LinkedIn Beyond The Screen. #LinkedInLocal Creator Anna McAfee

TRANSCRIPT

Michelle J Raymond: [00:00:00] Welcome everybody to The LinkedIn for B2B Growth Show. I'm your host, Michelle J Raymond, and this week I am joined by a local or almost local. Anna McAfee. Welcome to the show.

Anna McAfee: Thank you so much for having me, Michelle. This is exciting.

Michelle J Raymond: It is. It is because we've been connected for ages, but we haven't actually had a conversation.

So this is the first time that we're talking, and I figured just everybody else could listen in because what you did was pretty amazing. A hashtag that changed the world. Not too many people can actually put a claim to fame that big, but you can. So we're gonna talk about that today. All things about how do you take LinkedIn off LinkedIn .Because we don't wanna get stuck on there, right? This is the name of the game to get people off. But tell me, Anna, like hashtag LinkedIn local, what's the [00:01:00] backstory? How did it happen?

Anna McAfee: So if you can cast your mind back to 2017, which feels decades ago, but but it wasn't six years ago I was using LinkedIn, connecting with a lot of people locally as I do.

I've been around on LinkedIn for many years, having come from the recruitment industry, connecting with lots of local people. And I put up a post about, with some sales navigator stats about how few people use LinkedIn in my local city, which is Coffs Harbour in Northern New South Wales. And someone put on the post, oh, if there's so few of us, why don't we just all meet up one day?

And I thought, oh, that's a cool idea. Just sat with that for half a week. And then later that week, I just decided right, what a good idea. Let's just organize a coffee catch up. It was an extremely simple idea. It was online to offline, let's get all our LinkedIn connections offline together. Small group, very easy.

And I crafted this little post and I said, just said in the post. If you'd like to come, please comment below. And I was just about to hit post and I thought, [00:02:00] oh. I'll put a hashtag on this. So I just put a hashtag LinkedIn local. It's possibly the single biggest change single business decision I made in my career, which was a split second thought.

Put up the post. Lots of people connected to me locally, like great idea. Wonderful. But what was really interesting that happened was within and I guess the backstory of LinkedIn Local is a story about the power of LinkedIn in itself in terms of how ideas spread.

Within an hour or two hours, I had Alexandra Galvez in London message me going, oh, this is such a cool idea. I might do this in London. Eric Eckland and Brussels. Same thing. Eric and I weren't even connected. It was a second tier connection at that time that actually somebody had obviously liked or commented and then he'd seen it. So this, the, I wouldn't say the first post went crazy, but certainly generated a lot of interest.

And then Swish Goswami, who was in Toronto at the time, I think this was about a week later, said, oh, I might do a New York meetup. So that was great. So it was four people. Four cities across the world. And that was like, oh, that's super [00:03:00] cool. And we each organized an event. I held my first one. It was fabulous.

Everyone was like, when's the next one? Great. We'll do another one. Eric and Alex had a very similar experience. And then a few things happened that year. Swish, actually went to Shanghai and held a meet up there, which I think got something like 2 million views at the time.

The photo from it and the CEO of LinkedIn commented on the, at the time. And then LinkedIn video arrived in the September of that year, so three months later. And between that post and the arrival of LinkedIn video, the whole thing went crazy. We had been very open at the start, we're doing this thing and lots of people came to us and said, I need this in my city, will you help me start one?

And so we established this with some calls and, I think Eric wrote this amazing guide on how to start a LinkedIn local and with the sort of values that we had started with. So we'd never set out to own LinkedIn local, but it was very much, we became the go-to people for that.

And then for two years we [00:04:00] ran a host community. There is still a LinkedIn group with hosts in it if anyone isn't interested. But, and we were for two years, had a lot of discussions with LinkedIn, but to give you some kind of idea of the growth I think within then the end of that year we were in somewhere between eighty and a hundred cities across the world.

 By the two year mark, we were in over 1000 cities in 96 countries. And we had like thousands of hosts running events. We had the host community where people were generating ideas and feeding off each other, and it was a really beautiful community.

 They were people who were community builders themselves, building local sort of chapters, if you want to call it. So a really amazing experience. In 2019, LinkedIn released some terms that meant that it's available to all LinkedIn users. We could use the logo, which was fabulous cuz we were never able to use the logo on LinkedIn local events being independent. Those terms did mean that we would probably no longer required as mentors as such. So we did stop running the host community then. But LinkedIn Local certainly still exists.

I still run [00:05:00] events in Coffs Harbour. I ran one last Thursday, which was fabulous. It was a really wonderful experience for me personally to see the growth of this and really, cut my teeth in community building and really see this thing thrive. It was the connection stories were just incredible.

And the impact that people were creating with it was just a really incredible experience.

Michelle J Raymond: When I read about the numbers and just how quickly it all happened, I was like, whoa. Like how do you keep up with that? I think this thing's just gone, in a heartbeat. Which I think it's that where people crave connection and community. We're so busy hiding behind screens. And so yeah, when I looked at those numbers, it was pretty mind blowing and the fact it's still going, what are we up to six, seven years later. It's kinda cool.

Anna McAfee: Yeah, and the pandemic certainly will have dipped those numbers.

Nobody has any track of what those numbers were. We had a very, um, as good as we could get, number gathering exercises in terms of hashtag searches and basically the host registration process. Our kind of main goal with the [00:06:00] community that we were running was to keep hosts connected so that if someone new wanted to start a LinkedIn local in a city where there already was one, they wouldn't actually know there was one.

And now that's very hard. There's no directory of hosts. LinkedIn don't keep any of that, which is a shame. You usually have to either look for a company page or a hashtag and hope that there's one there, and if not, start one then hope no one else does.

But that's ultimately what the terms now are, is that any user can start a LinkedIn local, and that is great in one sense, but also it does make it very difficult from a, I think, just an information sharing perspective.

Michelle J Raymond: I would say like I'm here in Sydney. I don't know anyone that hosts them.

LinkedIn local Sydney, and I'm sure that there are plenty of people, but when I became a LinkedIn trainer three years ago, COVID times, but using LinkedIn for a lot longer, but I'd never taken it off LinkedIn as part of my previous roles, because it was all industry related.

So now what's happened is I actually have an amazing community that's global, but when it [00:07:00] comes to who do I know locally, I know very few people locally, so this would be such a big opportunity for myself to go and, actually meet up with people. And I find myself getting introduced to locals by people overseas going, hi Michelle, do you know this person? They live in Sydney. And I was like there's, 5 million of us. No, I don't, but thank you. But it's funny how it bounces all over the world like that. I appreciate you sharing the backstory about it. But if someone's listening in and they're thinking yes I would love to be able to connect with people in my local area.

What do you think makes a successful LinkedIn local meetup?

Anna McAfee: A few years ago, what LinkedIn Local was known for was very much pitch free events. It was not about one person's business. It was really about the community and what the community wanted.

And I have seen hundreds of hosts come and go with LinkedIn Local. And the most successful events, the ones that ran more than one event that ran a series and kept events ongoing in their city, were really the ones that were able to establish [00:08:00] something that wasn't about them.

It's not about come and learn how to use LinkedIn. It's not actually a LinkedIn workshop, it's a LinkedIn local event where people can come and gather. I have people come to my events who don't even have LinkedIn profiles and they love it. So I'm a bit like maybe you should get a profile. That's testament to the fact that the LinkedIn name on it certainly says something, it's probably business type community. But they feel welcome and they feel that they want to come.

So firstly, I would say it's not about you and your business, it's really about bringing something from a community perspective. Look the other aspects are very much we had a set of values when we established LinkedIn Local, which was it was very diverse, it was pitch free. Our tagline, which I still use and I know a lot of groups still use, is get to know the people behind the LinkedIn profiles and connect at a human level.

So really focusing on not the polished shiny profiles, but who the people. . And there's some fascinating topics that I see groups do in terms of panel discussions. They work really well at LinkedIn, local events. I did one last week [00:09:00] on attracting and retaining staff and that panel was fantastic. The feedback we got was really good.

I know Toronto we're just about to have one on How to manage, cancel culture do you know what I mean? It's some really interesting topics that people can come out for, get to know other LinkedIn users in their area.

And from a local business perspective, the value of that is just incredible. So I would say yeah, and keeping it fairly open. No high ticket prices. Keeping it as accessible as possible as well, because you want job seekers to be able to come. You want business owners to be able to come.

It should be an open type community that is willing to, accept the diverse ideas.

Michelle J Raymond: I think for me, the lesson that LinkedIn delivers to me almost on a daily basis is you just don't know who knows who, and you might look at someone on their profile basis like you just said, and they might have a job title or description or industry that you go, that's got nothing to do with me.

But when you're having a conversation with [00:10:00] them, when you might take it onto Zoom or in this case local, then you start to learn, oh, there's more to them than what you can see just on that profile. And I've had some like most amazing conversations with people that have done some crazy things around the world that when I look at their profile, I was like

what you did this ?Shout out to Sue Griffey, cause I know she'll be listening to this. So I look at Sue's profile and Sue's, helping other people to develop their careers and it all looks really nice and she's good at what she does and then I learned that she's been off saving the world and had all of these missions around the world, and really had such a big impact in local, small, impoverished communities.

And I was just like what, where is this? And I get those kind of conversations all the time and those introductions as well. So you just don't know until you have a conversation because the profile's just one dimension. At the end of the day, and it's such a big spider web, that [00:11:00] for me, that's the power of LinkedIn.

What you are harnessing there is actually the true power. I'm on a bit of a mission this year, Anna. I have had enough of the talk about the LinkedIn algorithm. I know I'm a trainer. I know it's part of my job to keep people informed, but I've had enough of it because what happens is people keep focused on that and not on the people around them, which are more powerful than understanding whether two hashtags or three hashtags will really make a difference.

This is why this topic's probably something that's really near and dear to me because, I think community is where we should be focused in 2023 and beyond. Not as a trend, but as just something we need as humans. What are the benefits that you see of building a community?

Anna McAfee: Look, I think the benefits, I think shared experience, a sense of belonging. There's so much and I'll talk fairly openly cause we're talking about algorithms. I actually, as another LinkedIn trainer as well, I have a very strange relationship with social media in general.

I find it [00:12:00] extremely intrusive. And there are periods in my life where I've just ugh, I wish I could just yeah, say no. When social media is your business though, that is really hard. And I think it's what we do with social media and how we connect with people and how we Not just build communities, but I think show up in community.

And this is something I'm always on about because trust me, building a community is tough. It will take a lot of your time, a lot of energy. There's a lot of pain points. And I saw this with LinkedIn Local so much. It's oh, I know there's events in Chicago already, but I might just start my own. Is that okay? And I'm like have you been to the other events? Oh, no. No. Why don't you just go? See what they're like, then you can build something that has a point of difference. But the point of that, I guess what I'm trying to say is sometimes showing up and participating in community is far more valuable to your own mental health, to your own sense of belonging than actually starting new communities. And so I think having that community mindset, [00:13:00] and being a great community participant, is just as important as looking at actually how we build them. But in terms of building our own communities, the word community gets thrown around a lot.

 I don't really look at the following. I wouldn't say to my following is my community. I know some people do have that definition, and that's totally okay. I would look at communities as people, more like a LinkedIn local community where people come with a shared sense of purpose and probably a shared sense of care.

And those types of communities are valuable for so many reasons online and offline lives where topics can be so divisive. Actually having a safe space is really important.

Michelle J Raymond: I had Mark Schafer on the show a couple of episodes ago, and we were talking about the difference between an audience and a community. And I think that's what you're alluding to. Sometimes our connections and followers are more an audience. It's a one way, I preach from my content and the other people on the other side listen. But [00:14:00] community for me is that two-way interaction. I support you, you support me. And it's not always the things that you see on LinkedIn, and people say to me, quite often, you know what they think I do is I'm successful because they see a lot of content. They're like, Michelle, your content's everywhere. And I'm like, yes, but that's not why my business grows. My business grows because of relationships that I build globally, strategically.

Right now I would say I'm surrounded by so many amazing, incredible people that sometimes the butt kickers, sometimes the inspiration, sometimes the cheerleaders, sometimes the people that have knowledge that I don't have, that I can just learn from. And this to me again, is what I get out of LinkedIn is just access to a pool of people that when I'm working from home, I don't have access to them. And that's the thing I miss about working in corporate land is having people around you that you can leverage off their differences. And I think now working for myself, that was the biggest challenge [00:15:00] in the beginning until I built my community.

It was lonely. I've never experienced the loneliness like I did, and I happened to set my business up during Covid lockdown. So that certainly did not help my mental health at all. I did get the COVID cat that helped for a little while. But ultimately now what I'm most proud of is the quality of the people that I'm surrounded by, that I call on them for information or help or assistance or guidance. And I love what you said about how you show up for other people. I think that's really important because it establishes how you wanna be treated, is how you treat others. And as I always say, my Nan says "What goes around comes around". Yeah. And community is the ultimate reflection of who you are.

Anna McAfee: I think so. It's the mindset behind communities. And if you think about, the Facebook groups you show up in or even the LinkedIn groups is, do you show up then a very extractive mindset? One of the simple things is go and look at the group.

If you only ever post in the group and you don't respond to other [00:16:00] people's posts or questions, try and flip that. Answer five questions for every time you post. And I can tell you now, you'll get so much more out of contributing to conversation than just trying to just continually just start conversations of your own.

And that can be the same with the LinkedIn newsfeed. There's so much value to be had just in comments and connecting with people through comments, then constantly having to keep producing your own content all the time. And so yeah it's really about that community mindset, that mindset of contribution rather than what am I going to get out of this?

Michelle J Raymond: I think that probably leads into the next point that I wanted to talk to you about is, what ways do people go wrong when they're out to build connections on LinkedIn. So you've been doing it for a long time. What makes this process more effective and what things do you think people should avoid?

Anna McAfee: Look, I'm not a huge fan of Sales DM's that are generated via an automation tool.

Michelle J Raymond: Amen.

Anna McAfee: I'm not [00:17:00] anti sales DM's in general cause I do think they work, it's when it's done at a volume level where there's no sense of, let's say, sense of care in reading somebody's profile and in looking at their recent posts and connecting with them through that rather than, oh, I have to send a hundred messages a day, and my hit rate on that might be two. Two people might respond and that's good for me.

The problem with that is, My view on LinkedIn, because it has served me in so many different ways throughout my career, is that how you show up once and connect with people is actually very important because that person could be a future employer or a future client and so the issue I have with that very extractive messaging where you are using automation tools where it's taking no care or time to even look at who you're sending the message to Um, is, that, that's your first impression.

So whilst that person might get annoyed and not remove the connection, a year later you [00:18:00] might be looking for a job and you're doing something different. And the messaging thread is still that sales pitch. And don't get me wrong, I've made mistakes.

I'm just human. So if you've done it, don't worry. There's plenty of people out there who have, but it is just about building that, I guess that longer term view. I connect with people that I'm sure I won't ever work with and that's okay, that's not why I'm here.

It's really to, share ideas and get different perspectives and understand more about different industries and hear some really incredible stories as well. So I think that's one big mistake that people make. Yeah, that, that would be my sort of that's my really big red flag when it comes to LinkedIn and it changes. It changes people's experience with social media platforms.

 I'm sure anyone who's on Instagram gets all those, oh, repost here for such and such incentives. Like every time you see it, you just, your heart sinks that little bit further.

And I find that with some very, [00:19:00] Strange, very unthoughtful. And I think this is where we don't need to get into a conversation about AI this late in the game, this late in the podcast. That's maybe another conversation. But I had a message last week from someone that was very clearly a ChatGPT generated message.

I went back to them and said okay, this doesn't sound very specific. What is it that you're actually looking for? And that was like, oh, but we'll pay you to do this. I'm like, but what does your client actually want training in? I only train in certain things, certain few key areas. You've approached this as a very broad view. Anyway, I didn't get a response.

So it's just it's just about, I guess an understanding is you can't growth hack relationships. You can't build relationships without putting in the time and effort.

Michelle J Raymond: There's no shortcuts. I've been in B2B sales for 20 years+, I have never done it offline, been able to find a way to circumvent or, shortcut those relationship buildings. There's just no way to do it. If there was, I would've found it. I'm probably, super [00:20:00] lazy. So I find ways to do things most efficiently.

Relationships are not one of those things that you can do it with. And for me it starts with connection, conversation, a collaboration, a community, and they go step by step. And that community, even like I run a LinkedIn group, and I found even getting momentum in that becomes tricky because it's not really a community until it's self-sustaining. So if I was to take myself out of it, would it continue to go? I don't think so right now.

So there's more that I need to do to inspire that for others to be leaders in that kind of group and know that it's okay to contribute and have that kind of whole community spirit going. It's not easy, I don't think building communities is easy, but are they powerful when you do them? Absolutely.

There's I think for me that's the goal that, I've got on LinkedIn is building a community I'm proud of. I did that when I came from the beauty industry. That's how I first got started on LinkedIn is building an [00:21:00] amazing niche community around beauty and chemicals.

And I didn't realize the power of it then. It's only now that I look back and go, wow wow, like that was something I should be proud of. But I didn't recognize the power of it at that time because I was getting paid by somebody else. And it was just a fun thing that I did on the side, and I think that's probably why it was so fun is that there was no monetization attached to it at that point in time.

But when I was reading your LinkedIn profile, doing my research for the show, as I always do, you had this really cool concept on there that I wanna share with people, and that is about building a virtual village on LinkedIn. And I would ask you, can you just explain to those that haven't been to your profile?

And if you are listening in, I'm gonna put Anna's uh, LinkedIn profile details in the show notes so that you can go, go to her profile, click on the bell and make sure that you're following her content. But tell us about the virtual village, cause I love it as a concept.

Anna McAfee: Yeah I guess that does round off our conversation [00:22:00] quite well and that, there is this incredible sense of people online on LinkedIn who can support you throughout your entire career.

And that doesn't, that might not be direct Relationships. I have people I've met on LinkedIn who've become very close friends. Some of 'em don't even live in the same country as me. And there is this virtual village of people that you can build around you because I think, and particularly at the moment in the state we're in 2023 in the world.

Nobody really knows what, in terms of business or career or job, there are a lot of changes coming for a lot of us. And for me, my whole approach to LinkedIn is the thing that changes throughout your career is your profile. What doesn't change is the network of people who know you who you've built that you can then ask for help from and get the support that you need.

And that might be you need a coach for something. It might be you need a supplier for something else. It might be that you need new clients. It might be that you need a new job, or it might be that you need to [00:23:00] hire staff. And the whole concept that I have about well, yes, this is a one big virtual village that you can build your own virtual village that will support you.

 I've reconnected with school friends who I haven't spoken to for 20 years who we've had conversations and that's been amazing. And it's just that LinkedIn connection and the sharing of content that starts that, that restarts that conversation.

And I've worked with clients who've, reconnected with past colleagues and are now doing some amazing work together simply because the approach to LinkedIn from a career perspective is really long term.

Michelle J Raymond: I find that on LinkedIn there can be, what, 900 million plus members now, but it can be extremely lonely if you try and go at it by yourself.

And I, I know when I made the career switch, when I set up my own business for me, I left my beauty community and had to build a whole new one. And that first six months were horrible, like absolutely horrible because I went from [00:24:00] known to unknown and then had to build it and find my people again. And whilst I haven't let go of that industry, they're still a big part of what I do now, cause I still do a lot of work in that space.

But until I found, my community around my new business, it was something that I was like, what have I done? Have I made the biggest mistake ever? Should I go back into that? Because that's how much I missed it, is that I was almost ready to, quit my business and go back again because it had just become such a big part of my life.

So, Anna, every time I wrap up the show, I love to give people an actionable tip that they can take away. When it comes to either community building or LinkedIn Locals, what is one actionable tip that someone that's been inspired today to, get out there and maybe participate in a LinkedIn local or build their own community? What advice would you give them?

Anna McAfee: I think to, I guess to wrap all of that up, I would say community is not about you. Yes, your vision is important if you're building a community. But ultimately [00:25:00] community direction is shaped by its members . If you are building your own community, let the members drive the community forward, assuming it's in, fitting with your vision.

But equally, if you're showing up in communities be that member, be that champion. Be the one that puts the hands up and says, yeah, I'd love to help, with this or that. And you'll get so much more out of it because it's not about going in what will I gain for this?

What can I give to this? And what you'll gain is so much more by that community participation or the community building if you go in with that right community mindset.

Michelle J Raymond: I don't think there's any other way to wrap the show up. I appreciate everything that you've shared this week and again, I'll put the details in the show notes so you can reach out if you've got questions about LinkedIn local or just wanna know about LinkedIn in general, I recommend that you give Anna a follow.

So I appreciate everybody's time this week and I look forward to the show next week.

Cheers.

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