Welcome to the read method, insider podcast: this is episode 66 of the show.
I can’t believe we’re at six to six episodes.
We’ve been recording quite a few episodes lately and uh.
It’s certainly been fun um, while we’ve been on lockdown for a while, so we’ve had definitely enough time to do that to record uh, podcasts and uh.
You know all these tons of webinars and stuff that we’ve done so here we go.
Uh tonight’s show is with a linkedin expert about creating consistent and impactful engagement on the platform and i’m certainly uh pumped to welcome my guest because, yes, as she alluded to earlier she’s, a fellow jamaican and reached out to me some time ago and we’ve been in Touch ever since so i’m excited to have her on the show and just want to share with you uh about my special guest tonight.
Is the press she’s, the president of executive oasis, international, a professional team building facilitator keynote speaker and i know her as an authoritative figure on linkedin capturing the minds and hearts of over 18 000 followers and counting before starting her own business.
As you know, our guest shaped the management development strategy at two major canadian companies, uh bell mobility, which we all know here in canada and via rail or national uh railway.
Where you see spare headed management, development and organizational change initiatives with an mba from uh york, university, schulich school of business, i try saying that three times school of business in toronto, canada and msw from the university of illinois at urbana campaign and an undergraduate degree from Mcgill university: okay: this lady is like stacked up with all the accolades with an extensive business experience in a variety of industries, including banking, wireless communications, transportation, non-profit and the film and television industry.
It’s no wonder she has been able to connect with and influence tens of thousands of social uh followers on her social platforms, with her engaging and in exclusive writing style.
So it’s long overdue that we welcome ann thornley brown to the show welcome to episode 66.
It’s a pleasure.
Thank you very much that reminds me of street 66.
yeah and she’s.
Funny too, that’s cool, lynton, queasy, johnson’s song street 66, come on in and take some licks [ Laughter, ] wow.
Well, you see now i know where to get her creative side from um already.
This is cool, so uh you’ve worked in many countries.
I see i was looking at your profile and, like she’s, been all over the place.
Many countries, including middle east asia or you’ve, been exposed to those countries for sure so tell us what led you um to such broad international exposure and you know and that influence and what what did you take away or learn from yourself from that experience, traveling? Well, first of all, when i designed my first website, i designed it myself because everyone said they were building a website, so i thought they were building a website.
I didn’t know you could hire people to do that.
So i went to the store i bought corel web designer and i use i actually when i was designing the website.
I wanted to reflect a tropical oasis, so i patented it.
After my favorite resort in jamaica, the enchanted garden was wow the name at a time, and i did that to appeal to a caribbean audience, but next thing i’m hearing from people in asia – and i know what well marketing person.
I was speaking with said that the colors were considered to be very yummy in an asian culture.
So that’s how i started flying over.
I didn’t go after it.
God sent the right people to my website.
Oh nice, that’s that’s outstanding.
I i saw that.
I’m, like you know, look at all these places, she’s been and all the different cultures he’s been exposed to so yeah.
They found me, you know um, sometimes in life, we do what we know how to do and we do all the right things.
But it’s like when you’re a farmer you can plant that seed.
You can water fertilize weed, but the only person who can make it grow is god well outstanding.
Look at that.
So god knows of opportunities that we haven’t even dreamt of, and i think this is an opportunity right here that we’re connecting tonight on the show.
So another one of your many talents is acting yeah.
So so what is that like being in front of the cameras and in that zone? Does that require tons of focus or for you? It just comes.
Naturally, i’ve always loved acting, i mean as a child.
I certainly did school plays and church plays and you know drama at camp, and i just i just loved it.
You know so for me, um, you know in a way it comes naturally, but the main thing about acting is you have to get out of your own way.
Yeah, that’s why you have to take some classes and workshops and really work on that? No that’s cool! So and – and i see that you were in a few commercials – i need more so see folks he’s still working at it.
That’s amazing, so i think i saw somewhere here, you’ve been on linkedin and since we’re here to talk about your expertise on linkedin and what you know you can share with our audience today and how we can get better on linkedin, including myself, and how to write.
So, amazingly, to engage the audience, and i i see that you’ve been on linkedin since 2004.
Is that right, that’s correct? 2004.
, so that was like two years after the the company was founded: uh, okay, my my executive oasis company was started in 2003 and it’s a spin-off of another company that i founded in 1996.
Another brand wow, so so linkedin came on board in 2002 and there you were on the platform already.
I i don’t think i’ve met anyone.
Yet that has been on the platform.
How many years would that be? 16.
? It’s a lot a lot of years, yeah like that’s a lot of years, to be on linkedin, so um.
So what caught your attention back then about the platform? Well, i was on a platform called rice, r y z e, and it’s one of my colleagues who told me about it and i went on there and i just started engaging.
I already started doing work in in malaysia, so i joined one of the malaysian groups and i told them that i was coming to malaysia and the next thing i heard from another malaysian company and they wanted to bring me over.
So i thought oh man, this is so easy piece of cake, so i don’t know how i found out about linkedin, but i thought that that’s the way it was going to be that you just post and next thing, you’re going to get work, wow wow, so So how did it work? How did it start in the first place, because we all know when we first get on linkedin? We have no clue what’s next well with linkedin for the first four years.
I really really didn’t do anything uh, but when i started blogging that was 2008, i started.
Sharing links to my posts in groups.
Groups were very big and i started tweeting links to my posts and immediately my blog traffic exploded, because in those days not now so much, but in those days people would actually click on your links and though that was really great and originally i started blogging to Help my team building business, it didn’t work, really didn’t work, but a lot of editors read my work and started contacting me and saying: oh, we love your work.
We want you to write for us and we’ll pay you and i said, okay so again an opportunity.
I wasn’t looking for yeah, god has a way of bringing those opportunities to you outstanding.
So, as linkedin has evolved over 18 years now, and has anything surprised you, since you were pretty much there since the beginning, has anything surprised you or exceeded your expectations, or you have learned since being on the platform longer than anybody else.
I know well, first of all, it’s always changing, and sometimes i like the changes.
Sometimes i don’t like it so groups were really strong.
I met a lot of really interesting people.
I got some blogging work through that a couple of team building assignments, but not many, and i got to actually cover a lot of trade, shows and conferences and events for the the portals i was blogging for so that worked really well, but then in 2015, things Changed how many groups were invisible? I mean i was managing one of the largest groups on linkedin.
We grew from 4 000 members in 2008 to over 250 000 people.
By the time i stepped down as a manager three years ago, wow and suddenly that was dead.
It was just dead in the water, so my main thing is whatever platform you’re on make sure that when you’re building your network, you are capturing those contacts and staying in touch with those people independent of the platform, because it can change overnight.
So that’s the main thing so in terms of so now, you’re talking about groups what yeah so so back then so are you saying? Linkedin groups today are not as effective as they were in the past, they’re not as visible as they were in the past.
So unless you can train your members to check in daily and engage just not going to see the content, everything has gone to this home feed now and a lot of this a lot of the content, the only well.
The only way you can get your content to show up on that linkedin feed is.
If people comment on it and like it, you could put up the most brilliant post and if nobody comments on it and likes it very few people are going to see it.
So these are among some of the changes in algorithms and all this stuff that linkedin has evolved over the while you know so the people so so.
The trick here is the people that that draw engagement.
Yes, are the ones that pretty much get the forefront, get to the forefront absolutely absolutely and in terms of getting that engagement, there are a few things that i’ve observed.
First of all, if you do a post and it’s just text, it tends to work better.
You can put a couple of emojis in there and i always do so that when people are scrolling what you post shows up, but if you put a link, let’s say you put a link to an article or to a blog post right in your status update.
It’s not going to do well, it’s not going to show up, and i guess it’s because linkedin doesn’t want people to leave the platform.
The other thing is with videos.
It’s, the algorithm keeps changing, so sometimes i notice that youtube videos do better.
If you post the link other times the uh videos do better if you actually upload them as mp4s to your platform, so it does vary.
Photos do fairly well, but the main thing is don’t put links in in your your status update because it’ll kill the post links.
So these are some of the intricacies and things that i i’m learning and i’m slow at it, which is why i have somebody that helps me to do this stuff.
Oh yeah.
I didn’t know that.
No, oh trust me.
I i have no.
No, it’s not me.
It’s not all me anyways, the majority is not me um and thankfully i have uh uh.
You know help um, but i’m trying to understand – and you know, because i do notice – that some posts we put up, go crazy.
Thousands of you know and get you know.
People engaging and liking or views right, you’ll see the amount of views and then proportionately you’ll see the amount of likes and then obviously the amount of comments.
Yes and back and forth.
It goes forever and ever and ever and even weeks later, people are still commenting on that post, correct right.
So so what so? How do you then, as as a linkedin expert, how do you figure this out? How do you keep up with all these changes? Actually so that you can know how to pivot and to make these, you know to continuously engage trial and error.
It really is trial and error, and by the way, i don’t consider myself to be a linkedin expert and the reason i don’t consider myself to be a linkedin expert is because i originally went on there to post to promote my team building business and it hasn’t Worked well for that, so until i achieve that goal, that’s your mark.
What else i accomplished, i’m gon na say no, i haven’t nailed it, but okay, a couple of things.
If you one thing guaranteed to make your content show up, if a member with a ton of contacts, comments on your posts, it’ll you’ll it’ll, just take off, i had a post and it had over.
A million views had nothing to do with me.
Bridgette hyacinth who’s from trinidad.
By the way, yes, he commented and when she comments you can get fifty thousand sixty thousand hundred thousand and in one case, over a million.
I shared something of hers and had over a million views.
Yes and i’ve seen that and and as you know, regarding bridgette bridget and i were connected before she had 5 000 followers and that’s not too long ago that for her that’s about four or five years ago, yes um, because she published not even again, not even That’s right because we both published her books at the first uh pretty much at the same time, and we connected back then, and we communicated back then on messaging when she had more time right and and only a few followers.
But that was like that happened right before our eyes, where we saw literally every day tens of thousands of people and then she would come on and say: well i added 30 000 or 50 000 people this week.
Here’s how to do it, yeah right and she’s.
Just she really went after it because she understood a lot earlier than most of us that the way to do well on that platform is to grow a mega network.
Now linkedin rules still say, connect with people.
You know, and in fact, if you send too many people, connection requests and they click.
I don’t know good luck, you’re going to need you’re going to need the email address before you can send out any more for each person, but she disregarded that and she has now maybe 2.
5 million followers.
Well, she maxed out on on on her account, which is two and a half million followers.
Well, the max is the max of connections is 30 000.
direct connections and after that i believe any number of people can follow.
You, i’m not 100 sure on that yeah.
I i i saw a message from her and this is stuff that i’m learning as i go, where it got to 2.
5 million and she can’t take any more and she can apparently uh.
That’s the followers yeah.
So many people have gone that high.
You know i’ve not seen this is her she’s, the first person i’ve seen that i have that i follow or that we’ve communicated with and and yes, i’ve seen.
You know she liked my stuff and we’ve um commented back and forth a couple of times, but you’re right to see that in front of your eyes and to see that when she posts and the engagement between all her followers and then they start, you know commenting And following you and you want to join your network, it’s just unbelievable and i hadn’t i had another uh guest uh.
Her name is, i think i mentioned to you when we spoke earlier.
Her name is janaki um she’s out of india.
I don’t want to mess with her yeah.
You mentioned her, yes, yes and and her she was growing at like a thousand two thousand per day right and um.
It’s just amazing, and she did this over.
You know just while being home and it to me just looked too simple and that’s a thing for me is like, i think some people over complicate what you need to put on linkedin and sometimes simpler works, a lot better.
So what do you find with that? Okay, there’s good news and this bad news first tell me: that’s why you’re here once you get to a certain number and i don’t know what the magic number is? Okay, i don’t once you get to a certain number, all of your content goes viral.
Once you get to a certain number of followers, gotcha, okay, so bridgette, she could put up a smiley face and nothing else, and it would go viral.
I’m going to ask her to try that right.
Yes, so that’s that’s! The first thing you got: you have to grow your network as much as possible.
The other thing – and i learned this the hard way is – you have to grow it very strategically because if you just accept all of the connection requests, you get what was happening to me – and this was i noticed this last year – is they were showing my content To a lot of people in india and nigeria and nepal, pakistan, and they were hardly showing it to anybody in canada.
So i had to really cut thousands of people off my network and i pretty much tried to focus on growing, canadian and jamaican followers, because that’s where i’m targeting right now with what’s happening in the world, well yeah.
The other thing that i noticed – and i i have you know every now and then i get a little frustrated – that’s just the way i am, and then i do crazy things like back in.
I think it was 2016.
I noticed that women were posting photos in really skimpy clothing and showing cleavage.
There was a bikini model and i’m not going to name her, but anyway she put up a picture of a miss usa in a bikini, bottom and half her bottom was out.
It was ridiculous, and that went viral and it caused a lot of controversy, because people kept typing and saying this isn’t appropriate for linkedin.
This isn’t appropriate for linkedin and the more people who comment the more people create right yeah.
So she did very well.
She uh ended up getting a forbes column.
She had a write up in forbes about what happened when she got a quarters, column and so on, and so that’s when i say, there’s a positive and negative side to this.
Well, i want to give a shout out while we are on the uh on live on.
Facebook live tonight, uh with our special guest, anne thornley brown, on creating consistent content and impactful engagement on linkedin.
We have katie maris watching so thank you katie for tuning in and i’m not sure where she is right now, because she travels all over the place.
Um and uh angel jones uh.
My colleague he’s in trinidad and he’s watching.
So i wonder if he knows bridgette well, i i think i definitely mentioned bridget to him.
So i’m pro, i’m pretty sure he’s probably you know figured that out by now yeah bridgette.
Every time she comments.
You’re gon na have lots of views well see there.
You go she’s, definitely a massive influencer, so so here is i’m learning as we go, and this is amazing, and this is why i definitely you know i wanted you on the show.
So what are three things? What would you say are three key reasons that propelled you now, in my opinion, to an influential contributor on linkedin? Okay, i’m going to talk first about positive things: okay, now i’m going to talk about things that people do and they get results, but i don’t advocate it.
So i realized this would have been maybe three years ago, uh or three and a half years ago.
I was still trying to work the groups thing and it wasn’t working kind of wasn’t visible, so i realized i had to migrate to the feed.
So i thought you know what i’m stubborn i’m going to give this thing a good shot and i’m going to post every single day.
So i posted every day i came up with an editorial calendar, so my first tip to everybody is come up with an editorial calendar, so whether you’re going to post every day or three times a week come up with a theme for every day of the week.
So, for example, monday i do team building tips tuesday.
I focus on economic trends and the series is called connecting the dots and i started that remember when the christmas eve, the stock market really plunged yeah for my own business.
I thought you know what i have to be more disciplined in monitoring these trends, so to keep me disciplined.
I started that tuesday series.
Hardly anybody watched that hardly anybody engaged on that now people are engaging on it.
They realize how important it is wednesday.
I used to do team building destinations and i would pick really delicious videos of the most glorious locations – jamaica, dubai, wherever i’ve seen all of those absolutely yeah.
I’ve definitely seen them now what i’ve done since cobit, 19 and the borders are closed.
I have switched to a new series on wednesday called lemons to lemonade and i’ve been featuring local businesses in my area, and i have done.
I also did one for my cousin who’s in new york and i’m going to be doing a jamaican one soon and i’m focusing on what our business is doing to pivot and change in the face of coba 19.
That’s wednesday thursday’s team building pitfalls.
Those often end up being rants and friday.
What do i do on friday? Oh, yes, team innovation, so i’m looking normally for really eye popping technology.
You know 3d projection mapping all that cool stuff, but i’ve also been focusing, for example, on what some jamaican companies are doing: they’re manufacturing, ventilators, masks and sanitizers.
So i’m i’m focusing on that primarily canadian jamaican companies.
What are they doing? How are they innovating or in view of kobe 19 and then on saturday saturday? I get naughty.
I can’t imagine you so saturdays.
I have a series called sizzling hot topics and it’s everything from paul carrick brunson.
Are you connected with him? I i am, and i’ve watched i’ve been on some of his lives, so, for example, he did a post about somebody whose name i’m not going to mention who made the forbes cover, because she, you know she’s part of a dynasty, and you know they they take Their clothes off all the time and i’m not going to name the family, i’m not going to give them any more publicity absolutely.
But when i saw we can all guess yeah when i saw that she was on the pork, the cover of was it forbes or fortune.
I came here.
I was livid.
My jamaican blood was spoiling.
I was absolutely furious, so i did a post about it and i actually did a video and i put on a wig and i put on i mean i didn’t show any cleavage or anything, but i put on a leather jacket and i spoke about how i Felt about this thing and hey, it did really well and the reason i do these topics on saturday is because i hope and pray that none of my clients or prospective clients are watching they’re watching.
So i do the other one i did was kavanaugh.
Remember all these hearings about him, so i did a post about him and what was going on and my my topic was about whether or not we should be digging up what people did in high school right and using it to crucify them and boy that went Wild, so that’s saturday, i tend to do that.
Okay, so you have a theme, a theme for every day, so you’re talking about the day every day and okay and occasionally now that we have covered 19.
I and there’s been the whole black lives matter.
I might do something like that during the week and i did something on aunt jemima.
Oh, yes, views! Oh people were really like.
I saw that yes yeah.
It was a hot one.
So so, okay, so let’s, let’s dive a little deeper.
Yes, how do you know? I get all these themes seven days of the week and that’s a lot for anybody to do, and you don’t have to do seven days of the week sure joan who’s based in toronto.
I think she does once a week yeah so you’re right and you can do it three days, four days or whatever, but so diving a little deeper.
How do you, let’s talk about the creative side of this now yeah you’re, here here, you’re going hard at seven days and how what what drives you? Where does this creativity come from that creates this daily content day after day after day like how the hell do you go from? You know, from from one theme to the next and know what you’re doing the themes keep me on track.
So if i’m preparing something sunday and i’m doing something for monday, no okay, it’s got ta focus on team building tips so that narrows it down for me and then i might think about what’s going on in the world with respect to team building or what things Have happened in my business that i feel strongly about, and i will just i will do a post regarding that for the stock market and economic posts.
I i do a search and i see what’s going on in the market.
I i did something yesterday or was it today.
I posted it last night.
It was about the fact that certain companies have been booted off the tsx.
Can you imagine, blackberry and uh have been booted off the tsx yeah, because they’re the bombard jays trading is penny stock.
So i get a post about that and i encourage my clients to monitor those trends.
So it’s still on brand good old blackberry is off the tsx wow and bombardier two iconic canadian companies.
Yeah i mean, can you imagine these were like way up there? You know not even in my league, i could never even reach them.
Well.
I had the pleasure of doing business with the the inventor of the black bear.
Mr mike lazaridis.
Everybody knows he invented the blackberry in the base in his basement in kitchener.
Yes, you know kitchener waterloo, while uh you got to do business with him.
How did you manage that? You could give me some tips? Well, you know in the car business you know wealthy people and ceos drive cars too.
So of course all right, so i was fortunate enough to to take care of his account.
While i worked in waterloo uh with the land rover and volvo company, okay, cool yeah – and we we actually connected very well – we occasionally messaged on her or then little blackberry, and you should see in my office here.
I have a collection of blackberries.
You really.
I do um and if you know, if i knew we were going to talk about this, i would probably feature i may actually take a picture and when i do the uh, the write-up and the post, somebody put up something like that on youtube yesterday and it Showed the evolution of blackberry? Yes, you know well, i was there for the very first one that was just a a little pin text machine uh, so i’m very familiar with it.
Oh you can post about that.
Yes, maybe that’s! Why you’re on the show to teach me this stuff and here’s the deal? There’s ideas all over? All you have to do is walk around the block and keep your eyes open.
There’s tons of ideas see there.
You go folks, she keeps it so she simplifies it.
So much you know, walk around the block.
Look for ideas.
You know sit down and write something creative about the headlines.
So number one, an editorial calendar really helps.
Okay, yes, okay.
Uh number, two number two.
Now this is a little controversial.
If you just put up a post – and you don’t have a huge network like bridget – it’s not going to go very far.
So what you can do is either email it out to people in your network or you can tag people and hope that they comment.
But just but don’t just tag, everybody make sure it’s relevant to them.
Yeah and the third thing, that’s really controversial is pods.
Now, what’s a pod, it’s a message window.
You know we have the message windows on linkedin, so you get together with a group of people who have content that you respect and then every day people can post the links and they comment on each other’s content.
And if you can get people to comment on each other’s content within the first, you know few minutes or half hour or whatever you’re going to find it gets more engaged yeah so that drives that will help to drive the conversation it drives.
It gets things started.
Yes and i’ve done this you’re right, yeah, i’ve definitely posted where i’ve i’ve tagged, um colleagues and associates that i know the content is relevant to right right and it immediately gets them engaged and they comment and then they you know a couple of them may share.
As well so i can, i can certainly see that, but i wasn’t familiar with with pods yeah they’re called pods and remember: lynching is always changing.
They could wake up tomorrow and say we don’t like pods.
They could but a lot of people you see going viral.
They belong to a number of pods gotcha.
They comment on other people’s content and then they drop their links and people comment on theirs and like theirs.
Yes, so, and is there, is there a third or was that no that wasn’t two? Do you have a third yeah and, and the third one is engage, engage engage, so this is where i and i comment on other people’s posts here you go that i have uh something decent to say or to contribute, and that yeah and i’ve done that i’ve Done that more and more now than in the past, because before believe it or not, i i didn’t want to make a fool of myself like going back two three years ago and write stuff, but i do it now, and people engage like crazy in in in Some instance so uh.
I can appreciate um that so here we go folks.
Those are three key tips: um yeah yeah, so have an editorial calendar.
Yes, the first one, the last one we discovered, is engage with other people and the third one is find a strategy for getting people to engage with you, whether it’s tagging, whether you’re going to email links to people or whether you’re going to be in a pod.
If i post something about jamaica, i get into my connections, i search for people from jamaica and i’ll make sure i send the link out to i don’t know 20 people whatever and that’s why you include me in those links i know now.
I know i yeah.
I hate you from time to time.
If it’s got to do with toronto or jamaica, i don’t do it all the time or you get annoyed with me.
How often do you hear from me um, probably once every once a week or once every two weeks there you go so am i bugging you? Is it too much? No, okay, as a matter of fact, going forward i’ll be hurt.
If you don’t include me, how’s that okay amy, if you’re gon na everyday, be sending your links to the same people, they’re gon na get annoyed yeah.
No, absolutely i! I certainly appreciate that um.
You know you include me in a lot of them, so that’s cool! So what oh and i said i would talk about the reverse: what works that i don’t endorse? Okay, so tell me: let’s hear that okay, so the first thing – and it drives me nuts – and i mentioned already – is the women who get on there and they post sexy pictures and that it works.
Okay, i’m not gon na do it, but they do it.
Yes, the second thing that works is people put up silly videos, i mean silly stupid things and they go viral.
You know i saw i got frustrated last year because people were putting up.
You know um a man on an elephant shooting a basketballer, just ridiculous stuff that will be more belong to other other platforms and not like.
Oh they do it and they go viral.
They go viral and it drives me crazy.
So i got so mad um.
Oh, i think it was who was it.
It may have been ronald richards, i think, and he he because i commented and i complained i do that sometimes, and he said i don’t care if people want to put a um, a video up of a um, a dog riding on sorry, a monkey riding on The back of a dog like a horse, you know if it works for them, i don’t care.
So i went to youtube and i searched, and i found this monkey right on the back of a a greyhound like a dog and like a horse doing show jumping, and i put it i was so upset.
I put it up and i said: okay folks, is this really what you want to see here on linkedin and lots of comments and then you’re brave, listen? No, i just sometimes get very intense and then um i took a month off because i’m just so frustrated, but during that month my mother was visiting, and i i came up with this idea because there’s a character named bobby the bear on linkedin, he posts.
It’s a bear, it’s a white teddy bear, but he posts good content and he he actually put a challenge out and the question was: does social media suck right so i actually saw it on facebook and i thought hey why you know what, since i have opinions On this, why don’t i do it? So my son has a giant teddy bear.
I put a dress on the bear and i called i called the bear bernice the bear and i wrote a script, but it was a jamaican bear and my jamaican accent is, you know.
I think i think it’s good.
Nobody jamaican does so.
I got my mother to read the script for bernice the bear, and i put it up, you know – does lincoln suck dog and monkey by so that comes to my third point: what is up with these cats and dogs? Elephants bears people put these things up and they’re going viral and in fact i was speaking with an african member and he usually does really good content and every now and then he puts in scenery and it’s really beautiful.
But then he’ll put up some stupid thing with some dogs dancing or whatever, and it goes viral and he says – and i said he says, i’m being strategic.
I realize that this is the type of thing people like so i’m being really strategic and i’m only doing this every now and then to grow my network so wow it works.
Whatever works, i guess for some people, but it works.
That’s what you want to do.
Go for it so with that said, and you’ve gave us you’ve given us quite a bit of the you know the kind of behind the scenes, tips and the obvious tips, and then things that you know i probably wouldn’t think of or you know, because it requires Creativity and and focus – and i don’t spend a lot – i spend a lot of time there communicating and engaging, but not a lot of the time as much as i probably should, because i’ve you know, i’m doing other things.
But so let me ask you what has kept you there not just every day posting different themes, but what has kept you there for 16 years.
Stubbornness yeah like.
What’s your? Why, behind sixteen years my, why is stubbornness? Okay, i am determined.
I am determined to find a way to make this thing work and, yes, i’ve got lots of writing business.
I’ve got some really good blogging business out of it uh, but i am determined to make it work for my team building company and i’m you know i’m not going to let any platform defeat me and i’m going to keep trying different things until it works.
That’s just the way i am wow and and that’s a huge you know huge aspect and a huge attribute of personal success, uh in any in any spectrum and and that anyone wants.
You know if you, if you want to be successful at anything, perseverance and persistence and you call it a bit of stubbornness, but whatever you want to call it stay in the course.
You know pivot in adjusting improving whatever whatever it takes uh.
So that’s that’s great! Um so to many who join linkedin and start to post um.
Are there different reasons and styles why people should post? And you know some people are waiting for engagement to promote themselves or services? I mean what what are some of the must-haves if, if you’re going to start tomorrow versus somebody who’s already probably experienced well, first of all, you have to grow your network.
If you don’t, have any connections nobody’s going to engage, nobody’s going to see so reach out to your colleagues reach out to current and former clients, friends and family anybody, you know and invite them to connect with you, so initially focus on people.
You know and connections that you have then, when you start to post tag these people or send them.
You know the link from time to time and make sure in my opinion.
Yes, if you put up stupid videos, you’re going to grow your network but how’s that going to help your business, i don’t know so make sure whatever you put up is on brand.
You can put in something light every now and then, but don’t do that every day, because your credibility is going to really take a hit, and there are a couple of things to do when you’re posting that will increase the likelihood that people will engage.
So, for example, always start with.
I always start with a topic, and i try to put a question at the very top yeah okay and then i put emojis so that when people scroll through the feed there’s some color, it breaks things up.
Don’t post in these big blocks just do sentence by sentence a member who, by the way, has been banned now, but he did that he would go one sentence per paragraph and because it’s easier to read on a mobile phone yeah.
That way, people are more likely to read and are more likely to engage and with a question always put one or two questions and again put an emoji in front of each question.
Put some hashtags and that’s just the number sign with whatever your topic is, and then i usually, if i have room i will underneath, but something like.
Okay, every tuesday i post about economic trends and the stock market.
I post a lot of canadian content.
If it’s a canadian poster, i post a lot of jamaican content into jamaica post.
If this is a value connect with me, that’s kind of a little formula you can use now.
That’s for your text posts if you’re doing video there’s some people like shero bottom.
No, she says it’s row bottom row: bottom, okay, uh.
She has done really well with videos.
She puts up a video every single day and she edits it with captions.
She she cuts.
She has very fast cuts and edits in her videos.
That’s what we’re used to seeing on commercials right when you see the most effective commercials, they move they’re very fast.
You don’t just see somebody sitting there and talking so she cuts her videos and she adds a lot of energy and excitement.
She does a variety of topics and she has quite the following: i’m not even sure how many followers she has now, but she’s hit the magic number.
Her content always goes viral, so those are just a couple things.
I mean this.
This is amazing stuff, so the one question i want to ask you, because i’ve been doing this more and more lately when, when i do post myself as opposed to my team, yeah um, i’ve been trying to include more emojis and more a little bit more color.
Yeah, but so to the folks listening is that is that text that you copy from outside of linkedin and you paste it in to get because i’ve never been able to find it within the platform.
So is that actually i don’t have it no facebook? Has it yeah so facebook has it so so so i’m doing it right where i’m copying it from other places exactly and putting it in there, you can take it from facebook or you you can just if you, if you want a jamaican flag, emoji, just google, That it’ll take you to emojipedia you copy and you paste.
Okay, you can, you can find all kinds of things and i will use um.
I started last year after i remember i took a month off because i was so upset and i spoke with some of my friends and they said well what, if you find you’re, not getting uh the business as a result of posting team building, all the time.
You’re passionate about writing you’re passionate about acting.
Why don’t you start doing posts about that? I started doing that.
I do those occasionally and i found like you know.
You know the slate was used on movie sets.
I found little books.
I found.
I found video cameras, movie cameras, people writing with pens, and so whatever the theme is, i very i use a variety of emojis.
Oh that’s outstanding, and this is stuff.
I’m learning because i’d like to you know spice it up a little bit.
You know not.
You know not goofy or anything, but i like um context when, when i’m i’m posting text for it to be like in bullet points or you’re, not not jumbled.
Together, it’s easier to read but yeah, it’s easier to read it’s it’s spaced out a bit um! So yeah, so i i definitely and and that’s something i wanted to learn from myself – it’s like am i doing this right? Where do people get all these cool texts in linkedin? You know and – and i i googled a little bit about that – and i learned that there was a software you could, you could post the text in it and convert and then you could copy it and then put it in linkedin and you get the bigger bold Text, yeah yeah, those are called unicode unicode and the only challenge with unicode is, for example, if i, if i use unicode it’s on my mobile, sometimes it shows up.
Sometimes it doesn’t so you have to experiment a bit and see what’s going to show up gotcha that unicode works.
So let me price that are called unicode creator got you.
That’s the software unicode creator uh.
There are a number of platforms that are unicode creators.
Quite a number of them, so google.
So one of the last questions i have is now that you’ve posted – and i think you may have touched on this – a little bit already.
You’ve posted where you thought it would resonate and have tons of engagement, and it didn’t right and then you’ve posted something like totally.
You know where you may not have been the most confident and it goes crazy yeah what’s that like, and what have you learned from that? I have learned.
Oh, and this is very important.
I have learned you have to find topics that are hot and that are relevant to your business.
So, for example, when this whole kobit 19 thing started, i’ve been through sars because sars hit toronto and asia, and i was doing a lot of business in asia then, and i didn’t work for a year.
So as soon as people started talking about cobin 19, i thought this is not good and i realized that there was going to be economic fallout.
So i started posting about cobin 19 very early.
I think it must have been the second or third week of february and next thing: linkedin editors started featuring my posts.
Yes, i’ve seen these i’ve seen this where and i get the notifications that and thornley grounds yeah.
Well, i get them that says.
You know what you’re it comes up and tony brown’s article was featured in linkedin post.
I think they sent it to every member of your network yeah.
So i get those and i and i’ve received those.
Often i could tell you without exaggeration i have seen.
I have received at least a half a dozen oh yeah, maybe as many as eight well.
My aunt jemima post was featured because it’s a hot issue when, when pepsico decided, they were going to drop that okay, it’s all about stereotyping and stereotyping can get in the way of team effectiveness.
So it’s relevant to my business so and i plus i i have very strong feelings about it see so there you go, and this is why you’re on the show, because you know we’re getting notifications, that your articles are being featured by linkedin right.
So you got to come on and tell us how you do it, and you know this is what this is now, i’m going to give away a little secret.
Yes, let’s hear that secret before we go once i found that the editors were featuring my posts, i thought you know what i’m not going to just leave this to chance, so i started tagging them.
So if it’s a post about something that’s happening in the news, i will tag.
Maybe i don’t know six eight linkedin editors and some of them pick it up.
Well good field.
I mean this is encouraging.
This is this is exciting stuff, because i’m i’m a recipient of those notifications that says my connection here.
Her article has been featured and uh and i’m like look at that again.
So this is why you’re on the show to share the audience, how you do it and how you’ve happened? Linkedin, not linkedin.
Sorry i go on twitter and on twitter.
I will if it’s something that’s in the news and controversial or controversial, i will.
I actually put the title with emojis i’ll, put the link i’ll use some hashtags and i’ll tag.
They switched it.
It’s now uh at linkedin news used to be at linkedin editors, so your your linkedin editors will see that and sometimes they’ll they’ll feature your posts and then yeah it goes nuts.
It goes absolutely nuts a lot of people engage outstanding.
Well, this has been, though, is to really get the right people to see your content and start to hire.
You and one thing that i started doing and apparently bridget did this in the early days uh.
I i’ve identified a list of potential clients that i’d like to work with, and i look for executives who are active and i start going in and i start commenting on their posts.
Even if i do an innovation piece like i did, bluescape uh, you know the you’ve seen the bluescape commercials.
I did one about second life and i tagged the ceos of those companies and they actually engaged so that’s a way to make it more strategic and targeted on your your market.
Well, i certainly see you on linkedin a lot.
Okay and you’ve actually learned and you’ve taught me a lot, and this is somebody folks, that’s been on the the platform for 16 years.
Her articles are featured by linkedin editors.
Now i get notifications of that all the time and i’ve certainly been a part of uh.
Her network and uh i’m proud to be a part and a part of her jamaican heritage as well.
It’s all cool, so um so and before we go uh, why don’t we just take another minute or so to wrap up and to recap: okay, what our takeaways with will be for this show today.
Okay, so recaps have an editorial calendar.
Yes, really important engage with other people’s content.
You want to also make sure that you find strategies to get people to engage with you.
So, whether you’re going to tag the people or you’re going to send the emails out with your links or join a pod or two or three or four or five or six go for it in terms of getting even more visibility.
If you can make friends with some people who have very big networks, i’m talking mega networks and invite them to comment.
Maybe you occasionally i’ll email, bridget and i’ll say you know this one’s really important to me and she’ll come in and comment that helps me a lot.
Nice, okay also engage with people who are in your target market, whether they are executives, whether they’re, editors or journalists engaged with their content.
And, finally, you need to try and get the attention of linkedin editors and see if you can get them to feature your content.
If you can it’s a big help and you do that by tagging them nice now these are awesome tips and listen.
I’m actually going to listen to this episode again myself and here’s what i’m going to definitely do with this episode.
This is this went on for about an hour and i’m definitely going to split this episode.
Folks, up into two part, uh part one and two so it’ll probably be episodes six to six and six to seven, oh okay, just just so because just to keep them at about a half an hour, 25 25 minute uh length on the audio version of the Show, and and the i mean, we’ll definitely um – create some videos for for the audience for this as well, because i’ve learned a lot there’s a lot of content here that we’ve we’ve touched on in an hour, and i i definitely want to.
I want to thank and for and how do we, how does the audience get apart from on linkedin? How does the audience reach? Where else would they, like you know, can they get a hold of you, ann okay? My website is executive oasis.
com and on facebook.
I i have a company page, which is executive oasis international.
On facebook.
I tend to more connect with either friends, family or people in the acting business, so that when i want to get on here and misbehave and – and you know, do videos with raggedy andy with a jamaican accent, i don’t have to worry about my clients.
Speaking over my shoulders, so i’ll tend not to accept a lot of contacts.
Um friend requests for people – i don’t know on on facebook, but you’re welcome to connect with me on linkedin um, i’m on twitter at executiveoasis, that’s business and i post more personal content at a thornley brown wow.
There you go folks uh.
It’s been a a pleasure to have anthony brown on the show.
It’s episode six to six and we’re definitely going to split this up into a couple.
So you’ll have a part.
A and b with all this amazing uh call uh content and knowledge on how to be how to feature yourself: how to grow your network on linkedin how to get engagement, how to expand, how to be featured by linkedin uh editors uh like how to have all The influencers see how to become an influencer, how to you know, and so many cool tips.
I mean i made a whole bunch of notes here.
You know you shared a lot about the calendar.
You shared a lot about text posting text about video posts about engagement, um tagging.
You know relevant uh people in your network on this on relevant subjects.
So there’s so much here that i definitely want to split this up and give the audience a good taste off.
Of this episode and this knowledge that you’ve shared with us this evening now, i wouldn’t be worth my jamaican passport.
If i didn’t give you some brata, let’s, let’s have the brother.
We have a minute if you were trying.
For example, i’ve been trying to promote my team building business.
I wasn’t getting a lot, yes, so switch to something else.
So i launched a an ann thornley brown actress page last year i met an actress at an actra conference.
She said she started posting acting content and casting directors who hadn’t had her in for a while started having her in so i launched an acting page and guess what same thing happened to me.
So remember.
If you have more than one pot on the fire, and one of them isn’t coming to a boil, feel free to also use the platform for other purposes, absolutely that’s a great tip, and i certainly will definitely be using that tip as well.
Folks, we enjoy having your feedback on the show uh.
We welcome your feedback.
We have engaging guests like ann thornley here with me, definitely connect with her on linkedin and check out her amazing articles and features um on the platform and uh her company again is its oasis, executives, right, executive oasis, international.
There you go and uh and folks.
So this is the read method: insider podcast um, like us all over we’re all over in different platforms.
So um, please remember: um, be safe, be intentional and always always folks.
Uh keep progressing every single day.
Thank you so much for watching and we will see you soon.
