Esther
Good morning and welcome to another episode of the Monday Morning Marketing Podcast. Today we're joined by Louise Brogan and we're talking about raising your visibility online, specifically on LinkedIn. Welcome, Louise.
Louise
Thank you very much. Always a pleasure to speak to both of you.
Esther
Yes, we love having you on. We've had you on before speaking about various parts of LinkedIn, but this one in particular comes up because you have a book.
Louise
I have a book. Finally. I have a book. Finally.
Esther
So tell us about the process of writing a book.
Louise
Well, that will take the entire episode.
Esther
Okay. Just the shortened version.
Louise
You tell me when to stop. So the book came about because I wanted to get more speaking gigs on stages and I could see that people who had books seemed to be getting invited to speak at conferences. So I thought, right, I'm going to do that. I'm going to put a book together. Something I wanted to do, honestly, for years and years anyway, but that was my focus. So 2024, I end up speaking at six different conferences across Europe. And I thought, right, I like, I enjoy this and I'd like more of it. And my long term goal, you know, build the business up to a stage where the agency side is really running itself because we do LinkedIn content for people. That's our agency business. And then I will go out and speak at conferences and drive people into the business that will attract people to work with us, blah, blah, blah. So the actual actually writing a book is very, very, very, very, very, very, very hard. And so to keep myself on track, I wrote an article on LinkedIn every Sunday for about six months. I remember Pat Flynn of Smart Passive Income saying that when he wrote his first book, he literally just took all his blog posts, pulled them all together and published a book. Well, it's not really that simple because I thought, oh, I've got lots of blogs, I can do that. But it does give you a place to start from. And that's kind of where it started. And then there was a lot of roller coasters, ups and downs to get from there to actually having a book in my hand. And you can ask me whatever you want about that.
Melanie
But back to visibility online using LinkedIn.
Louise
Yes.
Esther
that's what the book talks about. That's why I mentioned the book.
Melanie
But we're here to talk about visibility online using LinkedIn.
Louise
Yes.
Melanie
So you have been the eminent person to go to for quite some time now in this particular field. Is there any particular question that you've had to field on this subject on a regular basis? And that's why this book came to life.
Louise
That's such a good question, Melanie, because, yes, that was, you know, I can't work with everybody. That's kind of how my YouTube channel came about as well. Just starting to answer people's questions. And the. Both the book and the YouTube channel are a resource that I can direct people to. The YouTube stuff is obviously free, so anyone can just go watch whatever they want, but people can now buy my theories on how to use LinkedIn in the form of the book. And it's, it's really about the people that I work with and that ask me questions. Are people who find LinkedIn a bit intimidating? So they maybe are. You're just not really sure. I'll give you an example. I've literally just been hired by a company in Ireland and this person is an absolute expert in her field. You know, she would be invited to speak at conferences, but she finds LinkedIn completely intimidating and says, I just don't know how it works. I don't know when I'm supposed to post, what I'm supposed to. What is that post supposed to look like? What's the etiquette about connecting with people? When are you supposed to comment? There's all these. There's so much conflicting advice about it. And I actually did a bit, a bit of a rant yesterday, which is very unlike me on LinkedIn, but somebody had said something in a group that I was in and it just. I was like erh. And it was about sending out lots and lots and lots of cold DMS on LinkedIn and eventually one will land. And I was sitting in this group and I was thinking, I can't believe you're giving this advice to somebody. And it just made me really cross. So I went and did a post on LinkedIn about, please stop, please stop listening to coaches telling you to send cool, direct messages. And then afterwards I thought, oh, Louise, you don't normally talk, like, negatively on LinkedIn.
Esther
But let me guess, it was your most viewed post over the last week?
Louise
Actually, I don't think it is. But yeah, my friend Lucy commented on it and I actually said in the comments, I think I went a bit of a mini rant there, but I got out of my system and said it was good.
Esther
So when you speak at all these events across Europe and now that you've written your book, you're going to speak at a conference in the United States that Melanie and I are going to as well. So we will be cheering from the side-lines for Louise at Social Media Marketing World, which is coming Up. But do you refer to your book? Do you, like, give them all the information that you have in the book? Because, I mean, you said people can go and buy the book. The book's only like 10 pounds, $12, whatever. You know, it's.
Louise
Yeah.
Esther
it's not million dollar making information. You know, it could be million dollar making for the people reading it and implementing.
Louise
Of course it is, Esther. If they buy the book and read it, they will become millionaires. That is not a guarantee.
Esther
But you're giving away a lot of information for very, like, low cost or free with your YouTube channel. You've got a podcast, you've got all this stuff going out for free. So why do people hire you?
Louise
Well, that's such a good. I love this question. Because people want. They read what you're saying. They, they think, oh, I think this person is the person I want to work with. And then they want to work directly with you. And it's almost like they have an access to your brain or they just want the shortcut. They don't want to have to go and read a book or watch 300 YouTube videos or they have watched enough of those videos to know that now I want to work with somebody. I have always found that when you hire someone to work with you, you actually commit to doing stuff. You know, you're suddenly accountable to working with somebody. And people I, you, people who are newer in business, possibly, so I've been in business since 2013, say, why are you giving away all this information? You know, like, literally everything I teach you can learn on my YouTube channel. Why are you giving it all away for free? You, why aren't you protecting that, you know, that IP or whatever? And I think, well, you can't work with everybody, can you? You literally can't work with everybody, and you shouldn't want to either. So I think a lot of my business comes through referral. An example of that is that I got referred. So the second last time that hired me, another retainer client is in Washington, and he hired me because he had been on LinkedIn. He'd reached out to another LinkedIn consultant and they said, oh, we don't do content for you. You need to speak to Louise Brogan. And she sent me the referral and that that client has signed up now on a monthly referral with us. So you become very referable when you put out a lot of information that helps other people. People will subscribe to my podcast or my newsletter because I share tips and advice on how to do this stuff. And Then they might be in a conversation with somebody and they'll say, oh, if you want someone else to do your LinkedIn for you, you need to speak to Louise, because that's what she does. So it's how you build your reputation, you know, by helping other people. I think that's how I've always done it.
Esther
And that mutual connection I did put my hand up. That mutual connection was that found through LinkedIn? When you had connected with this other LinkedIn consultant, how did you foster that relationship? You know, what?
Louise
Yes.
Esther
Steps do you take?
Louise
So this person and I are really quite in a. A similar marketplace and there would be like, for example, if there was conferences looking for someone to come and speak about raising your profile on LinkedIn, they, you know, she could be taking some of those positions in my place. So I think the network I've built on LinkedIn is a positive network. A rising tide lifts all boats type of people. So, yes, we did. We've met on LinkedIn, but we've also met in real life as well, which is always lovely. And I was actually genuinely. I was a little bit surprised to get this referral and delighted. So that was really nice. And I just asked them for their address, so I'm going to send them a nice gift. And that. The same thing happened, actually. This, the speaking gig I did last year in Bulgaria was for a global law, like a legal alliance. So law firms from all over the world were coming together to this global conference and that was another speaker who had been asked to go and speak at it, didn't want to travel to Sofia and kind of put it into a grip and said, would anyone be interested in this? I was like, yes, please. And that was an amazing conference. It was paid travel was paid, etcetera, etcetera. But she kind of offered that out and I said, yeah, brilliant. And went somewhere I would never have gone otherwise. And then the fun fact about that trip was Hillary Clinton was speaking in the room next to me. So there was Secret Service everywhere. And I didn't get to see Hillary, but we did get a photograph of her dashing to the lift.
Esther
Claim to fame.
Louise
So claim to fame. One of many.
Melanie
So you said earlier on that there was a lot of questions you were regularly asked, which birthed this book. So what would be some of the top questions that you'd be asked in order to help people understand where this book can help people?
Louise
Yeah, so I have a couple of frameworks that I. That I use, Melanie. There's like the four pillar concept of LinkedIn. That I talk about and that's in the book. So the four pillars are creating a good personal profile, knowing what content to post on LinkedIn and how to create that content, building connections with people and how to connect with people and then building a community around you on LinkedIn. So the four pillars are described through the book and I have, I think it's about seven or eight different people's stories kind of peppered through the book as well because I think people are like, you know, yes, theory is great, but let's hear from somebody that you did this with and what successes they got from that. So that was really nice to be able to do that as well. And so there's that framework and then there's my COPE framework which I will be talking about in Social Media Marketing World, which is the create once publish everywhere framework. But it also has two meanings because it's about video and people have a fear of video. So it's how to cope with starting doing video content, but also then once you've done the video content, what do you do with it? So that whole framework is in the book as well.
Melanie
Is there any chance we can get a mates rate for Esther going along?
Esther
I'll be in the front row at the conference going, yep, yeah, I need to cope with the videos because I can't cope with video because once the video is made I'm just like, yeah, no, it doesn't exist. It's, it's gone.
Louise
Okay, well there might be, there might be a little challenge for you during my, my talk Esther.
Melanie
Yeah, get up on stage doing the video.
Esther
Do not say no more about it. Do not get me up. I'm not even going to go to Louise's talk now at this point. But so you said in the book, you've got these stories from other people. You've also got case studies which are amazing. Give people an idea of what has worked for the different people that, that you've helped. There's also like top tips, you know, little like Smidgets. It's such an easy to digest book and it's something that a lot of other authors would do well to, you know, in the sphere of business books would do well to look at because-.
Louise
Thank you.
Melanie
You've already got the book. You don't need to butter her up.
Esther
I know. And I've got it signed. I got a signed copy because I went to the first launch. There's been several launches.
Melanie
I haven't got the book.
Louise
Well, Melanie, we'll do, we're going to do A Dublin launch. So you can get your sign there.
Melanie
Oh, good. There you go. Thank you.
Louise
I'm just on a book launch tour.
Esther
Just right. I mean, I was at the first book launch and you mentioned all the struggles and your profile. Yes, as well. But we'll save that for another episode or you can, you know, share it with, with your own audience, then we'll direct them to that episode. But when people are raising their visibility online.
Louise
Yes.
Esther
You said, you know, don't send cold DMs. What other no no's would you say for them to be able to raise their visibility online more organically and less smarmy.
Louise
Yes. Well, that's two different things. Just don't be smarmy. That's an easy one. Just don't be smarmy. But yeah, so I think that a lot of small business owners, and probably more so entrepreneurs can get really easily side-tracked by things. So for example, this morning I had a group that I met with, there's six, six women and of varying stages in business. And one of the people in the group raised a question of new in business. She's trying to build her portfolio of work and clients and she's talking about the challenge that she brought to our group this morning was around a piece of software she's trying to wrangle with. And I, because I've done a lot of coaching over the years and I've been in a lot of coaching programs. As I raised my hand and she stops. Yes. And I said, can I ask a clarifying question? And I said, you know, you're doing these other things that are not bringing you money into your business and what you need right now are clients in your business. So you'd be much better going on to LinkedIn, for example, and sharing a story of a client that you've worked with, because she has worked with clients, sharing an example of a story of someone came to you with this issue and this is how you helped them and focusing on that rather than a lot of people go on to LinkedIn and get distracted and end up talking about, I don't know, just, just stuff that's got nothing to do.
Melanie
Well, they talk more about themselves and the people that they actually help or features rather than benefits.
Louise
Or they talk. About, Melanie, they've heard a story about something and they go on and they start ranting about it. And I'm thinking this is nothing to do with your business and people are now seeing you in a negative light as a shouty person
Esther
or they, they pick up on one aspect and try to turn it into. And this is what I learned about business from proposing to my wife. Or we'll not even mention the most recent one that was going through LinkedIn. If you want the answer to that one, you can, you know, send us an email. But trying to relate everything.
Louise
Yes.
Esther
Back to. And this is what I learned, you know, from making a cup of tea. This is what I learned about business. And from walking the dog. This is what I look.
Louise
But, Esther, these people must be learning this from a coach or, you know, so what happens. I've seen this so many times. What happens in the online business world is you get a really, really successful business coach who then trains 10 business coaches who then set up their own training. They train 10 business coaches, and the person at the top has shared one tool or technique that's suddenly being sent down these chains of coaches. And everyone is writing the same flipping thing. It's like, where's your original thoughts here, folks? I went. I walked my dog. Oh, my dog ran away today. Because that's actually happened. And here's what I learned about that for business, you know. Yes, it's relatable to a point, but I'd much rather go on and say, there's this new thing happening on LinkedIn. Here's how you can use it, you know, have you tried it out? Because then people are like, oh, okay, that's more helpful to me. But you'll always have an Audi, an audience for rubberneckers, don't you? You know, where people are like, oh, what's. What's this? What's this juicy gossip?
Esther
It's like the new feature on LinkedIn that you don't have yet, Louise. I don't know if Melanie has it yet. The five.
Melanie
I still don't have it.
Esther
Five options of a pole on the polls.
Louise
Yes.
Melanie
I don't have that. And apparently there's this header thingy that you get as well.
Esther
I think that's premium. Only for the header.
Louise
Premium account. Yes. I turn mine off, Melanie, because it's so annoying.
Esther
Ah, you see.
Louise
It is so annoying. You get three images and they just. They. They are moving too fast. Oh, it's. I. I actually was doing a workshop for a law firm in London, and I had. I said, folks, I'm really sorry. I don't normally do this during my workshop, but just give me a second. I turn this off because it was so irritating. How long that's gonna last, to be honest.
Melanie
Oh, there is actually something I would like to ask you because it was somebody. Somebody actually asked me this only a couple of weeks ago. Quite a few people don't know how to get verified on LinkedIn. And yeah, she's smiling here.
Because I know why Louise isn't.
And some people can't get verified on LinkedIn even though they keep being told that they should get verified. So-.
Louise
Yes.
Melanie
Is it that big a deal?
Louise
No, it's not. However, there's a workaround coming. So I can't get verified on LinkedIn.
Melanie
You can't get verified?
Louise
No.
Melanie
That's hysterical
Louise
Because my first name doesn't match my first name and my passport. However, company pages are getting verifications now and smaller company pages. So once your company page is verified, you automatically can get verified on your personal profile. So I just have to wait for that and you can apply to get your company page verified. So if you haven't applied for that yet, then go into your settings on your page and click to apply. And you'll just have to wait. You know, they rule thing. I don't know if you know this, but they rule things out in about five tranches. My, my page verification will probably come in the fifth trunch.
Esther
Yeah. After all the dealings you've had with LinkedIn, I wouldn't be surprised if you were left to the end.
Melanie
It'd be interesting to whenever people are listening to this podcast because as, as a regular listeners know, we push this podcast out year round for a whole 12 months. I'd love to know if, when you do hear this to send us a message saying whether you've got this verification, whether you've got your business page verified, or indeed if you've got this annoying rolly banner thingy that just drives everybody nuts.
Louise
If it even still exists in 12 months time. Melanie.
Melanie
It might not.
Esther
We will see.
Melanie
flashing me on signs when it 12 months time.
Louise
Oh no, please, no. So I, I'll tell you a funny story actually because I'm talking about video in San Diego and I was making a joke to a group of people and say, you know, by the time I get on stage, who knows what, what video will be doing because they are literally changing video and what you can do with it on LinkedIn on a week by week basis, which is not brilliant when you're talking about it to, you know, three or 400 people in, in a few weeks time. And one of the guys said, don't worry, Louise, now that we've all got the hologram video option on our profiles, that'll take up most of your talk. I was like, hahaha, you're so funny. There is no hologram video option on your profile. I don't have that.
Esther
Yet. yet.
Louise
Yes.
Esther
But like you say, everything's changing so quickly on not just LinkedIn on all platforms because you are on YouTube and podcasting as well.
Louise
Yes. Yeah.
Esther
So how do you keep up with the changes and maintain your visibility? Because you know, like Melanie says, you know, they're pushing for people to be verified and you'll be seen more and you know, making all these promises, but obviously you're not being verified. You're still being well seen by people.
Louise
Yeah.
Esther
What changes are you looking forward to and which ones are you not?
Louise
Oh, okay. I don't put much truck by changes on things. At the core of it. I mean, this podcast is about marketing. You know, you want to know who's my ideal client, how can I help them and how can I get in front of them and what are their pain points and issues. That's the core of all of it. Doesn't really matter what software comes and goes and changes. So that's actually why my podcast and my YouTube channel are called Raise your visibility online. Apart from you can't call it raise your visibility on LinkedIn without the LinkedIn trademark lawyers coming after you. You can call your book that when you have an agreement with the LinkedIn trademark lawyers just caveat. So, you know, people don't just ask me about LinkedIn, they ask me about YouTube, they ask me about AI, they ask me very simple things, you know, Calendly. Yeah, exactly. Because I've been doing it. That's the whole point, Melanie. I've been doing it so long that things that I find very simple, other people just have no idea about. That's kind of where, like I told you girls, the, this membership thing that I'm creating, that's really part of it because so the before I came up with Raise Your Visibility Online, I have a second book in my head and I will write it one day and that's Build Your Business Online. And that is, that was too big a book to start with. But having a good website, having an email newsletter, know, understanding how to do video, then looking at social media, you know, all that stuff. Like I, I could honestly feel like I could coach pretty much anybody on that stuff. And I love doing it, but I picked my niche as LinkedIn and that's, you know, you asked earlier, Melanie, about how did I kind of get this visible on LinkedIn because I, I specialized on LinkedIn.
Melanie
You niched.
Louise
I don't Talk. Yeah, I niched. I don't talk about, I don't talk about those other things. However, it was really interesting with YouTube because like Esther, you know me well, like I talk about being an accidental YouTuber, like the fact that I have a silver play button and coming up on 3 million views on YouTube is just bonkers to me. Still. It's bonkers.
Esther
And to your teenage children.
Louise
Yes. Well, I don't, I think, to be honest, I think they've forgotten about it already. I just find kind of one of life's crazy moments that I am a 50 year old YouTuber. I think it's mad. And I was talking to somebody about this and saying, you know, that I did the. I did a one off YouTube workshop and 22 people signed up for it. I did like you, girl, you didn't even know I was doing it because I just didn't promote it.
Esther
No.
Louise
And during that workshop, it was really funny. I said like, you know, I'm not really an expert on YouTube. And they all started to laugh and they were like, well, we kind of think you are compared to the rest of us. So, yeah, so it's, you know. So anyway, I've gone down a complete tangent there. I've forgotten what the original question was, but yeah, sorry.
Melanie
In fairness, so have I. But I want to ask you another question because-.
Louise
yes.
Melanie
The way you've gone down this road has basically been organically. So does your book touch on paid ads through LinkedIn?
Louise
No.
Esther
No. Because you don't do it or-.
Melanie
You don't see the need for it?
Louise
No, the book is not written for that audience. The book is written for cheapskates. No, it's written for a small business owner, an entrepreneur. I mean, some of the people in the book are in corporate jobs. So one of the stories actually in the book is from a lady called Sarah Reveillard who headed up Microsoft's ads team in Dublin. She told me that they referred to my YouTube channel when they had questions about LinkedIn. So it's literally about how to raise your visibility so it can be. So at the London book launch, in the room, I had a completely different audience. I had people who are in senior director roles in Fujitsu, BT, PwC. Those people still need to raise their visibility online. So it's not a book that says, here's how to use LinkedIn to get lots of clients. That's not what the book is. It's how to raise your visibility on LinkedIn as an individual. So it's for individuals. I do touch about company pages in the book as well, because I felt it would be remiss not to. But that is about how to work with your team. So it's. It's. People in corporates are reading this book. I did a workshop with a credit union in the Carolinas recently and the person who hired me to do that bought every single person in the workshop a copy of my book.
Melanie
Nice. Nice touch
Louise
Because. So it's a tool for individuals, whether you're in small business or whether you're in corporate.
Melanie
So do we have any final questions, Esther?
Esther
Well, I was just going to ask where people can find out more about this new membership that you have and any other events that you'll be speaking at. Where do they get in contact with you, Louise? Apart from LinkedIn, obviously.
Louise
Yeah. So my main website is louisebrogan.com and the membership is called Raise Your Visibility Online. So if you go to the main website, you'll see a link to it there. Or you can just. I have a. I thought this would be a nice little freebie for your audience and we didn't touch on this at all, but how to write. How to write your headline for LinkedIn. And it's like a. It's a little PDF with eight different headline formulas. If you like that, everybody who gets it will be able to structure a headline that works for them. So if you do, if you get that, that will introduce you to my email list where you find about all the things. So that's on louisebrogan.com/headlinetips.
Melanie
Cool.
Esther
Brilliant. Thank you very much, Louise, for that free gift for our listeners.
Louise
Absolutely.
Melanie
And only for our listeners.
Esther
Obviously. Obviously. Nobody else is allowed to. Do not share it with any of your friends that might need.
Louise
I haven't actually. I actually, I haven't mentioned on any other podcast.
Melanie
And you mustn't to anybody now, so. Okay, well, thank you so much for joining us today, Louise. It was lovely to catch up with you again, you accidental YouTuber. You.
Louise
I. Oh, honestly, it's always. It's always lovely to speak to both of you and anyone who is listening. Come and connect with me on LinkedIn and let me know if you heard me on this podcast.
Melanie
Oh, yeah, yeah. And let us know if you listen to the podcast as well. We'd love to know.
Louise
My phone just. Phone. My phone just rang and switched into my earphones, so I missed what you said there, Melanie. I'm sorry.
Melanie
No, it wasn't important. It wasn't important. Anyway. Okay, well, that's all the time we have for today, guys. Thank you so much for listening. Thank you so much to Louise. We're going to be seeing you in person in a couple of weeks anyway.
Louise
Can't wait. In San Diego.
Esther
Sunny San Diego.
Melanie
Sunny San Diego. Well, hopefully.
Louise
You're going to be part of my keep Louise cam crew because I'm not speaking until Tuesday lunchtime.
Melanie
Oh, no.
Esther
They're saving the best to last.
Louise
Thank you, Esther.
Melanie
I am going to wrap this up at some stage, guys.
Esther
Yeah, yeah, go ahead.
Louise
Okay, okay. Sorry, sorry. Stop talking.
Melanie
So that'll be all from. From us this week, but we'll be back next week with another podcast and I'll get away from this chaos as soon as I can. Bye for now.
Louise
Bye.
Esther
Bye.
You love it really?
Melanie
Oh, never change, Louise.
Louise
Oh, my phone has obviously got stronger connection to my Bluetooth than my laptop.
