LinkedIn Personal Branding: What's Actually Working

Jack, welcome and thank you so much for giving up your time on a rainy Friday morning to be with me today. Thanks Claire. No, I'm very, very pleased to be here. Of course, I was planning on standing out in the rain all day. Of course. So this has prevented you from doing that. Yeah, yeah. And I couldn't start the show without, for those of you that can get a visual without pointing out your gorgeous poster in the background that I keep banging on about, which is a retro Jaws poster, which I keep being drawn to. But we are here to talk about, and we're going to do a big intro to you, Jack, but I know that you are... Mr. Social and personal branding. So I know you can talk about all things around that, but a big specialism is obviously LinkedIn. And there's such an opportunity for LinkedIn in 2026 and beyond for raising personal brands. So we're going to be covering all things LinkedIn and taking some questions that our combined audiences have asked me to put to you. But before we dive into that, I would love to just know a little bit more about you and for our listeners to understand a bit more about your journey, your story that's brought you to what you're doing today. Okay, cool. It is a rather odd story. I don't have the typical marketeer's journey into running a marketing agency. So I left school, went to college. I actually did do media studies at college, but it was essentially just... two years of going to parties and not really doing much else but i did teach me some fundamentals about like con like content creation filming photography etc but all i wanted to do was basically play in a band with my mates so we started a band at that point and fizzled about for a couple of years that band kind of run its course and then we started another band and that got pretty serious and we ended up getting um signed and we used to tour like professionally like most of the places around Europe and further into the world. We would spend a number of months out of the year on tour all the time. And I always say, basically, it was a type of music that was never going to earn us any money. It was like really fast, really heavy punk rock, right? So we did it for the pure love of it. We treated it as a business and it kind of paid for itself. It was run very... efficiently in that way. I was what everyone used to call me as the band dad as in basically I run the band and I always say like all the time I used to spend in the back of the tour van worrying about my future I was actually getting all the soft skills and skills that I needed to run the business that I do today. Oh God, the transferability is like, is amazing. In order to help get things along, I used to freelance as a social media manager, social media marketer for friends, businesses and other businesses in the music industry. So I used to work for a record store, various recording studios, a vinyl, a record label and a distribution company. It was basically just like Oh, Jack understands social media, so let him do it kind of thing. And then the pandemic came around and all of my music production work just kind of died overnight. I had like a runway of projects for like a couple of months, but I was going to run out of cash pretty soon. And I actually started getting a few referrals for social media because if you understand at that time, businesses pretty much had their pants pulled down as in like they'd never really been. investing in digital marketing because they're like well people come through the shop door so why do we need to do that and i pretty much never looked back so very much self-taught um and that's why i think that's why i love what i do as well because i'm such a student of business um where we specialize in personal branding we get a lot of time with the founders or with the leadership and everyone steers their ship in a different way right so it's like learning different ways about how people run their business was the thing i just really started to take a big interest in and we started as a bit of like a generalist digital marketing agency but after a few months i decided no i like being involved in social media content creation social media strategy and this kind of it wasn't called personal branding at the time but it was like using the business leader as the go-to-market. Like that was like what we kind of niched down into, if you will. So that was how I got into doing what I do. Amazing. It's not the traditional route, but yeah. No, but it often isn't in this industry actually. And what I say when I hear stories like yours is that I think you can bring the perspective of actually not only just understanding the platforms and the strategy, but actually understanding what it's like to be the face um because we can all kind of read like this is what you should be doing but we know that there's a difference between reading what you should be doing and actually applying it and doing it so you can relate to perhaps people that have certain which i know we're going to come on to um difficulties or or mindset issues around being visible and getting out there which is i would you know say sometimes is one of the biggest barriers so definitely i think that's It's kind of been a lot of constant in how I run and build the business that I have is like, I'm not going to sell something to someone that I don't know how to do or I haven't done for myself. Lead by example in a way as in like, you know, if we didn't do our own social media, then why would people hire us? Like if I didn't, if I wasn't posting on LinkedIn, it wasn't working for me, then why would someone pay me? for us to have them do it. But it's also like, again, it goes right away back to the band as in like, oh, we need to sell t-shirts. Okay, we'll build a website that has the t-shirts on it and that will link with PayPal. How do we do that? I don't know. I'll figure that out. And now we need to do email marketing to promote to the people that bought the shirt. And do you know what I mean? It's just... that learn learning on the job. You figure out like, well, that's that needs the next piece and it needs the next piece and you add it all in. Yeah, yeah, definitely. Oh, that's fascinating. I did not know about your music background and how that brought you into it. So it's funny, I should probably talk about it more about all the pictures from back then. I've got hair like down to here and amazing. Oh, yeah, I look forward to seeing some some posts on that. And so let's home it into LinkedIn. Yeah. And let's start with where do you see LinkedIn right now as being an amazing opportunity for particularly business owners, founders that want to grow their personal brand and their business off the back of it? Okay, so... I'll first start by like saying that we as an agency we're kind of agnostic as to what platform we work on but we tend to work with service-based businesses who sell to other businesses so we're kind of our B2B agency and LinkedIn is the platform that lends itself best to that kind of type of business so LinkedIn is a platform that we spend a lot of time on a lot of our clients their campaigns are based around LinkedIn And I think the way that I would say about it, because there's loads of rhetoric about LinkedIn out there as in, oh, it's just, it's absolute, you know, there's loads of slop on it and there's loads of like, today I ate a biscuit and this is what it taught me about sales and all that kind of rubbish. But at the end of the day, it is a professional networking platform. So if you boil it down to what it was when it started, it was for people to find opportunities and to find career, their next career move. And that has evolved with the world, the way that social media has gone and the way that like content marketing has gone and fought leadership into what it is today. I would say that LinkedIn is the networking event that's happening 24-7. So if you think about what happens at a networking event, the type of conversations, it's that happening all the time. every day, if you know what I mean, whilst you sleep, whatever you've put out there into the world on LinkedIn is it should be doing its job for you in that big networking event. It's a bit cheesy, but that is how I see it as well. But I also say that LinkedIn is the platform that people go to before they make a commercial decision. So if you're in a sales conversation with a prospect, LinkedIn is the platform that they go to to check that everything adds up and to check that you are who you say you are and you can do what you say you can do and that people recommend you. It's also, and you could, before the sale as well, it's like who's connected to this person? You know, what are their followings like? You know, what do they speak about online? It really is that kind of professional checking. What would you say in terms of the importance of... content on LinkedIn from the perspective of AI? Yeah, so there's, there's a couple of points concerning AI and content for your personal brand or your company brand or just content in general. And then there's a couple of points that I could make about like, how AI is affecting the B2B sales and marketing landscape when it comes to LinkedIn as well. With the first thing with when it comes to content, obviously AI is fantastic revelation for businesses. It's a great tool. Tool being the word that I would like to highlight as in I do feel like people just they're just like, oh, well, you know, content AI can just do that. And the result of that mindset is just slop just and the feed being filled with quite a lot of garbage for want of a better word and recognisable garbage. as well. And if we go again, like LinkedIn, it's a professional networking platform. As a professional, you need credibility. Garbage content damages your credibility. I'm not saying don't use AI. In fact, LinkedIn had it's like AI, write this with AI to help more users create content and share, which is great. But Use your noddle. Like, read it through. Like, you have to know what you want to get across. And will this damage my reputation? Will this make people know, like, and trust me? Really put some thought into that. And also, does it connect up with, like, how you are as a person in the real world? Because let's say that you put a load of content out and someone starts speaking to you and you don't talk like how you've... created that content. I often speak into it as well, which is a great way of it knowing my voice. And I'm like, I want to do a blah, blah, blah, blah, and I will tell it what to say. And then where it's saving me time is because I'm not having to copyright it, but it's coming from my head, not from the bot. Yeah, exactly. And obviously, we've just talked about AI from the perspective of creating content. But there's also the AI from the perspective of searchability. And we're seeing increasingly that more and more people are going to LLMs, ChatGPT, Claude, whatever it may be, perplexity for their searches versus Google. I know that you've got some insights on this and on how we shift or adapt to ensure that we are still communicating with and connecting with humans, but being searchable by AI. And I'd love to kind of get your expertise on that. Yeah, so every single sales conversation I have, I ask the person like, how did you hear about us? Where did you find us? Which is a great way, just FYI for the world to find out how you're doing in terms of your marketing strategy and your go to market in general. Eight out of 10 of the last leads that I've asked that question to said, I googled personal branding agency UK, and then I read the AI summary at the top and you were there. I used ChatGPT and it recommended your agency. And I think any social media agency worth their salt should know that social search is one of the biggest shifts of the last couple of years that's happening, as in social media is a search engine. Social is search, search is social. They're one and the same now, right? So it's really, really important that all of your social media platforms are optimised for search engines and generative search engines. Google now pulls from social media platforms and ChatGPT and other platforms like that are reading and citing social media platforms as well as the other things that it does as in like Reddit and everything like that. So it's really, really important that your social media profiles are optimised for those two things. So like SEO and GEO, because that is the new way that consumers are searching for businesses to interact with. And there's a we've we've created a document that basically helps walk through how to optimize your LinkedIn profile for that. And for humans, it's obviously we can't forget that at the end of the day, the person making the decision is a human. But the key difference to to kind of make is that humans understand nuance, right? So you can put out a piece of content that's like a personal story and relate it back to how you run your business or why it affected a decision that you made in your business that will lead to someone thinking, I really like the way that she told that story and I really relate to that. I'm going to reach out to her. Might not go exactly like that, but you get the idea. AI doesn't care about that. It cares about patterns as in like, What does the profile say? Do they have portfolio of work to show to back up that they do what they say they do? And are other people recommending them for that? It follows the patterns and makes a decision as to whether to recommend it to you based on what you've asked it, basically. So we're in turn like this new age of like, you have to have that in mind when you're optimizing a LinkedIn profile, when you're optimizing a social media profile, because that is the way that people are shifting to finding businesses to interact with. For example, I've seen loads of headlines on LinkedIn that are like either just they just say entrepreneur founder, it tells humans something because they can understand, okay, that is what they do. And all the content speaks to that. But In terms of patterns, you need more as in we do this for that person. There's a way to optimize it. So the AI platform can understand what the pattern that you're presenting and whether that's a suitable answer for the person that's asking the question. Fascinating. I think it's even more important than ever now to be super clear on, to take it right to kind of top level strategy to, to who it is you're trying to sell, what it is you're doing. and then translating that into varied content that is going to, number one, be very, very specific about the nuances of what you do so that machines can essentially find you, but also have the human touch and the storytelling and the vulnerability and all of those things that we have that actually will kind of connect with the humans. So it's, you know, I guess it's kind of shifted the strategy a bit. Definitely. I could carry on talking about this topic all day because I think it's fascinating and especially how quickly it's changed and how quickly everybody's had to evolve. I have got a ton of questions which actually went out on LinkedIn and Instagram. Cool. Just because I wanted to engage our audience and actually really, because I do get a lot of questions about LinkedIn, to actually put them directly to you. So if you're good with that, I am going to read some of these out. Great. So the first question for you, Jack is, and this is obviously for somebody who's not already on LinkedIn and thinking about it. So for somebody that is new to it, the question is, do you need to know a lot to start? Or is it a case of just learning as you're doing it? I mean, based on the way that I do my things, I would say learning by doing is the best route anyway. You don't have to know a lot. But you do need to understand the fundamentals of what your reputation is worth and business. And one thing that's really important to us in our agency is commercial consistency and just understanding that TMI is a thing. And it is a professional networking platform. So yes, tell some personal stories, but can this link back to your commercial objective? Like, okay, great picture of your dog. Everyone loves dogs. It's going to get loads of engagement. How does that relate back to you and what you do for and the value that you add to the market and to your customers? And just understanding that like perception and first impressions is everything. Always keeping that in the back of your mind. But otherwise, I would say you need to know fundamentals, but it's nothing that you can't get from a quick Google or YouTube search. Or a great download that you're going to be sharing with us. Oh yeah, yeah, or that. I would say definitely just start posting content and learning from what you're doing, basically. Amazing. Thank you. Right. I'm going to move on to a second question, which came from somebody who says, I'm awful at staying consistent on social media. I never feel like I'm giving enough value. What's your top tips for somebody like me to show up easily, consistently and not feel gross about it? Okay. So consistency, a lot of people have this notion that consistency means posting twice a day, five days a week, and like 13 stories a day. And that's, I mean, it could be if you've got a full team, people that do that have usually got a team behind them, like an agency like mine, or an in house staff of like 10 people working on it, right? Think about what is realistic for you. And just stick to that. And I would say, you know, all the all the business 101 things like batching your time. So um that all comes into it but posting once a week is consistency if you keep that up across a month you have been consistent so lower the kind of barrier to entry for yourself back to your time to get ahead and i think once a week is a great place to start because as you get into it you will naturally post more and you will if things will keep up and then on the consistency piece Does it matter if you do decide that you're going to post once a week? Does it matter if it's the same day of the week or is once a week enough? Does that matter in terms of algorithms? I'm hesitant to say because they change so bloody much. There's a lot of evidence out there that audiences are online at different times. Again, like common sense. So when are your target audience more likely to be scrolling? put that thinking into it and avoid trying to stick to some episodic time unless you're you're doing like an episodic series i think that's more for like youtube really okay and just in terms of the the bit about feeling gross which i know can be such a big thing about posting and i actually think sometimes it it can feel more pressured on LinkedIn because it's a professional platform where you can't just put a picture of your cat, but you're supposed to be putting something that is thought leadership and value. And I think that adds extra pressure. Do you have any tips around how you can overcome that? Yeah, I mean, to quote Nike, you could just say, like, just do it. But it is important to obviously think, is it TMI? Will people relate to this? If the answer is yes, then just do it. But just think about it's your reputation, right? So you've got to think, does this harm or improve that? Because I don't want to be like, yeah, just post it. And then everyone just starts posting a rubbish or whatever. Which is what we're seeing already, right? Yeah, yeah. Reporting to AI, it's almost like, well, it wasn't me. It wasn't me. And look, this is coming from a person where I think I had a post go semi-viral once. So like 250 plus. circa likes and it was a post about how basically I couldn't get to work and everything kind of failed and we had a childcare malfunction so I turned my chest of drawers into a standing desk. I didn't really want that to be the post that got seen by thousands of people but loads of people related to it and that's what ended up happening but I wouldn't I just wouldn't obsess over things too much I would just think as you say think about will people relate to this because if they will then it's going to happen right yeah absolutely thank you all right let's move on um this is a great question from a founder so she has said what are founders getting wrong about linkedin right now and what should we be focusing on instead if the goal is credibility rather than vanity metrics okay cool what founders get wrong their profile is not optimized as in not just from the technical perspective that we spoke about earlier but the profile is the first impression so things like an iphone photo at a business event being their profile picture and not a clear professional photo that is like a friendly do business with me kind of first impression photo the banner you know having an over complicated banner, having no banner. Everything about those first seconds that someone lands on the profile needs to convince them this is worth scrolling down and learning more about that person. So the banner, the photo, the tagline, they all need to be really, really effective to create the best first impression possible. Positioning is something that people are getting wrong as well. As in like, again, it comes back to thinking into who am I talking to? What do they want to see from a service provider? And thinking about how your content and your profile can position you as the right choice to make. So positioning is a huge thing. Allocating some of your content strategy to each of those pillars. So like the more broader, relatable. content that is going to get more eyeballs is good for awareness is good for the no. And then obviously the credibility part is, here's how we did x that produced y for z customer, you know, they can do what they say they can do. And then there's there's also like part of that is having content that actually does ask people to take action. So you know, connect with me to learn more or anything that is is that's pretty shitty cta but you know getting people to take action um based on what the strategy is actually having like you know even if it's like one post a month or one post a week that does that as long as you're it's no like trust buy um and not being social so a low it's social media and a load of people focus on the media which is the output and then they just post and turn it off and go away. If you think again about LinkedIn is the networking event that's happening 24 seven, if you just walked up to people and was like, I do this, and it creates value by blah, blah, blah, and then you walked off, they'd think you're a moron. Whereas if you if you engage in conversation, then people are more likely to know like trust and buy from you. Do you know what I mean? So commenting on other people's content, offering your thoughts in the comment section on other people's content. following and connecting with your ideal customers, sending DMs, treat it as you're at a networking event. Back to your analogy, you wouldn't just go into a room or you could, but you wouldn't be very popular and just like me, me, me, you know, you would ask some questions. So I love that analogy as a way of figuring LinkedIn. And then just very quickly, there was the piece about vanity metrics. And I always find this is an interesting one because when people talk about vanity metrics on social media, but... in LinkedIn specifically, I guess it's around kind of connections and you mentioned impressions, things like that before. And I think we can get caught up in them, but there's an element to which it's, well, are they vanity? Because, you know, if you do have a post that goes viral, you do have tons of connections that does give a certain credibility by perception anyway. So are they vanity? And what should we be focusing on? I think this comes down to, again, that original strategic work that you need to do as in like what matters. um for this campaign to be a success um if the if the objective is leads then obviously that informs a certain kpi so uh you know let's say leads and leads are going from dms to a calendar booking thing and then they're in the calendar and that's the metric that you track right so you could say that something that leads to that is someone downloading something that they have to comment on the post to get or something like that. That's the metric that you track. So comments are no longer a vanity metric if they serve a purpose. Followers. Some clients are, they use social media for clout as in like, is this person worth having a meeting with? I'll check their LinkedIn. Blimey, look how many people are connected to them, their followers, their content's got loads of engagement. I will have the meeting. that is the metric that they want to track. There's a lot to be said about, again, like social media has shifted over the past few years, especially on platforms like Instagram. But it is happening on LinkedIn as well, as in like people no longer really comment on things as much. They will send it to their friends in DMs or send it to people like. whether that's memes or whether that's like look at this so this is interesting or they will save it for themselves to read later on and LinkedIn is actually now it actually now gives you like saves and shares and that's a really good metric to track because private social I think is what the movement was kind of dubbed but like it is that kind of shift as in like people are not really being as outspoken in the comments as they were. And that's the shift that people have made as in like it's more being done in the DMs. I think a good metric to track on LinkedIn as well, usually on the more broader scale is profile views as well. So, okay, this content got 1000 impressions and 30 likes, that could be good or bad. If you think it's bad, okay, well, how many profile views did that generate? Because again, a profile view That's where they're in front of your banner, your headshot, your tagline. Are they scrolling down to learn more about you? There's a lot more weight in that profile view than people think there is. Yeah, I love that. And I think, you know, to answer that question, I think from everything you've said, if there's one thing that I'd be tracking, it would be that because someone's taken that next step to check you out beyond your post. And that's huge. So, amazing. I'm going to move on because we've got a ton of questions. This is an interesting one. Okay, so I'd like to know how, as a small business using today's version of LinkedIn, how we get any traction when there are so many people and companies optimising, nearly weaponising content on a seemingly non-stop basis? Okay, so, sorry. Right, so. I'm not sure I understand the context of the question as whether it's like how do I get started because every business is doing so much of it or how do I get started because there's so much and it's like noisy and how do I stand out? I feel it might be speaking to the fact that there are that big businesses perhaps like you alluded to before have the teams the budget to be doing these big things so how do you not get drowned out? um in that noise as a small business that perhaps doesn't have the budget or the capacity okay so i would say um don't try to be them and don't compare yourself to that level of output and i would also take not comfort but like just kind of understand that big businesses are always going to have big budgets and big teams to do things like that and you've got to start somewhere they did at some point and um I would just zoom all the way out and just think, okay, why do my customers trust me and buy from me and just focus on being personal and leading with that information? And again, start small, build it up. Think about what those people want to see and hear from you. And don't try to be like a massive conglomerate doing like 40 posts a week and stuff like that because all it all it leads to is burnout anyway and lower quality content noise yeah yeah completely agree thank you um this is a huge question the question is what's your best way to find your ideal clients on linkedin uh think how do you find your ideal clients off of linkedin again like it's it's social media and there is a certain kind of facade to that but is a networking platform. How do you network and find clients in real life and apply that to your LinkedIn strategy? Like map your network, like where has your business come from? Who are the key introducers? What type of professional are they? Are they a lawyer? Are they accountants? Who do they kind of hang around with? How can you connect with those types of people? I always say, instead of talking to 20 people about one job, to try and find the one person that can give you 20 jobs as like an introducer. Do you know what I mean? It's the same principle. And then it changes the approach as well because your content is no longer, this is the thing that I do, please buy it. It's, you know, it's more about getting those introducers to trust you. That could be a strategy. But I would just kind of think about like, okay, how do I do this? in real life and and apply it to that linkedin's a fantastic search engine to find professionals and obviously there's the there's the thing where if you're not connected to them you've got to have like third and second first and second connection sorry and just thinking about it strategically who are they connected to who can i ask to connect me with who can i ask to make an introduction to um don't just rely on it being all on LinkedIn like you know use your your network and and your skills outside of social media and just apply it to that I think I think that answers the question I think it it's an incredible answer uh and it's it's and you said this before but use it you said in the context of AI but use LinkedIn as a tool not as the not as the only part of the strategy so and what you've just said will take people away from post post post to thinking well who do I actually want to connect with um whose posts do I need to be connecting with how do I use this platform in a more intelligent way rather than just a you know a self-promotional kind of platform so a great a great way to start as well like if you're going to networking events um IRL uh is you know like people know not many people really have business cards anymore so if someone said like do you have a card one of the best things you can do so if you go to the search bar in the top and you click the little it looks like a qr code there if someone scans that that will take them to your linkedin profile so instantly you've got a new connection there and that's like something that i've been doing at networking events for for years if someone doesn't have a card and it's way better how many times have we been to events and come home with a stash of cards with the best of intentions of following up life gets in the way and we don't whereas if you've got that code um as long as you're not somewhere which has happened sometimes where there's no wi-fi um you know you um you immediately connect and that's it you're connected yeah yeah and it's like then you then you can just follow up and say like had a great conversation if you'd ever be interested in you know continuing the conversation or i don't know whatever you want to do but that's like a a little That's like a little way that LinkedIn can be in your business development strategy off of LinkedIn as well. It's a tool that everything's a cog in the machine rather than that being the one thing. Again, like what I said, where if you put all your eggs in one basket, LinkedIn can just decide that, oh, you've got 15,000 connections, but now you have to pay £5 a month to talk to them. but they can do that it's their it's their platform they own the audience you don't so always diversify your approach um yeah going down a bit of a rabbit hole there no which is why i knew this question but it's such it's such a great topic and a brilliant question but i think that that is a such a good answer thank you um this one kind of links to it um what are the best ways to get from initial connection on linkedin to client again it's huge because from linkedin to client i think i think we've probably covered that in a lot of the conversations but if you had a kind of a short summary for it then yeah um i'm trying really hard i feel like um my answer is probably going to be quite annoying but i mean look i i with dms right they are just full of spam so don't be that that guy or girl that's like Thanks for accepting my request. Please buy my thing. Do you know what I mean? You would never say that to someone in the real world and you'd probably get a slap if you did. So be conversational. But again, how do you close business in the real world? I think one of the most important things to remember is treat it as in like you're talking to someone on WhatsApp. I find it's more effective than if you send a wall of text to someone that doesn't know you. If anything, the thing that you are selling is a further conversation, right? Don't try and sell the product or the service in that first message. That is instant like delete. And no response is a response. It is something that A good friend and mentor of mine, James Newell, taught me. So don't chase people, replace them, because if they're not responding, that is a response. They are either too busy or they are indicating in a very British way, I'm not interested and I'm avoiding replying to you because I don't want the awkwardness of saying that. So don't get hung up on it and find some more people to have a chat with. Amazing. And actually, James is going to be on the podcast in a few weeks. Oh, great. Yeah, so thank you for that intro. He's fab, talking all things sales. Okay, any tips for optimizing my reach if I'm open to work? Using the open to work function, LinkedIn will push it to employers. Is there a way that it can be pushed? Because I guess if this is coming from perhaps not a freelancer, but maybe somebody who's employed, they may not want. the visibility of that got you yeah am i right in saying that you can yeah so i'll answer it in two two ways then so if you're if you have no position and you're open to work then using that function will it will be beneficial so for example if you post content um about the the fact that you're looking for work and then or you use the I'm looking for an opportunity function that LinkedIn provides, LinkedIn will push that more so. But there are other ways, as in like, if you're fine with being public about it, posting a very honest, like, this is a post for my network, help me out network, I'm looking for this, that, the other, here's my experience, I've worked at this company, I'd really appreciate if you could share this or comment on it, blah, blah, blah, and the network. will hopefully do its thing and help you out. If you don't want to let someone know that you're open to work, it is again about connecting with people and talking to people in direct messages and being strategic about, you know, how you present yourself and who you want to be talking to and who you want to have those conversations with. at the end of the day again like people by people it's exactly the same with employment and I would say just speaking as an employer like I hire for attitude skills and experience and that has weight but if your content shows it displays your approach to your work and your attitude in what you do in your craft then I'm way more likely to be receptive to that rather than I've done XYZ for ABC customer. So ensuring that your profile and content if you're if you're using it is is reflective of what somebody would want to see to engage in a conversation? Yeah, yeah. So weird corridor conversations go, this is how to leave your company. But it's like, you know, if I can see that in your current position, you are really active. and you're really enthusiastic of all the initiatives that that company has, you're supportive of all the marketing efforts, you are posting your own content about the value that you add, then of course you're going to have a leg up on someone that is just, they've got no profile picture and the bio says experienced professional with seven years experience in blah, blah industry. Of course, I'm going to pay more attention to the person that is putting more effort into promoting themselves and building their personal brand. Love it. Thank you. Then we've got a couple of questions. Actually, I'm going to leave those to the end because we've got a couple of questions that are kind of around the security side of things, which I think are sort of important to touch on. But just in terms of tools and tactics, firstly, is verification. So obviously, verification used to be back in the day, something that was awarded to you, but now obviously you can pay for this. So it's being verified. And LinkedIn Pro, are both of those things worthwhile? So, I mean, we have client accounts that are verified and premium, and then we have client accounts that aren't. We don't let it be a barrier. There are benefits to doing it. By the nature of, like, you're paying for something, you will get an improved service. So with a premium account, instead of 20 connections a day, you can do, I think, 50. Of course, that's a benefit. um they say about it being you be more visible to people and you can finally see someone viewed your profile you can see who it is yeah which does have a blurred out screen yeah exactly you that does have value you know um so i'm not gonna i'm not gonna say that it doesn't it isn't worth it but you don't need it to succeed it just helps being verified again if you think about trust it's just another way to enforce trust on people. They have put the effort and the attention into getting themselves verified on this platform. Tick, one more tick in the trust box. And those are important ticks. Yeah. And then another one on tactics. What is your experience of social media pods? So obviously LinkedIn specifically for this one. So for anyone who doesn't know what these are, it's where you collect a group of you and you proactively engage in each other's posts to drive engagement on it. What's your experience of that and do you recommend that as a useful thing to do? No. I'm obliged to say no and LinkedIn will give you a penalty if it... tracks you doing it. So if you look at, and I'm not suggesting that people do this, but if you look at a URL when it's copied and pasted, everything after the question mark on that URL is a UTM parameter that tells the platform where the traffic has come from. And it doesn't want people to use pods like that because all social platforms care about is the user. Because if the user experience is bad, then they will stop using the platform and then they cannot sell ad space to advertisers. All social media platforms care about is keeping the users on the platform and enjoying their experience. They view content that has a manufactured engagement as low quality content, which affects the user experience. So that is why it's not recommended. It's not authentic engagement. you know, I've posted this, it's gone out to a pod of 20 people and all those 20 people have engaged. Oh, that got great engagement. No, it didn't. The pod worked. So it's not, I don't think it's a good thing to do. And it can be related to buying followers as in it's not advantageous for you to do. And also if those people aren't your ICP, your target audience. So if you think about an engagement pod with loads of random people in it that aren't ever going to be your customers and they are engaging with your content, you're telling LinkedIn that you want more of those types of people. So I don't advise it's done. The real kind of complication with that is that it is really hard for... people that are new starts to get going on the platform and reaches down and you know that where they're changing things so much it's it's making people it's almost like a no-brainer for people to turn to things like that there's also the fact that you know if it's a company with 10 20 50 staff and they have an employee advocacy program where it's like the employees engaging and supporting in the social media you know Sending the link to the latest company post in an email or a Slack message, I don't see the harm in that. But it's the actual mechanics of LinkedIn and how it works technically doesn't really approve of it. And it will penalise profiles that it sees is increasingly using engagement pods. Just getting those numbers and they're not genuine, then that is not a metric to be chasing. Exactly. And again, like if, if, if the goal is the social needs to just be popping off in terms of likes, comments and followers. Great. If that's what you want to do, whatever. But is this going to help you get closer to your commercial objective? No. Well, then why are you doing it? You know, you'd, if, if a post gets 200 impressions, and you're like, oh, that's not very good. 200 people in a room is a lot of people. It's like changing the mindset around like what the metric, what the right metric is for you is important. That's such a good point. That is a subject I could go on about for a... a very long time but yes, I do not advise using an engagement podcast. Thank you, that's really, really helpful. And then we're going to end on an interesting question here which is around, the exact question is there's been some press commentary recently about the LinkedIn algorithm featuring male voices or posts or content, so favouring it. Is this genuinely the case? And if so, how can female members boost their viability without resorting to changing their gender, voice, etc? Okay, so I don't feel like I'm fully qualified to comment on this based on what's between my legs, to be honest. But I've done some research on this. I have seen that people were doing that. They were changing the gender on the profile. I've done some research as to what LinkedIn have said. They deny it. They've done the work to basically see if it is true and that they are saying that it's not. But I can't comment on people's experiences of if, you know, if that's what people are experiencing on the platform, then I don't feel like I'm right to comment on that. It's tough because I feel like the fact that LinkedIn are denying that. but people are still experiencing it, says to me that it's something a bit more deep rooted that starts off of social media in terms of bias. I don't know how to comment on how to get around that other than what I would say to any client, regardless of gender, is just basically just be yourself and let your personality shine through. And I think most people are sick of the bro hustle core culture anyway. So if that's what... If that's what the whole thing is centered around in terms of the content that does do well, I would argue that anyway, because I think most people are sick of that. But yeah. Absolutely. I completely echo what you're saying. I feel that if this is the case, it's probably a wider problem than something that's platform specific. And I think the bigger message, and actually it speaks to everything that you've said on the show, is the importance of having your authenticity, your voice, your personality come through. and not feeling that you need to adjust or change it for this or any other issue because actually that's when you're then starting to reinvent yourself to become something you're not and actually that's got its own world of problems aside from outside of the platform. But I did want to touch on that point because I think it's important for I think people to feel reassured that certainly from the perspective of LinkedIn that it isn't something that they are citing. as you rightly said, I see tons of enormously successful accounts across gender, ethnicity, religion, culture, all of it. So I don't think it's from my perception, a case that the successes are just being kind of limited to certain accounts from what I've seen. Amazing. Right, Jack, we could talk for hours. So what we're going to do now is the part of the show, which is all about brand mixology, where I ask you, from your perspective of what we've spoken about, what you would put on ice. So what you want people to, or you'd advise people stop doing from your experiences. And then we have the cocktail shaker, which should actually be the bigger of the two. But there we are. And this is where I ask you for your word of what you want to put into the mix for success. So let's start with that one first. And I will write it out on your behalf. OK, cool. Personality. Would you like to elaborate? Although I think from everything we've spoken about, it's it's pretty evident. Yeah. I mean, at the end of the day, it's the person making a decision is a person. People by people. Personality. People buy based on emotion and justify it with logic. So if they like you, they're more likely to trust and buy from you. I love that. And it really does summarise the entire conversation we just had. Be yourself, have your personality, use tools, use tactics, but use them to support what you're doing rather than to kind of lead them. What about what you would put on ice? What would you kind of love people to stop doing? Spam. Yeah. Stop pitching me shit in the messages. And actually, what I love about that is that that kind of goes outside of LinkedIn and outside of social media as well. So don't just be continually pitching. Add value, have personality. And that tends to be where the results come from. Yeah. um jack um i feel like i need to have you as a kind of like an ongoing guest because number one everything changes so much number two there's loads of different platforms we could discuss and number three this uh we have definitely scratched the surface on this but it's been so enormously valuable and i know that listeners will just get some really actionable tips. Just before we wrap up, I'd love for people to understand where they can find you. And also you mentioned download, which I, for one, I'm really looking forward to downloading myself. So if you could just share any details of that, then I can make sure that we put them in the show notes. Yeah, cool. So we are on all of the social platforms, Social Advantage with a zero as the O, annoyingly because someone got the URL. I'm on Instagram, Jack Longman with a zero as the O again. I'm on LinkedIn, Jack Longman. founder of Social Advantage. Our website, socialadvantage.co.uk. And yes, that download, How to Optimise Your Profile for Machines and Humans is available in a link that I will provide to you. Thank you. And if you want to connect with me on LinkedIn and ask for it, then I can send it over as well. Amazing. Jack, thank you so much. Hugely appreciate this. I know you will definitely be back if you're happy to be because there's so many more things. that we can chat about but yeah really appreciate your time and um and thank you and have a great rest of the day yeah you too have a good weekend see you later if you enjoyed this episode i would love it if you'd subscribe and share it with somebody who's building things their own way too this show exists to challenge the default path to mix things up and create a brand a business and a life we actually want thanks for listening see you next time

If you've been wondering whether LinkedIn is actually worth your time as a founder — this episode is your answer.

Jack Longman, founder of B2B personal branding agency Social Advantage, joins me to break down exactly what's working on LinkedIn right now, why AI search is changing everything, and how to build a presence that converts — without feeling gross about it.

FREE RESOURCES
👉 Download Jack's free guide — Position Yourself on LinkedIn So Claude and ChatGPT Can Find You
https://socialadvantage.co.uk/linkedin-positioning-guide-for-the-age-of-ai/


TIMESTAMPS
00:00 Introduction
01:00 Jack's backstory — from punk rock touring musician to personal branding agency founder
06:30 Why LinkedIn is the go-to platform for B2B founders
09:00 How to use AI properly for content — without killing your credibility
11:00 The big shift: how people are finding businesses through ChatGPT and Claude instead of Google
13:00 SEO vs GEO — optimising your profile for humans AND machines
16:30 Do you need to know a lot to get started on LinkedIn?
18:00 How to stay consistent without burning out
20:00 Overcoming the "feeling gross" barrier around self-promotion
21:30 What founders are getting wrong on LinkedIn right now
25:00 Vanity metrics vs the ones that actually matter
28:30 How small businesses get traction without big budgets
30:30 Finding your ideal clients on LinkedIn
34:30 How to go from connection to client in the DMs
37:00 Using the Open to Work function strategically
40:00 Is LinkedIn Premium and verification worth it?
42:00 Why social media pods will get you penalised
45:30 The LinkedIn gender bias debate — an honest take
48:30 Brand Mixology: what to start and stop doing

🔗 CONNECT WITH JACK
Website: socialadvantage.co.uk
LinkedIn: Jack Longman
Instagram: @socialadv0ntage

🔗 CONNECT WITH CLAIRE
Website: brandmixology.co
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/iamclairemarshall
Instagram: @iamclairemarshall

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