How To Build Your Profile On Social Media

How To Build Your Profile On Social Media

Amy Wills

Devin Miller

The Inventive Journey

Podcast for Entrepreneurs

11/19/2020

The Inventive Journey

Starting and growing a business is a journey. On The Inventive Journey, your host, Devin Miller walks with startups along their different journeys startups take to success (or failure). You also get to hear from featured guests, such as venture firms and angel investors, that provide insight on the paths to a successful inventive journey.

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definitely those profile pictures you know you don't want to have one with you in a group where somebody's going to look at and go okay which one is it um you don't want to have one from you know your high school all-star years where now you're 35 and 40 and you don't look the same um you definitely will make sure that it's okay this is you um also your headline i mean you know that it's that quick snap this is who i am like in a nutshell it doesn't have to be so robotic though i see a lot of them they're like i have my master's degree in this and it's all these credentials you go enough don't worry about that they'll get your credentials later tell them what you do with those credentials [Music] hey everyone this is devin miller here with another episode of the inventive journey i'm your host devin miller the serial entrepreneur that has built several startups into seven and eight figure companies as well as the founder and ceo of miller ip law where we focus on helping startups with and startups and small businesses with their pads and trademarks and today we have another great expert episode and we have amy wills on here and i'll brief introduction i'll give more of what she does and then she can tell you a little bit more about it so she is a digital media marketing expert and she'll talk a little bit about everything we'll talk about social media we'll talk about free resources probably talk a lot about linkedin just because that's my favorite thing to talk about and a few other maybe we'll even get into mailers and ads and billboards who knows but we'll talk all about how to do marketing and have a good time and hopefully provide a bit of good information so with that much as an introduction welcome on to the podcast hey there thanks thanks for having me oh excited to have you so maybe just uh before we dive into all of your expertise maybe give the audience just a brief introduction as to kind of who you are and what your background is and why you're so they're such an expert on this or on this uh topic my name's amy wills i am like you said a digital marketing expert i have experience i was a digital director of digital marketing for a couple of very large regional companies um i consider myself an expert because i didn't come into this with you know a marketing degree or anything like that i have my background my background is in chemistry and pharmaceuticals and so i really had to go out of my way to learn everything from scratch and so for that reason i it's neat to have both perspectives of everything so all right well that's a great introduction and uh i'm excited to dive into it now with you so we'll jump into my so my first the area i find interesting and so i'll direct it to the the questions i find interesting and hopefully others do as well so and we talked a little bit about it before or before the podcast um linkedin linkedin to me seems like it's a great and i'm biased because i like linkedin but great platform for everybody to more than just post a resume more than just to put it and forget about it but it's a platform where on the business side you can connect a lot you can network you can actually find people i mean one of the secrets that i guess not isn't secret if i share with the audience is we go out and we look for people that are looking for recommendations in the legal field and it's interesting to me how many people are looking for recommendations and how few people respond so those are people that are clients that are wanting recommendations and they're asking for it and nobody ever responds and so with that thoughts on linkedin is it a good platform why is it a good platform if it is a good platform and how can we best live or how can people best leverage it i love linkedin it is my favorite platform because i mean especially as a professional you go there you get to interact with people you get to see you're learning so much more about them in a professional way but also you're getting to see like oh you're human so i want to do business with you not only because you have a reputable company or you know all these great reviews but also because as a person you seem generally great i mean it's so good for building a brand for your company just because you have that human connection and so i i love linkedin i can't say enough good things about linkedin let's dive into so let's say okay i'm convinced you you convinced me of that 30 second spill i should use leaked before or you'll take the standard person that two or three years ago somebody told me i should probably or my business did it for me create a profile on linkedin i created it i've never done anything with it how do i how do you start to dive into linkedin what do you do to actually engage the platform do do i post every day should i go and update my profile should i do a different picture should i tell everything every experience and i have a long list of experience should i get recommendation i mean there's so many areas to start if you're just getting into it what is the best area to start or how do you get how do you start to tackle it it can definitely be overwhelming whenever you look at especially when we go on there and you see these people that they do have it all together and they're superstars on linkedin and so i think the first thing should be figuring out what your goal is right now i mean are you just trying to put your profile together are you trying to network with a specific type of person or are you trying to build your plan you have to figure out what your exact goal is and it's going to be ever changing i feel like every week i have something different in mind for like what i want to achieve on linkedin and so i think that should be step one figure out what you want to do um and build your profile that way um you know if you're trying to what do i want how do i even figure out what i want to do so as i most people i'm making the assumption but let's say somebody says hey you should really check out linkedin i think it would do well with your business it's okay i'll go check it out how do i even figure out what i want to do in the sense you know it's kind of like if i if somebody tells me all everybo i get occasionally it's on the intellectual property the patent trademark side somebody that says well somebody told me i needed a trademark or i needed a patent and i really don't know if i need one or not but they told me so i figured i'd call you and check it out so kind of that same thing if somebody told you you should probably use linkedin or it's a good source or heard on a podcast or read downline how do you even figure out how do you figure out what you should be doing or how or what your purpose should be it just depends on where you are in your business like for using mine for example um you know with covid i was a director of digital marketing and then i was laid off and so you go oh okay i'm to square one now i'm not the director for a single company i'm trying to do this for multiple people and i do it really well so how do i let other people know that and bring them to me um so just adding that value you know showing that okay here's my purpose my purpose right now is to show that i know what i'm doing um so creating so my goal right now is to create content that shows that off um you know adding value in a digital marketing scheme and showing that look i can make content that is getting engagement if i can do this for myself i can do this for your company um so just you just really have to look inside your business and even if you are working with a company answering the question as well so let's say my purpose because i would say the majority of companies are going to say the reason i want to go on linkedin is i want to get more clients i want to get more business and wherever i can make more money that's where i want to be and so if that's is that your purpose or is that more of just your end goal or accomplishment is there a difference or because where i see a lot of times people go on and they just plaster a whole bunch of at you know a whole bunch of posts about their business and say if you need this type of a person come to me i'm great and i'm like scroll to the next one because that's not interesting like everybody else so is that your purpose is it just hey i want to make more business or is there a bigger picture to the purpose i think there's a bigger picture there because yes i know what you're talking about you see those where you're going oh it's so robotic like i want to learn about you and your company i don't want you to regurgitate the about section of your website i don't want to see that um and so just showing off in a way exactly what kind of person they'll be working with you know there are some companies on there that do it so not even companies individuals within companies that do it so well um one that someone was talking about the other day anthony jones and i feel like i bring him up pretty often but like i don't have any interest in duck hunting at all i'm the opposite of a duck hunter but he engages in a way and he talks about his company which is um ducks unlimited and you go i don't care to hunt but it's really neat to like learn about conservation and learn about that company you go wow like these people are really passionate about it um and there's some others like some of the recruiters where you go oh recruiting like i'm not even looking for a job but y'all talk about it in a way that makes it engaging like if i were looking for a job you would be who i would go to it would be your company because you you come across as approachable so i don't think it should be the i'm looking for more clients like this is my goal i'm going to have my pitch my my pitch is going to be my post every week but just a finding out how to do that in a conversational way no i think that makes and a lot of it is at least for me and you're the expert so i'll just do it from my standpoint is that when you're posting is it you kind of have two different goals right one is to yourself as an expert or appear to be an expert so you don't have to say you don't just tell everybody an expert but give share value say hey i'm i don't go around saying hey i'm the best world's best patent attorney come hire me but rather prove that in a sense here's some information here's an article you should read or here's you know something you should know or here's something that will help your business and almost that kind of that give give get model to or give them that information and then two is also to create a network and a people and to actually make those connections right so one value to the everybody is a as a whole or you know everybody on the platform and then two to start making more specific or connections or things always seem to me to be a couple good motivations yeah and it's something i've had people call before and be like i don't know you at all but so and so's friend saw this linkedin post and they recommended you i'm like that's so great that's that's great that's what i want to hear um and so i think that's what people should be thinking about whenever they're making this content is anyone like everything is marketing that's something that ryan kovac says i love it everything is marketing so so you should i always say you should always be selling in the sense that you should always be figuring out a way to let people know i always laugh and there's i love listening to podcast so i do my own podcast i also i'm an avid listener and there's one that you know he talked about and i can't remember which podcast it is now so though if they ever listen this will be like that was me but i was he was talking about he was they were real saying it's a real estate marketing podcast and i just can't remember the name off top my head and maybe just be real estate marketers i can't remember um um but they were talking about how they were in a friend either heyman himself were in a bar and they were talking about how hey you know he was talking his friend was talking to hey i just found this you know smoking hot chick and i not derogatory that's just how he told the story and said i just gave her this girl and you know i'm hoping that she gives me a call then we can start dating those type of things which i'm sure i've never been in a bar i'm about as opposite of a bar but i can imagine it does the last and he's and so you know he's telling his friend all about how he gave her this referral and he's hoping that they can start dating and you know that was the whole motivation to give her the referral and the guy who goes to him says well dude i'm in marketing like i'm in real estate like that's what i do like why didn't you give it to me it's like oh i didn't know that that's what you did like and he's like how does my and not know what i'm doing and you do that so it almost seems you know kind of by extension these type of platforms whether it's linkedin and others is a way for you to let your friends or even you know a coin network and that know what you're doing not hard selling them but know what they're doing right right so now i'm going to keep on the linkedin just because it's an interesting one but switch quick gears so starting out you can i'll give you two options you can either make your profile look the world's best profile you can go in and do everything or you can start posting and let's say you have a limited amount of time which one's more important if i have to make you choose definitely make your profile optimize your profile first so now you can put out a mice oh go ahead and go but okay now what so that's like building a business and then not having a website or any kind of a landing page so so start out with a profile that answers my first question now what should what should people be thinking about when they build their profile is it the picture is it the tagline is that hey i should tell every job and should you know what are the things to think about when you're building your profile that really helped you to stand out um when people are looking at it definitely those profile pictures you know you don't want to have one with you in a group where somebody's going to look at and go okay which one is it um you don't want to have one from you know your high school all-star years where now you're 35 and 40 and you don't look the same um you definitely will make sure that it's okay this is you um also your headline i mean you know that it's that quick snap this is who i am like in a nutshell it doesn't have to be so robotic though i see a lot of them they're like i have my master's degree in this and it's all these credentials you go enough don't worry about that they'll get your credentials later tell them what you do with those credentials um so use that headline as your hey this is me um i think that's super important and then just build the other as you go um everybody we had slightly technical gift deal i think you were saying the photo was makes a first impression is that right yes yes so i'll give and once i'll give because and i said i feel like i'm talking as much about the and it's just because i really like linkedin so you get it you get me out and i talk more than i and then i should but you know one of the interesting things that you know i found on the photo that i never knew about until recently is there's a website that's called photofeeler have you heard of that one yes and so i love that and it's one that just to give the the viewers an insight so because i think that what the first thing you always notice on a picture is you know whether it's a good picture whether he can has good lighting doesn't have good lighting but sometimes you as an individual you love your own picture and you kind of start to drink your own kool-aid you're like oh well this conveys this and i love my picture and everybody else looks out and says that's a horrible picture i don't love that and what are you trying to do right mike is you know i'm sure there's other out there but it's just photofeeler.com but you can go on and you can say this is you know i'm going to use this for social or i'm going to use this for business and then you can put multiple pictures up there and then it's basically hey you vote on so many pictures you give your feedback and the information and then they'll they others will do the same online so it's kind of a compromiser you help others they help you but then they can say hey how competent you look how you look smart trustworthy attractive and i think they have a whole bunch of different metrics depending on if it's dating or social or business but then it gives you a better idea of hey how are other people pursuing or pursuing that photo or viewing that photo right yeah i love that website because it's really neat because you do you get feedback on it and you're going oh well i mean maybe you've been knocked off your high horse but at least now i know not to use that no i love it and you know those type of things so now we get the photo and we have so how do i drop so there's a couple approaches and get your thoughts or feedback you can either just be very make sure that you tell you know very come off very educated or smart right and here's all the jobs i've worked at here's the projects i've worked at here are the thing you know the degrees that i have or you can have the opposite of hey i'm going to tell more of a story right let them kind of buy into what i did why i did it what i'm passionate about so is there should you balance one way or the other should you strike it somewhere in the middle or how do you how do you can now convey you get the perfect picture you get that perfect tagline how do you now convey them that the rest of the information you got that about me section so that you can really kind of shoot your shot right there um and it just depends on your personality i mean anybody can coach you on it and be like okay here's exactly what other people's you know this is what they're going with and it seems to be working but i mean you don't want to put something on there that isn't you so if you are going for super robotic and i'm super professional jokes show that um of what you've put on there using it so you definitely want to make sure that you have your so now we do that see you you convey over the information that you want you want them to know and you figure out hey this is how i'm going to convey my personal interest i think to your point conveys hey i'm i'm an awesome person i'm i'm happy go lucky and this is the kind of person you're going to get if you hire you work with me or anything else or hey i'm very serious but i'm very expert on mine but i think it conveys your personality a bit without being unprofessional next topic which is free resources last thing on linkedin any don't anything you shouldn't do whether it's on your profile on your post we've hit a couple but any other things that you shouldn't do oh gosh i mean there's i feel like i talk more about what you shouldn't do sometimes um you know just standard conversation you're not gonna go heavy on politics personal opinion i mean you can have personal opinions but you know you're not gonna go shame people based on the way anything discriminatory if you wouldn't say it in an office setting probably shouldn't say it on linkedin i think these are just common sense and manners also no one really likes that hard sales pitch i mean i feel like i really go on about that a lot because i realize we're all here to make connections and sell and build our clients and you know build our businesses but at the same time no one wants to feel like oh i'm just a number like you've just copied and pasted and sent me this so try to make more meaningful connections so that when you are trying to sell on something it doesn't come across so cold and robotic and harsh all right so there's the don'ts now i'm going to switch to one of the other topics that we talked to or things we talked a little bit about the podcast or before the podcast was the idea of free resources in the sense that hey especially if you're a startup a small business you always have more things to spend money on than money to spend and so you're always saying hey how can i what can i leverage what can i do myself what are some of the things that are good resources to me as i'm starting out and those type of things so maybe or help us understand what are some good free resources what should people check out and what is available to them i mean social media is you know number one as far as free resources whenever you're trying to build a business it costs you absolutely nothing to make a facebook business page or a linkedin company page or a personal profile so you should always do that just because you've got your all eyes all the time um i mean you can always get help with that but it's you can start that free um resource as far as branding um canva is my favorite that's free because they've got a free um version of that software and if you're trying to get everything started you can you know set up a brand kit you can set up a team you can make kind of learn how to do your graphics without having to be that i'm an expert graphic designer i mean you can do it and it's not going to look so amateur and so that's helpful you're not having to you don't have that expense i mean graphic design work can be very expensive so that's always helpful um a scheduler you know tailwinds is good for businesses that need to have a presence on instagram or pinterest things like that that's an awesome and they help for those that aren't familiar what is a schedule or what why would you use a schedule or maybe given that as a backdrop a lot of people have trouble with consistency as far as you know okay maybe i should be maybe it's i've been told that it's best to have daily content but i'm busy i don't have time for this with a scheduler you can go in and just have it all set up to where it does the posting for you so it's not a okay i did really good on my content here and then i got busy and i didn't post anything for two weeks um because you don't want to miss out on people having eyes on your stuff for that amount of time and so if you're somebody that struggles with that definitely have a scheduler um there's a lot of free ones out there there's um tailwinds there's tweetcaster hootsuite even canva now has a scheduler built into it so there's a lot of great free resources out there but you definitely want to do that consistency is important and you brought up scheduler so i'll ask one question kind of across the different socials and so the ones that i'm aware of and i'm not i'm not up on all of the new platforms but you certainly have a facebook and instagram twitter linkedin and i know that there's uh you know other ones out there but what are the is there should you be how often should you be posting on those different platforms is it you know quick is it the same on each meaning every you know i should tweet the same as i put on linkedin same as i put on facebook or is there a difference in how often it should post on them no there's definitely a difference um and it varies you know some things i see i'll see some recommendations and you go okay i think that's a bit outrageous um like recently i saw a thing come out that you should be posting 12 to 15 tweets per day and i was thinking who how how do you have time for that um but you know like linkedin it's recommended daily content usually helps um facebook is daily tweets you definitely need more tweets that's kind of one of those where you have to get into it and just see what the magic number is for your business um i recommend anybody starting with just daily content and then watching your numbers from there you know google analytics is free use that watch how your audience is tracking things and i mean if you need to drop it down drop it down i mean some people only need to post three times a week and it's perfectly effective and helps um other people need to post twice a day so i always say start with once daily okay go from there awesome so now i'm gonna ask and we only we're getting towards the end but i have one more question that is completely off of digital media but you we talked about it just for very briefly digital media thoughts on those in the sense you know we talked just a little bit about mailers and billboards are those dead should you give up on them as a business and you should abandon all hope they still effective depends on the business or thoughts on when you should go or just go digital go old school physical or a combination of both so this is an interesting topic for me because i do you know i do digital marketing but my my family owns a printing company and so my dad is like the old-timey printing press like we are doing the mailers and all this and so it's like this conflict of oh my gosh people could save so much money if they didn't do this but also it's important to do that and so although i love all things digital there's definitely still a place for those mailers i mean you get them all the time and especially right now it's so funny because like my mailbox has been full of the mailers from different campaigns um and they're effective i mean even though you know that train of thought is initially of oh no that's just gonna people just throw these away you go they don't but they don't they do actually go back and look at those um billboards it's my only problem with them is that it's difficult to gauge a return on them because you know whereas if you put an ad on google you can go in and see okay this is how many people have seen it and so many people clicked you don't get that with a billboard but i mean you know people are looking at it and so just kind of gauge okay we've got this many calls and we can't track them with our digital things so it must be coming from this so yeah i think there's definitely still a place it just depends on what industry you're in but there's definitely a need for those so let's say giving me free advice now and we'll end with that legal industry in general would you go with mailers billboard paper newspaper ads digital social media linkedin facebook if you could only choose one and i know you don't have to really choose one but if you could only choose one and somebody's in the legal industry which would you choose i would say facebook but just because whenever you think about like okay how often does the average person need a lawyer and it's funny because i was talking about this with somebody that they were they're in the plumbing industry and they're like we don't know what to do because people only call us when there's an emergency it's going make yourself approachable before then so that they go okay i have a problem i need to call you but i don't want you to be somebody that's going to judge me or take advantage of me so i think facebook's perfect for let's build up my my friendliness and my personal demeanor i'm your i'm your go-to person all right well that was some good advice and there's i we could talk i'm sure for a lot longer and we would find it interesting and everybody else would start to shoot out so we'll wrap up with there but as people want to use your services they want to learn more about how whether it's linkedin or any of facebook social media anything or all the above they want to use your services they want to ask you more questions they want to be your friend they want to be your employee they want to invest in you any or all of the above what's the best way to connect up with you to go to my website amyleeannw.com and so you can email me you can find all of my links to all my socials everything best way to find me all right and they should be able to hopefully find you on social media so that would be yes i better all right well thank you for coming on it's been fun to talk a lot about linkedin topic but also some of the other ones free resources and everything else it's been a pleasure now now for all of you that are listeners make sure to if you uh ever have your journey to tell and you'd like to come on or you're an expert and you'd like to share your expertise just go to invent inventive journey if i can say it now inventivejourneyguest.com and feel free to apply to be on the podcast if you're a listener make sure to click subscribe and uh so you can get notifications of all the new episodes that come out and last but not least if you're a startup or small business and never need help with patents and trademarks feel free to reach out to us at millerip law thank you again amy it's been fun to have you on it's been a pleasure and i wish you uh good luck with uh helping all the businesses out there to grow their presence thank you so much you English (auto-generated) All 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