for all the components of a comprehensive LinkedIn strategy.

So, I had, you know, 50 to 80 bullet it out ideas. And it's something that I recommend, like with my clients to get as granular as possible.

Because it's just really hard to look at the blank page and be like, what should I talk about? But if you have these ideas of how you break down concepts within your business.

It gives you a starting point. that was really helpful and honestly, right in line with, you know, your sweet spot, starting to pepper and storytelling.

Bringing in some personal experience on things was another game changer when it came to content. It made content writing more fun, more creative, and a little bit easier of a lift.

you know, what's funny is, I mean, there's a lot of stuff I post on LinkedIn that like, I feel weird if I would share on Facebook, even though Facebook is my kind of more inner circle friends and family.

But LinkedIn is the place where I share that kind of storytelling content.

 

Matt Zaun 

Yeah, that's so good. So I want to, I want to impact something that you said, Rachel, because I think it's so important.

Okay, so first, it's almost like a game, so to speak. And what I mean by that is once I was posting, okay, so once I got into routine, I started a little game where I thought about a subject and then everything that was in a line with that subject.

So like as an example, the First thing I'll pass it in my head is a tree. Okay, so if we're going to think about a tree, what's everything that goes along with a tree?

Okay, so you have roots, you might have soil, you have leaves, you might have a stump if it's that the tree is cut down, you have growth, you have...

What are some other things? would have bark.

 

Rachel Simon (Connect The Dots Digital)

The seasons.

 

Matt Zaun

The seasons, exactly. you would have fruit, maybe some seeds, you would water it. So my whole point is even with something as simplistic as tree, we could probably rattle off like 30 different things, right?

And I think a lot of people, when it comes to their space, they say, what do I talk about?

Well, there's so many subcategories to whatever industry someone's in. If they play the game like they think about a tree, of all the different things.

right, if you're a sales rep and you're selling whatever it is, whatever widget it is, how many subcategories? So now you have all these different things, and then something that I learned from you, Rachel, was about those content buckets, right?

certain buckets. And I feel that a lot of people find success within threes. So they have three specific things that they kind of rotate through.

So you have that tree analogy of all these different things you have 30. So do that for industry, and then cut it down to three.

And then that's what you're going to focus on. So once I did that, it was so helpful, so helpful.

So can you speak to some other ideas that people might be able to just get ideas for content creation?

 

Rachel Simon (Connect The Dots Digital)

I mean, I think that the way you broke that down is really, it's a great analogy of thinking about the big picture.

And then the other picture, and then what are the three priorities within that? And you know, sometimes something I hear on

Often is, oh, everyone knows this. Why would I don't need to talk about this? Or I'm going to look so basic if I talk about whatever that, you know, insert subject.

But what we need to keep in mind is that just because something, you know something really really well, your audience doesn't know it.

And you don't know who's seeing your content. So, you know, showing your expertise and talking about the basics of your industry can really help you be visible and seen as an expert in that field.

You don't know who knows somebody who needs what you do. So I see this happen really too often. And usually what happens is one of two things.

Either people don't want to post it because they feel like they're going to look, you know, too elementary or they go the opposite and they get so.

So deep in like the lingo with lots of acronyms and lots of inside baseball language that they limit who can understand that content.

So figuring out what you can talk about that is going to balance your expertise, but with an audience that can be a little bit broader is really a great strategy.

And the example I like to use is from one of my clients, really smart. She was in like the kind of go to market, you know, like product area.

She did a lot with product launching. And she had put this really good post together and it was about sustainability, but it was filled with acronyms.

And the feedback I gave her is like, this is such good content. There's so many people that care about buying products that, you know, are responsible because we want

I don't think you know, have sustainability, but when you use the acronyms, I don't know what you're talking about.

So I'm either going to feel stupid or I have to look it up and I may or may not take the time to do a Google search to find out what this acronym stands for.

So like avoiding inside avoiding that lingo and those acronyms or spelling them out. It's just a little example of how you can show your expertise, but then broaden your audience so that you're not.

Excluding people who might want to engage with the topic that you're talking about.

 

Matt Zaun 

Yeah, I think it's a really good point about speaking. I was going to say to the masses, but the masses for their target audience, right?

think so if it's someone within their target audience. I really like what you said about not being too elementary, but not being too detailed where people don't understand what you're talking about.

I think that's a great way to look at it. Bringing our unique perspective to LinkedIn is huge, right? So from a from an executive perspective.

If a leader wants to really start branding who they are, think about all the stories that they can crank out when it comes to their kids or when it comes to even athletics or whatever the case may be, they could literally start having those content buckets that would be very relatable to the masses, so to speak, that they could be building out a following.

And what is that going to do for them business-wise? Well, you mentioned, I believe on the last episode we did together, how many people, go to LinkedIn, they go to social media platforms, they go to a website to see different stories based on who the leader is.

They literally do research on the CEO of that company. And you mentioned, I don't want to throw out numbers because I don't want to get them wrong, but you mentioned it's very, very high percentage that someone will go and check out the CEO on LinkedIn.

So if they have a strategy where they are putting the messages and stories into the world, that have that unique perspective, more and more people are going to be endeared to them.

 

Rachel Simon (Connect The Dots Digital)

So I really appreciate you mentioning that. Yeah, absolutely. mean, people, what's your go-to? But what I'm going to meet with somebody, I'm going to their LinkedIn profile to figure out who are they.

What can I learn about them? What's an awkward, like, what's something I can talk about, right? Like, what's a way to break the eyes?

And so if your profile is not dialed in, you're not creating content, you're missing opportunity for people to get to know a little bit about you as a leader, for sure.

And there's so much to talk about. mean, I love a good sports analogy, and I love a good story about life lessons from real world things.

we're talking about journeys today. What's your journey? How did you get here? you envision being in a leadership role from the time, was that your goal when you were

For in school, what did it take to get here? What were lessons you learned along the way? What were the mistakes that you made, where the successes that you've seen?

What would you do differently if you could have a do over? Things like that, it shows your philosophies as a leader.

I think people really want to see that. want to have a connection with whomever they are working for and with.

 

Matt Zaun

Yeah, no, it's really a good point.

 

Rachel Simon (Connect The Dots Digital)

And I appreciate you taking us through the start.

 

Matt Zaun 

mentioned that it could start slow, then you build out these different content buckets. You're not being too elementary, but not too detail oriented.

So once people do that, have you found a good way to document what's being put out? are some of the systems that you utilize for documentation?

 

Rachel Simon (Connect The Dots Digital)

So a couple of things. I mean, some people use a tool called Shield. I used to use Shield. For a couple of years, it's an external tool where it can pull all of your content.

basically, you can see it all in a dashboard. And it can be helpful to see that. you get much better analytics on LinkedIn proper today than we used to.

So I personally didn't feel like I needed to have that tool anymore. So utilizing the analytics that are in LinkedIn, you can see which content perform the best.

By like seven, I think 28, 90 days, that's very helpful. I like to, and I mentioned at the top of the show, you can pull a download of your of everything that you have in LinkedIn.

And one of the files you'll get is called shares. And that's literally everything you've ever posted ever. It's pretty cumbersome.

But you can do a, you know, find like control F. In the Excel spreadsheet, search for certain keywords so that you can get a sense.

I like to do that for content repurposing. I'll also sometimes put content in a Google Doc so that I can go back and find it based on certain topics.

But one good strategy is really to, I would say using the internal analytics. I'm not a big, like I don't put too much weight worry in like how much many views am I getting this that and the other because.

LinkedIn, it's like the algorithm is constantly changing. We're always chasing it to figure out how do we leverage the algorithm.

I'm kind of more in the philosophy of just keep, just keep swimming, like just keep at it. Keep going.

You're more, the more you post, the more you build that goodwill, that good. Karma in LinkedIn. Don't get too caught up in the numbers.

It's more of the success for me personally as when you're out and about and people are like, Oh, God, I see your stuff on LinkedIn all the time.

Now that person may never have engaged with your content, but that tells me I'm being seen and people actually are paying attention to what I'm talking about.

And I think that's always a win.

 

Matt Zaun 

It's a huge win. How long do you think it takes for you to create LinkedIn content now? you were to crank out a post right now, how long just ballpark would it take you to write that out?

 

Rachel Simon (Connect The Dots Digital)

Probably about if I'm just doing a text post, maybe about 10 minutes. If I'm creating a graphic or something a little bit more complicated, like a video for me video is like a little bit of a heavy lift.

That's going to be a little bit more time consuming, but, you know, like 10, 15 minutes. I think if you overthink it, you should just put it away and come back later.

 

Matt Zaun 

So here's what I ask and here's what I want people to kind of look at the strategy behind this, because I think it's really important.

So I didn't get to a point probably about a year into my LinkedIn journey, where I said, if I'm going to spend, and that's about in line with with what I do, right, about 10 minutes for writing.

It could be between 10 and 20 for me when it comes to a writing post. But I said about a year in, if I'm going to spend, you know, these 15 minutes to write this post, how can I get residual results off them?

And then there are there are different instances that it would be appropriate to post. You had mentioned, you know, repurposing content on a regular basis.

So as an example, and I want people to kind of recognize this example why it's so important. And how people could utilize this.

A couple weeks ago, I was speaking in Connecticut, and I was literally driving by Mark Twain's house. I've always respected Mark Twain as a writer, so I said, I'm going to go and I'm going to check out Mark Twain's house and the museum.

So I went and I got a picture of me with Mark Twain's house in the background, and I wrote a post on what I learned from touring Mark Twain's house.

So I spent time doing that. I posted it, I got a ton of engagement, it got a bunch of messages, it was really good for me to post.

now I have something that I could post every year on Mark Twain's birthday. So I literally went back into my documentation, I found when was Mark Twain born, and I put it in that spot on that day that every day on Mark Twain's birthday, I'm going to post what I did a couple weeks ago.

And every year I could post this, I'm going to tweak some of the verbiage. But I'm going to get residual results based on that.

So I want people to start looking at this from a strategy perspective, because what Rachel mentioned when she's out and about, and people say, hey, I saw your stuff I'm linked in, imagine how this can supercharge your sales pipeline process, where you could literally take people from going cold to actually warm leads based on the content that you're sharing.

So can you take us through how people could really utilize the documentation strategy as well as how it could supercharge their sales process?

 

Rachel Simon (Connect The Dots Digital)

Yeah, I think your point of like, you'd have this post, and now you can use it every year at a certain time, right?

So you can do it. It can be as simple as in your calendar on whatever day that is, you literally have the link to that URL to that LinkedIn post as a task.

Yeah. Mark Twain Post. Here's the link. And then you can. Just use that as your reminder that every year on his birthday whatever, you're going to share that same piece of content.

So it can be as simple as using, again, your calendar, creating a spreadsheet with links. Every LinkedIn post has it as a unique URL.

You can grab that URL and just pop it into a document based on what you want to be talking about.

So the example I like to share is every couple of months I share a post that talks about how to download your LinkedIn connections.

Because it's a great tool. It's a good exercise to do. And I've posted it probably four times. I've also used it as an email lead story for my list two or three times.

Every single time I share it, I get people that go, you can do. I had no idea you could do that.

So your audience is constantly growing and your content, especially evergreen content, so like thinking about when it comes to sales, what is, what are the questions your customers are always asking.

That is content that you should be sharing on a regular basis. And I promise you that if you share a common question with a great post that talks about, you know, customer or blah, blah, blah, question, know, this is something that lots of people are wondering about.

How do you solve xyz, tell a story with a call to action. You share that in January and then you share that again in June.

one's going to remember that you share that in January. Nobody. You're helping yourself by repurposing content that is evergreen and it's going to help continuously show your expertise.

And the solutions that you You have to the problems that your target audience needs solved.

 

Matt Zaun 

And it's amazing how many people are afraid to post something again. But based on your point, it's amazing how there is a vast majority of our audience that might not see it.

Even ones that are paying close attention. So let me give two examples because I think this really speaks to what you said, Rachel.

So you mentioned you post something regarding downloading contacts. I've never seen that post from you. And I have, I pay a lot more attention to your content than someone else's.

And I've never seen it. I might have been in a meeting. Maybe I was at a certain event and when it would have come up in my, on my feed, it, you know, was there and then gone.

So the next time you post that and I see it, that's going to be new for me. And also another example too, is I remember in one of the conversations that we had, one of the episodes, I mentioned a story that's in my content bank right now about I was traveling.

Going to an event, my son's in the backseat. I was gonna drop him off at school and he project how vomit it all over me.

I was so angry. I end up calling the event planner saying, hey, like I'm not gonna make it right now.

And what that did with our business relationship, the person was super understanding. It made me more human and now I have an even better relationship.

But I remember sharing that story with you and how many times I posted it. And I remember in that episode, you said, you had never seen it.

And I think since then you saw the last time I posted it. But I want people to recognize that even with someone like Rachel, myself, that we're paying more attention to each other's content, there's stuff that we're missing.

So if you're ever afraid to post something again, don't be because more than likely, is potential clients that are out there that you could reach that you would have missed by holding back on that.

 

Rachel Simon (Connect The Dots Digital)

So I really appreciate you mentioning that. Yeah, first of all, I love that story because it's hilarious. And every parent definitely can relate to getting vomited on by their child at some point in their life.

But I think the reason why people are so hesitant to repurpose content like that is unfortunately because some people do a bad job of it.

And we see that content where like every post is kind of cookie cutter with a pretty heavy sales pitch or sign up for my email list.

Why am I I don't know. Not no dig on doing any of that stuff. like there are some people on LinkedIn that they are putting that same message out over and over and over again.

And so then you don't want to keep you don't care anymore. There's a big difference between something like that and cycling content every couple of months.

And I would say. You know, that can download your connection. And I probably could post that every quarter. I'm more likely to post it twice a year.

So two times a year. That no one's going to. No one will remember that. It's not like you get your list of linked in memories of this is what happened on LinkedIn.

A year ago, like you do on Facebook, which are delightful, by the way. So, you know, I think that not don't worry about that.

You're going to make your life easier to sustain a content strategy. you do identify just even can you identify four to five pieces of content that you can cycle through a couple of times a year.

And, you know, that might be how they agreed. post I put up for things. Giving and like the Christmas holidays and New Year's, I put the same post up every single year.

 

Matt Zaun 

Don't tell anyone.

 

Rachel Simon (Connect The Dots Digital)

Don't that on a podcast. Don't tell anyone. But like, why change it? It doesn't, it serves a purpose, right?

It's making my life easier to put the same graphic up with a similar post. So that's one example because that's more calendar based based on the time of year.

But if there are certain days of the year where there is something significant based on the calendar, go back to that date and see how you can tweak that content.

Like you said for Mark Twain's birthday, I've seen you do it for MLK. And you're using content from when you've gone to Memphis or you've been in Atlanta at the MLK site.

That's just being smart. Right? work smarter, not harder. Like, same thing applies on LinkedIn.

 

Matt Zaun 

That's really good point. So speaking of working smart. So I was just thinking about process process just thinking about the process program.

process process program. process of was just thinking the process And looking at I was Hearth. there. I was curious I up on to a private rounds.

Dretching, but it was around 8.30. So I'm like, I got to go post on LinkedIn. And it was something that was recycled, okay, to use your verbiage repurposed content.

So I was copying and pasting it and I was going to post and I'm laying in my back and I'm stretching and I copy and paste and I'm like, you know what, I'm going to put a P.S.

at the end of this. So I had, I forget exactly what the content was, but I had my posts and then I said, P.S.

Currently laying on the back, laying on my back while I'm posting this. Have you ever dealt with back pain?

Is so how did you overcome it? So now I have the main message. I have this P.S. That's at the end.

There was a ton of comments with people, Hey, I went to PT. Hey, this chiropractor helped me. Hey, have you ever tried this stretching?

Now here's why that was important for me, even though it didn't really have to do with the main post, all of those comments pushed that content out to more and more people.

And it was a good testing ground for me where I was like, I wonder if I. I can do this again.

I've utilized that strategy since then, where I'll put a PS at the end of some of the ones that I'm repurposing, just to change it just ever so slightly.

it's amazing that there's a new wave of people that will come and they'll post. I'm curious to know, Rachel, are there any tweaks that you've done with your content that maybe people wouldn't really think of that have helped you when it comes to different tips.

 

Rachel Simon (Connect The Dots Digital)

Oh, definitely. I mean, we have so many content options on LinkedIn. And so you can take your original post and think about, well, how can I change this?

Can I add a graphic? That's different. Maybe you just posted text the first time. And maybe this time you can add a graphic or you can add a document, which is like the little thing that you click through, like the little mini PDF.

You can basically take the topic and the wording and speak it into your phone as an Video, right? So you can think about taking the same idea, but just change the format.

So that's one super easy tweak. I love that PS idea kind of fun and different. Um, you know, PS I'm writing this on the plane to my next week in California or wherever you're traveling off to.

Um, something that just shifts it up a little bit. But I think, you know, the easiest one is to think about how can I, um, can I change the type, the content type because we just get so many options when it comes to content.

It's not like Instagram where you basically have a photo or video. That's it. We have a ton of different content options and we should definitely play with the different tools that we have.

 

Matt Zaun 

It's really a point and absolutely think of, you know, when we were talking about that tree, right? How many different sub categories?

Well, there's so many different categories you could have with content. So we started by talking about the challenge, right?

How tough it was and how slow it was for us to do this. Now let's talk about where we are today.

So I want to talk about the reward. So what are some rewards that you've seen by utilizing LinkedIn as a platform.

 

Rachel Simon (Connect The Dots Digital)

Oh goodness. I mean, number one is just building relationships with great people. So this summer I was on vacation in New York City with my family and it just the stars aligned.

A couple other people were in town at the same time. And thanks to relationships that have been built on LinkedIn, we all met up about 15 of us.

And we were able to actually meet at LinkedIn. had a tour of the offices. had lunch in the cafeteria.

We took a billion photos. And You know, the opportunity to meet people that I only know through LinkedIn. And when we met, it was like, we already know each other.

We already have these relationships, though. That is the value of this platform to me. mean, yes, new business is going to come eventually, but you have to build that relationship and build the trust with your audience.

And you do that by having a clear brand through your profile, being connected to the right people and then showing up consistently by sharing content and engaging with other people.

That builds the relationship so that you can do all the other things that you want to do based off of that trust that you've built.

 

Matt Zaun 

That's not a good point. I mean, it's funny to say, but how true is this?

 

Rachel Simon (Connect The Dots Digital)

I've never read a business book that said networking is not important.

 

Matt Zaun 

Like networking is so important. you imagine? I'm a business book that says no one should ever network, no way, because we know how important it is.

And one of the things that this does for us is it literally makes our life easier when it comes to sales.

Since I started, it was agonizing for me sales-wise when I started with LinkedIn in 2019. Fast forward to today, it's so much easier for me to sell what I'm selling right now.

Like unbelievably easier from what it was. And why? Because again, I have those relationships. It's name ID. People recognize different stories that I'm putting out into the world.

So when I get them on a call or when I'm in a meeting with them, like they already feel that they know me.

And maybe they don't know me well, but they know my stories. They've connected with the stories that I've shared.

It just, it has improved my business in ways that I never thought possible. In addition, I do want to speak to something that we had talked about earlier.

So when we launched the episode in April, and again, I'll include all this in the show notes, but that episode we did, Refining Your Stories Through LinkedIn, a lot of people don't utilize LinkedIn as a test and ground as well.

So what I mean is we're in a time in human history that we can almost get immediate feedback. Okay, so what I mean is if you share a story on LinkedIn, and you get a bunch of comments and you get feedback, now you know that stories are a really good story.

You could add that into your sales pipeline process. If you have sales reps that go into different events, or maybe there are different conferences or trade shows, now you know that you might want to focus in on a certain story that you shared on LinkedIn, something that got buzz, something that got engagement.

I've literally become a better speaker based on my content on LinkedIn. I've added stories into my workshop. Based on stories that shared on LinkedIn well that people were engaged with, people could do the exact same thing.

So there's so much that we can gain from doing this.

 

Rachel Simon (Connect The Dots Digital)

appreciate everything that you mentioned. Yeah, and I think to compare why that is successful, building those relationships, taking the time, and I want to emphasize, and you've said it multiple times, but I think it bears repeating of this is not a quick process.

There is no easy button on LinkedIn. People will share like, oh, I posted for 30 days and I, you know, 10x my business.

I don't personally believe that because I think it is a long, slow, sometimes painful, but ultimately rewarding process on LinkedIn.

And that is where you see the success. And that's why. We find it so frustrating, many of us, when we get pitched to death in the DMs by people who've never taken any time to get to know us and to engage with us.

It's more a better use of time to go take, know, be the turtle, be the tortoise, take your time, build those relationships, go slow, slow and steady versus just like message, message, message, message, and get people who just don't want to care for me.

And then you end up walking people because it's overwhelming and it's impersonal. And maybe you get one response out of 100 versus I'd rather get five potential customers who know me and want to work with me because I've built that time that trust over time.

So be the tortoise. Don't be the hair.

 

Matt Zaun 

Sure. So it is a journey, right? And thank you for outlining your journey with us. I really appreciate what you had mentioned, Rachel, and I got a lot out of this conversation, but there's three things in particular that I want everyone listening to really grab a hold of.

I really appreciate you mentioning how do you break down concepts? It's so important. How do you break down concepts?

How do you establish those content buckets? challenge everyone listening to think about the content buckets that they could utilize when it comes to LinkedIn.

I also mentioned something that you, I appreciate something you mentioned regarding. Don't be too elementary, but don't be too detailed either.

We need to add our unique perspective, but we need to be somewhere in the middle. I think that's really sound advice and really good wisdom.

The third and final piece is I appreciate you mentioning the repurposing content, specifically internal analytics, as well as downloading the posts that people have actually shared into the world.

You can actually download all that information that can Just clues on how to repurpose and utilize content in the future.

So I appreciate those three things. Those are going to be my three takeaways. If someone wants to get more information on you on what you do, the services you provide, where's the best place they can go to get that information.

 

Rachel Simon (Connect The Dots Digital)

You can find me on LinkedIn, just hit me up with a connection class and you can just say stories of attraction in the message and I'll know where you found me.

 

Matt Zaun

That's awesome. It would be terrible if you would have said something else, right? you want to find her on thread.

 

Rachel Simon (Connect The Dots Digital)

No, do not find me on Instagram.

 

Matt Zaun 

I will put Rachel Simon's LinkedIn account in the show notes. People could just click and they can find you there.

So thanks again, Rachel.

 

Rachel Simon (Connect The Dots Digital)

I very much appreciate your time today. Always great to be here.