LinkedIn Algorithm, Automation, AI - Oh My!

[00:00:00] Michelle J Raymond: Lions and tigers and bears oh my! Or has it changed to LinkedIn algorithms, automation, AI? Oh my? This is what it feels like to me at the moment. I think we've kind of lost the plot or maybe we've just drifted off course. I know that there's been so much hype and excitement around these things and it's easy to be distracted, but I want you to grow your business.

[00:00:21] Michelle J Raymond: When was the last time that you focused more on your actual customers? The people that you want to do work with? The people that pay the bills.

[00:00:47] Michelle J Raymond: Do you think that you're spending more time focusing on understanding and feeding the machine so to speak? Is it the automation tools? Is it learning about the algorithm?

[00:00:57] Michelle J Raymond: Don't get me wrong. I think it's really important that we stay up to date with the tools that are out there that might make our lives easier. Especially for busy marketers that are currently juggling, trying to understand every single social media platform, running internal comms, writing blogs for websites, growing newsletters, like I see you out there and I appreciate that anything that you can get your hands on to help you with that is going to be really helpful. So I have, a lot of empathy for people out there trying to juggle everything, and I get the attraction of some of these tools, but I think if we can just strip things back, you'll find that you'll save time, feel less stressed.

[00:01:36] Michelle J Raymond: And the conversations I'm having with people are. Yeah. I know that AI is out there. I know that there's lots of tools like chat GPT and all the other variations, but I just can't keep up with it. I feel like I'm drowning. And now what I hate the most is they feel like they're not good at their job.

[00:01:52] Michelle J Raymond: And that's why I'm doing this episode today, because I want people to have confidence, in their abilities. I want them to be able to focus on what matters. To make their time on LinkedIn efficient and effective. So let's talk about the LinkedIn algorithm for a moment, because it probably, when we're on LinkedIn gets the most noise and it's something that doesn't happen on the other platforms, which is funny.

[00:02:15] Michelle J Raymond: LinkedIn seems to be the only one where we talk about it so much and put so much emphasis on that. And, ask yourself, how much time do you worry about hashtags? How much time do you worry about how long the post should be? How many slides should be on a carousel? Are you more focused on these kinds of things?

[00:02:34] Michelle J Raymond: And not as focused as what you should be on when was the last time we did some customer research? Now that doesn't even need to be completely formal. That can be as simple as having a conversation with the sales rep in your team, maybe customer service, see what kinds of questions that they're getting.

[00:02:51] Michelle J Raymond: It doesn't have to be complicated. Although if you have the tools and resources to be able to do customer research I absolutely think that for every minute that you invest in that you are going to just tighten up your positioning, tighten up your messaging, and really speak to that ideal audience.

[00:03:08] Michelle J Raymond: Why do we want to do that? We want to attract the right people. We want to repel the ones that we don't want to work with. And that's all about positioning and messaging. And if you haven't listened to the episode that I did recently with Diane Wiredu then I would highly recommend that you go back to that.

[00:03:24] Michelle J Raymond: Cause she dropped some really cool tips on how to get the most out of positioning and messaging. Which will help for your website, it helps for your content, helps for any marketing that you're doing, which is great.

[00:03:38] Michelle J Raymond: Look, I understand I'm a LinkedIn expert. My clients expect me to understand more about the LinkedIn algorithm and I want you listeners to understand what matters about that as well. LinkedIn have told us what the LinkedIn algorithm is all about, what they're prioritising and how we can make the most out of that.

[00:03:59] Michelle J Raymond: So you don't have to guess I'm going to share it again right now. The LinkedIn algorithm rewards knowledge and advice. And you may think that it rewards other content that seems more personal. And that is true to a, I guess a level that, it's just that after all humans are drawn to other humans and we love a good, overcome a challenge kind of story or post. And from that perspective, I appreciate that sometimes you might think that your post doesn't do as well when you are sharing knowledge and advice. And I know that it can be really deflating.

[00:04:33] Michelle J Raymond: For many people out there that are showing up consistently, sharing this knowledge and advice, and then you're not getting all the likes and comments. It can feel like no one's out there, but just remember roughly nine out of 10 people on LinkedIn will never comment, never like, but they're watching the lurkers as we affectionately call them. They're out there. So don't completely dismiss that no likes and comments means nobody saw your post.

[00:04:59] Michelle J Raymond: And of course we all want them. We don't want to, be seen as someone that doesn't get any engagement on their posts, but don't give up, keep going. Cause these things take some time.

[00:05:10] Michelle J Raymond: What else does LinkedIn tell us besides wanting knowledge and advice? What other tips do we have around? What kind of content that you can create?

[00:05:19] Michelle J Raymond: What kinds of actions can you take that will keep the algorithm happy? And remember, it's always changing, but in general, this is what we're out to do. Now, one tip that they give us is that they want you to make sure that your post speaks to one specific audience. So no chopping and changing and being all over the place that drives people crazy.

[00:05:44] Michelle J Raymond: So from that perspective, just remember. Who is your target audience? Now, if you've done the work around building your brand, you will be clear on that. And so this will be really easy to answer. If you haven't, or you're not sure, then what I recommend you do is grab yourself a copy of The LinkedIn Branding Book. Yes, yours truly co wrote that. And in there is a free workbook, which is going to step you through how you can really narrow this down.

[00:06:13] Michelle J Raymond: Second thing, don't forget that you have to be writing on your core subject area. Now that doesn't mean that you can't go off topic from time to time, but in general, you want to talk about the topics that your ideal audience, that we specified in point one, we want to make sure that we're talking about topics that they're interested in and we're not chopping and changing and going all over the place.

[00:06:35] Michelle J Raymond: The last thing that you've got to do point 3 that LinkedIn tells us is make sure that the post has meaningful comments. You are trying to generate conversations. So content on one topic, conversations that you're getting started and one community that you're focused on.

[00:06:52] Michelle J Raymond: So follow those tips from LinkedIn and I guarantee you that the more that you focus on that and the more targeted, one, it's less work, two it's more obvious to the people that you want to work with. And these are the kinds of things that are going to generate more income, more opportunities for your business. And that's what we're using social media for. This is how we grow our business.

[00:07:36] Michelle J Raymond: The next one that I want to talk about is automation. There are lots of tools popping up that profess to make your life easier. Just click a button. And then all of a sudden, 800 of your nearest and dearest LinkedIn connections will get a message, often the same message and, we're told that's a good thing.

[00:07:55] Michelle J Raymond: The fact that probably 799 of those people are now, probably a bit angry because they're like, why are you sending me this? It doesn't make sense. Maybe I haven't heard from you for a while. It takes a lot of skill to get one message and send it to everybody without it coming across like spam.

[00:08:12] Michelle J Raymond: And when you're not targeted, when you are just doing it for numbers sake, this is where everything comes undone. And again, this comes back down to, if you haven't done that foundational work to build a brand, to build your positioning, to build your messaging, to know about your customer through customer research, you are just literally spamming people.

[00:08:34] Michelle J Raymond: And that again is damaging to your brand and not going to help you grow your business. And, there's more tools than ever and the ones that are out there, I don't even want to mention them because I don't want to plant the seed with people out there to say that they even exist because mostly they also violate LinkedIn's user agreement. So don't do it. You'll end up in LinkedIn jail.

Mhm.

[00:09:02] Michelle J Raymond: The other thing that I was thinking when I was preparing for this podcast episode, and I was thinking about automation tools, the fact that they can do the same action at scale and it reminded me of when I was probably around 10 years old and, I used to love little athletics and I was really good at it and my mum and I would be working in the backyard and discus and shot put were my two favorite things. I used to have it in my head I would say practice makes perfect. My mum would say, no, Michelle, perfect practice makes perfect. So there was no point me doing the wrong thing over and over again, and hoping that would improve my results. It's actually the same with these automation tools.

[00:09:51] Michelle J Raymond: If you have a bad process targeted at the wrong people or no one at all, then all you're doing is repeating the same mistakes at a bigger scale, which has a bigger damage to your brand. And it was just so clear to me. I was like, we have to have the solid foundation and make sure that we're clear and understand what's going on.

[00:10:11] Michelle J Raymond: And sometimes that means investing in training. Sometimes that means slowing down. And realising why are we focused on trying to reach 900 people? Is there really that many people in your target audience? I don't think so for most businesses. So if you were to change your focus. And not try and go for pure numbers just because you can, because the tool said, look, we've got these workarounds besides the fact is against the user agreement and jeopardises your whole account let's park that for a moment.

[00:10:43] Michelle J Raymond: The problem is you've just repeated the same mistake at scale. So we don't want that. So think about. Why do you want to automate it and what things would change and what would you do differently if you just picked the next 10 customers that you wanted to try and win the next 20 customers, who would you need to connect with?

[00:11:05] Michelle J Raymond: How can you use the search bar to help you find that? Who is in your existing community that you haven't reached out to speak to recently, that if you were to nurture that relationship, there might actually be business opportunities there. These are how we generate growth on LinkedIn, not by sending crappy messages at scale to millions of people.

[00:11:26] Michelle J Raymond: And the same goes with the automation of comments. We see you, we know they're fake. And if you think you're getting away with it, like I've blocked so many people right now who were spamming my profile with automated comments. And I just, it was so gross. And I was like, see you later. You're not part of my community anymore because if you can't be bothered even just writing your own comment on my post honestly, how are we even connected? Anyone that knows me for more than two seconds knows that I'm not into any of this kind of stuff.

[00:11:58] Michelle J Raymond: Why? You can't automate relationships. And I don't care who out there is using tools and thinks they're so amazing I'm calling it a big, no deal, not happening with me. And for most of the people that I work with.

[00:12:34] Michelle J Raymond: Now, it brings me to AI and AI as I share on any episode that I talk about AI, I'm not anti AI for AI's sake. I think AI is an amazing tool in all its various different styles to be able to help us maybe to be more efficient, to get more work done, to have a better output, but it's not your ticket to just automate and cruise on autopilot and just think these tools are doing all the heavy lifting for me. And I think that's where it's falling down for a lot of people. I see content on LinkedIn. I see comments, even as we were just talking about, but I see this happening all the time and it makes me a little bit sad because when people are using, generative AI and I'll use ChatGPT cause it's the most popular kind of example, they're not using it in a way that really reflects them in the best light possible or the brand or the business.

[00:13:35] Michelle J Raymond: And. I think it's again, just doing more damage than good. They haven't done the work to learn how to use these tools properly. If you haven't done the foundational work on who your brand is and what it stands for, you can't feed that information into ChatGPT to give you better output.

[00:13:53] Michelle J Raymond: And so again, it's all coming back to this foundational work of getting your brand sorted before you go and play on these tools. Now, it doesn't mean that the tools aren't there and can make your life easier to help you analyse for gaps. I know that's one of Andy Crestodina's favourite ways of using it.

[00:14:09] Michelle J Raymond: I love using it for brainstorming. Coming up with titles of things is my least favorite thing to do as a content creator. And it's really good for editing and refining, but just, as Ashley Faus, a guest of the show said, when we're talking about thought leadership. You can't outsource your thoughts.

[00:14:27] Michelle J Raymond: What is it that you want to say? What is it based on your experience? And there's no tool out there that can ever replace you.

[00:14:36] Michelle J Raymond: I still like the idea of these tools freeing up work for us. There's nothing better than an AI generated transcript. Like I get to use for this podcast. There's things like that, which is amazing, but just don't set and forget and think that it's doing all the work for you because again, it just shoves you into the whole same, same, no difference, and you blend into the crowd and that is the last thing that we ever want to do on social media platforms.

[00:15:05] Michelle J Raymond: If you're looking at what is it that will make a difference, use automation and AI to improve your processes, to have better service for your clients and customers.

[00:15:16] Michelle J Raymond: The more that you do this kind of stuff after you have figured out who are we targeting? What do we offer? Do you have your do your products and services align with what the market's after is your pricing, right? Have you got the right products? These are all the questions that we need to do up front to be able to then use tools like this, to build our brand on LinkedIn and all the other social media platforms.

[00:15:41] Michelle J Raymond: And it can be things like, when was the last time that went and updated your LinkedIn profile? Been a while? What about your company page? Even further back? These things are the basics, the foundations that we need to get right. Because if you go and use, these tools and things, and you don't even have that updated, then even if you created the world's best post with the help of generative AI, what happens is I land on your profile that doesn't align with the quality and straight away I'm out of there.

[00:16:15] Michelle J Raymond: This is what keeps happening to people on LinkedIn.

[00:16:17] Michelle J Raymond: I know this probably has come across like a bit ranty in this episode, which isn't normally my style, but I think if we can just take this from, we've got some amazing tools, there's going to be more of them. Don't use them because you feel obligated. Don't use them to try and outsource your own brain. You are smart. You are clever. All the people that listen to my show are intelligent people, and I want you to back yourself. I want you to believe in yourself and I want you to use these tools in a way that frees up some of your time to have more of that brilliance come out, not to replace you.

[00:16:56] Michelle J Raymond: Who knows what happens in 12 months, two years, I am sure there's lots of changes and we've seen the latest iteration of ChatGPT come out and, it's cleverer again. But it's still not you listeners. I want you to succeed. I want you to grow your business. I want you to have a really solid foundation that you can build on and when you do the work around your brand and then move on to tools like this, that's where success will come, but never the other way around.

[00:17:24] Michelle J Raymond: So until next week, listeners cheers.