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How to Master LinkedIn from a LinkedIn Guru: Moritz Lang
57 Plays4 years ago
LinkedIn is a mysterious creature.
The algorithm is a well-kept secret and there are rules that should be followed to stay onside and attract engagement on the platform.
In other words, it's not as simple as writing a post and clicking "publish".
Moritz Lang is a Swedish digital marketer who has emerged as a LinkedIn "guru".
On LinkedIn, he posts frequently on best practices and how to do the right things to create engaging content but also establish a strong presence.
For anyone looking to raise their LinkedIn game, this podcast is a must-listen.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Marketing Spark
00:00:02
Speaker
You're listening to Marketing Spark, the podcast that delivers insight, tools, and tips for marketers and entrepreneurs in the trenches in 25 minutes or less. For the past year, LinkedIn has become the platform to connect, comment, and post content. People stand out for different reasons. They carve out a distinct style or voice.
Meet Moritz Lang: LinkedIn Specialist
00:00:24
Speaker
And one of them is Moritz Lang, a digital marketing specialist in Stockholm, who spends a lot of time writing about how to use LinkedIn better.
00:00:32
Speaker
If you're new to LinkedIn or looking to raise your game, Moritz's posts are a must read. Welcome to Marketing Spark. Thanks so much. What an intro. I feel very honored to be here. Thank you. Well, I've been really impressed actually to take a step back. The way that I found Moritz is that I'm always looking for ways to do better on LinkedIn and I stumbled upon Moritz's
LinkedIn Engagement Strategies
00:00:57
Speaker
posts and they were oozing with all kinds of good stuff on how to use LinkedIn better, how to post better, how to comment better, how to play with the LinkedIn algorithm, which we'll get into. And so I just thought it was a natural to invite them to the podcast and I'm really glad you're here. So why don't we take a step back and talk about how you got started on LinkedIn. It's a question that I ask a lot of people because for a lot of us,
00:01:22
Speaker
it's only something that we've embraced in the past year. So can you provide a little context about how you may have used LinkedIn before and why you decided to change your approach and become much more active? For sure. Yeah. I mean, you mentioned it like many of us started recently. So same for me or like quite recently. Um, I had a LinkedIn profile for years.
00:01:47
Speaker
And I used it to apply for jobs, I think like many people do. And then when COVID hit last year, I got a bit more time at hand and I thought, how can you use that time? And I kind of was appealed by LinkedIn and it felt exciting and felt
00:02:05
Speaker
felt it kind of felt right. So I started to be more active and also started to put my voice out and to post about things. And in the beginning, I didn't have a clue what I was doing. So it was a big discovery and like exploring a lot.
00:02:22
Speaker
And to some extent, it actually still is. So that is quite exciting. But over the months, I also figured out a lot of things and made a lot of great connections like yourself. So and then I also started to share what I've learned on my way sort of and yeah, it's led to really beautiful things. The one thing I'm curious about
LinkedIn's Evolution and Success
00:02:45
Speaker
when I talk to people who are active on LinkedIn and doing some amazing things and getting a lot of value from LinkedIn is how they explain the way that LinkedIn has transformed into what it is today compared to a year or even 18 months ago when it was primarily a place for headhunters and job seekers. At some point in time, things changed. Now, maybe people like you and me and the millions of other people who embrace it in a different way,
00:03:12
Speaker
But can you offer any kind of explanation into why LinkedIn is the way it is and where you think it might be heading in 2021 and 2022?
00:03:27
Speaker
Yeah, sure. I mean, it's mostly speculating, of course, but I think that it's just didn't did a really good job in bringing together people who who have similar interests and also like like that's the marketing thing. Right. So be where your audience is. So kind of it kind of attracted itself. Right. So
00:03:51
Speaker
I think that's why people started to be more active and because if you post, if you do posts and you share your views, it's a way of putting yourself out there and to show people your expertise. So if you have the attention already, so people were looking for jobs,
00:04:08
Speaker
And you had companies who were posting jobs and looking for people and were posting about their accomplishments. So you had the attention there already. So then people start to make use of it more by posting their own contents and showing the expertise and also connecting. So I think that's the main reason probably. And I think LinkedIn will continue to do so because I don't see any platform that can really compete with that.
00:04:39
Speaker
But yeah, it's going to be interesting to see and I think LinkedIn is also doing a lot of changes. Like now they start to do more events. LinkedIn Live is also not too old. So it's really exciting actually where this will go and that there's a lot of opportunities. That's the one thing that I'm sure about.
00:04:57
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I think that Microsoft has the tiger on by the tail with LinkedIn. I mean, who knew when it bought it for $26 billion of LinkedIn was going to turn into what it is. And one of the things that I that I think is going to happen is there's so much runway for LinkedIn to get better or to move into new things. And I think there's a lot of exciting things ahead into 2021.
00:05:17
Speaker
One of the things I wanted to ask you is just to get a sense of how you're operating on LinkedIn.
Crafting Content on LinkedIn
00:05:22
Speaker
So how did you decide that you were gonna focus or spend a lot of time writing about how to use LinkedIn better? Was it by design? Did you sort of see an opportunity to step into this role? Did you start writing posts about how to use LinkedIn that resonated? What was it that dawned on you? This is what I should be doing. This is how I can carve out a distinct audience on LinkedIn.
00:05:46
Speaker
was there a method to the madness i guess that's what i'm asking. Well i think it's kind of both like it was a lot of coincidence because as i said i was just sharing what i learned and what i learned about how linkedin works so i was observing other people what they were doing and also following other people who were posting about you know some like
00:06:09
Speaker
sort of little LinkedIn tips and tricks. And I started to share that and also to think and to learn myself, right? So when you start to post, you learn a lot about what works, what doesn't work. So I started to share that and I got a lot of response to that. And then, and I'm really also interested and intrigued by what works, you know, like kind of to figure it out like the secret sauce. So being so intrigued by it, I really dug into
00:06:38
Speaker
what it is that I can do to make my network grow and get more likes and comments. Of course, that's what you aim for, right? Yeah, so like a bit of chance, but then also kind of positive reinforcement, I would say.
00:06:54
Speaker
So I'm going to ask you a difficult question, and it surrounds the LinkedIn algorithm, which is a mystery. To me, it's a complete mystery. I have no idea how it works, why some posts resonate and some fall flat, why people who write one line posts get tremendous engagement and other posts don't get any at all.
00:07:15
Speaker
What do you know about the algorithm? What kind of secrets can you tell us? Because LinkedIn, to be honest, doesn't say much at all. It's almost like they've got this secret and they really don't want to tell anyone because for whatever reason, do you have any thoughts on what makes the algorithm work? What makes content resonate?
00:07:36
Speaker
I mean, I always like from the start, I actually thought about what kind of I, I tried to think logically from the LinkedIn algorithm. So what would make sense for.
00:07:47
Speaker
the algorithm to want to show. So basically starting from the high goal of LinkedIn wanting you to spend as much time on the platform as possible, right? Because that's one of the main ways that they make money. So the algorithm wants to show every user basically content that interests them and they will keep their attention on the platform.
00:08:10
Speaker
So by providing this kind of content, you will automatically be shown a lot. And then it's about figuring out what kind of content the people that you're speaking to or that you want to speak to will capture their attention. So I think one of the most important things, and that's not really a secret, but like the
00:08:29
Speaker
You know, when you have the first few lines of your post, these are like the most important words you can write because you want to draw people in and then also make people spend time on your post like since half a year or something.
00:08:47
Speaker
the dwell time has become much more important. So I really try to also have a story to tell and be interesting. But first, you have to capture people's attention. And of course, that works also really good if you're providing consistent content. So if you know, OK, Moritz's posting, and I've read his previous posts, and they were quite interesting,
00:09:14
Speaker
my first lines don't need so much power to convince you anymore because you will automatically think that you want to read my posts. So being consistent I think helps and also building real relationships. So if people know and like you, they're much more likely to read your post than if they don't like you.
00:09:37
Speaker
So I think these are like little things to keep in mind. Of course, there's a ton of things that you should keep in mind, like making the post more readable. So using a lot of white space, hitting enter a lot, so that it's easy to read and not like huge text blocks, using some emojis maybe to make it more appealing, asking questions so that people also start to write comments, which also counts as sort of the 12 time, I suppose, at least.
00:10:05
Speaker
and also gives other people something to read. So there's a lot of little things that you can do, of course, but I always start to think from the main reasoning of what does LinkedIn want? What do they want to promote?
Enhancing LinkedIn Posts with Media
00:10:19
Speaker
And how can I provide that in a way, not only to appeal LinkedIn, but also to help me and also the people that I want to talk to, because it has to be interesting for them. So it's a win-win sort of.
00:10:31
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. When I was a journalist, the first line of any article, we called it the lead. And if you wrote a great lead, then people might read the rest of the story and the same thing applies to LinkedIn. One of the things I wanted to ask you about in terms of dwell time and capturing people's attention, what are your thoughts on a post that also includes like an image or a carousel or a gif, things that would make a post stand out?
00:10:58
Speaker
Are those a good thing to use from time to time are they distracting because i've heard different schools of thought some people say. Text only is the way to go and some people say text plus visual is also effective any thoughts on that.
00:11:16
Speaker
I'm personally a big fan of mixing things up, so I vary a lot between my content, or at least I try to. Having said that, I think most of my posts are probably text-based and text plus image. Since a few months, I discovered the slides, the carousel posts, because
00:11:38
Speaker
Like I said, it keeps people's attention more. So if people read your post and then also they scroll through the slides, you have text on them. These are all signals that people are sending. So if they slide, this is a signal for the algorithm. That's a good post, right? So you want to provide the algorithm these kind of signals so that the algorithm evaluates your posts better.
00:12:02
Speaker
So carousels are definitely something. I want to get more into video. So this is one of my big challenges for for this year, because I think you can get to know people much, much better. Like having seen someone's face, having heard their voice, you can relate so much better. And that's what it's about in the end. Right. So having a good like mix, I also do some gifts sometimes. I think they're kind of fun and they kind of also capture the attention. Right. So it's really about experimenting what works.
00:12:32
Speaker
and being open to try new things, in my opinion.
00:12:37
Speaker
You know, I've used video from time to time, probably like you should use it a lot more. What I found with video is it's hard sometimes to figure out whether it resonates or not. So I could do a text post and let's say get a thousand views. I could do a video post and get 200 views. And I'm not sure how LinkedIn counts a video view, but I do agree with you that it does
00:13:03
Speaker
Put your personality front and center it's a way of people connecting with you even if they're not connected because they can see that you're a real person they can they can hear you they can read your body language and it does help you build a personality and i guess i'm linked and that's a really important thing to do.
00:13:20
Speaker
Videos used to be like a lot more, a lot more reach, but they're not anymore. So it's a bit bad, but maybe, you know, like you never know, maybe LinkedIn will change their strategy again. I don't know why we just have little reach now, but I think it's still worth it to put some videos and some, some people only do video. So yeah. Yeah. I got like Chris Walker, for example, only does video, but he has video and text and,
00:13:45
Speaker
he's done really well and he's been doing that for years. So he's got an audience there. And you've got to believe that LinkedIn was somewhere within the algorithm. It says showcase Chris Walker's videos and that's how he does well.
Building and Engaging on LinkedIn: Tips for Beginners
00:13:58
Speaker
Exactly. So let's shift gears a little bit and talk about if you're getting started on LinkedIn, if you've been on the sidelines or you've been sort of in and out a little bit and you're looking to embrace it in 2021,
00:14:14
Speaker
What are the fundamentals in terms of getting started where do i get started what should i do out of the gate so that i can get some momentum feel like it's working for me and then really start to jump into the platform.
00:14:29
Speaker
That's a good point that you mentioned. I feel like it's working for me because I think without positive reinforcement, it's kind of hard to keep it up for a longer time. I would say there's a few elements here, but having a decent profile, at least, like having a picture, having a background image, and then like a decent bio doesn't have to be perfect. I would never aim for perfect, and mine is far from perfect, actually. But just something that tells people what to do
00:14:56
Speaker
your skills, your experiences, so that if they check you out, then they can connect to you. That's like the base. And then it's about getting engaged with other people's posts, so you don't need to post yourself from the start. I think commenting bears a lot of value and you can build great relationships.
00:15:17
Speaker
And when you do that, I would also focus on big creators, so people who have a lot of following, so that if you post a smart comment, many people will actually see it, right? So you put your face out there, and it's also there, just trying to add value to the conversation. So that should always be the main principle, sort of, that you always try to add value to other people and to the conversation. So starting to engage with other people's posts,
00:15:46
Speaker
And if you then decide to post your own content, then I would say just get started. One, nothing should hold you back. You should just go ahead and get started and make these experiences because you learn by doing and then also observing and analyzing what works and also doing that with other people's content. So that's what I did a lot, analyzing what other people did and then just experimenting with it myself.
00:16:17
Speaker
Yeah, one of the things that I see when people talk about creating content on LinkedIn is they overthink it. They spend a lot of time, what kind of content should I post? How well should it be written? And they look at structure and topics and then they end up not doing it. And my advice to a lot of people is just do it.
00:16:35
Speaker
write content you'll get better in time and it's always about adding value and the other thing i would say just related to your thing about comments is comments are powerful it used to be when blogging first started that commenting was amazing a lot of the value in a blog post was the comments and that's one of the things i like about linkedin is that people are enthusiastic about comments and that's what keeps you going as a as a as a writer
00:17:00
Speaker
Totally, yeah, totally. I agree. I really love because what I do is actually I sort of test ideas that I have, right? And I test hypothesis. So I give advice and I think some is valuable, some maybe not, but I always get feedback, right? So I improve my ideas and this is by other people commenting on it or even DMing me. That's actually one tip that I forgot that you should
00:17:26
Speaker
Build real connections with people by sending direct messages and you know trying to build relationships That's that's where the real value lies
00:17:36
Speaker
Yeah, and I would add that in addition to content, comments, and the other one is conversations is the fact that if you engage with somebody and you feel like you've got things in common, you should reach out to them and you should connect to them first and then reach out to them and say, I like your content.
00:17:57
Speaker
I'm curious about what you do. Would you be open to a conversation? And that's the secret sauce out there, is that a lot of people are very happy to talk to people if they sense a connection. And that's something I would encourage a lot of people to do.
00:18:12
Speaker
Absolutely. Yeah. And you build so great relationships with it and it's so rewarding, right? Yeah. That's a great value of LinkedIn. If you've been on LinkedIn for a while, let's say people like myself who have been creating content and were doing well,
00:18:29
Speaker
and we're commenting and making connections. Do you have any tips on how to up your game? Like how do I get even better at LinkedIn? You don't wanna be doing the same things all the time. You always wanna be looking for ways to improve and iterate and just do a better job. Any thoughts about how people who use LinkedIn can even get better at it.
Advanced Tips for LinkedIn and Beyond
00:18:51
Speaker
I think that depends a lot on your goals, so what you want to achieve. There's no general answer here, I guess, but what I see other people doing is, for example, also trying out, again, different content formats, so trying to do video, trying to do these kinds of conversations, so building real relationships.
00:19:10
Speaker
And what I see other people do, who I would say are successful on LinkedIn, they try to make the audience their own. So transferring their LinkedIn audience into an owned audience by having an email list or promoting some kind of offer that you might be offering like an ebook or like a private community or taking them to other platforms. This is what I see people do.
00:19:37
Speaker
It's something that I look into, but I'm not really there yet. But I think that's how you can get even more value out of LinkedIn if that's what you want.
00:19:47
Speaker
Yeah, one of the things that I'm looking at is forming some kind of mastermind group or some kind of sort of private community where I can connect with five or 10 people to provide insight into all kinds of things about marketing and positioning. So I'm definitely with you there. I wanted to talk a little bit about how people who have done well on LinkedIn can leverage other platforms. And in particular, I'm talking about Clubhouse, which is the hot new audio only platform that has
00:20:16
Speaker
capture the imagination of many hardcore linkedin users over the past month or so what are your thoughts about being all in on linkedin doing a great job on linkedin and then suddenly this other thing emerges this other social network and you also want to be there as well so i see a lot of people spending a lot of time on clubhouse and wondering how much time they're actually spending on linkedin which is very good for them over the last year any thoughts on clubhouse and trying to split your your attention between two different platforms
00:20:47
Speaker
Yeah, that's a very good point. That's where I'm actually also still wondering whether I should do more Clubhouse or not. For now, I decided not to and more like listen and spend a little bit of time to get to know the platform. I think you can use it with synergies though. So you can sort of take your LinkedIn connections to the next level by, again,
00:21:11
Speaker
they hear your voice, they hear you talk, you get into real conversations with them. So I think sort of like, for example, creating a room and telling your connections about it so that they can check it out if they're interested, you build much better connections.
00:21:27
Speaker
And then also you leverage the connection of other people that you talk with. And thus you increase your LinkedIn audience as well. Because if, for example, we both would have a room, your audience or your network would basically get to know me as well. And then I
00:21:47
Speaker
I think there should be a big connection to LinkedIn though. I somehow heard like that Clubhouse is sort of the after party of and LinkedIn is the conference which I kind of liked actually that image. So kind of like you know building the sort of the networking happens on Clubhouse but the business happens on LinkedIn. So making use of that.
00:22:11
Speaker
It is interesting because Clubhouse allows you to connect to Twitter and Instagram, but there's no LinkedIn connection for whatever reason. So you're seeing people, this hack that goes on where people will connect with people on Clubhouse and then circle back and connect with them on LinkedIn and then try to get a conversation going. So it's a bit bulky right now, but I'm sure that Clubhouse will figure it out if LinkedIn lets it.
The Rise of Personal Branding
00:22:35
Speaker
Finally, the last thing I want to talk about is personal branding. You know, on LinkedIn, there's a lot of talk about personal branding and how to, why to build a personal brand and how to do it. What are your thoughts about leveraging, what are your thoughts on personal branding these days and, and why it's attracting so much attention?
00:22:55
Speaker
I think personal branding is a topic that's getting more and more important and LinkedIn is a great place to build your personal brand combined with many other platforms as well. What I think personal brand is that people
00:23:11
Speaker
put you put yourself in the people's mind as some kind of expert in some areas. So you want to decide like what kind of person you want to be how you want to be perceived. And then that also ties in with the content strategy so that you post about these things that you want people to associate you with. And I think it gets more and more important as like people look to
00:23:38
Speaker
become more attractive to employers or if they're freelancing or have their own companies sort of get more attention there as well. So I think that's the main reason to sort of get more attention online. Great. Well, thanks, Marts, for appearing on the podcast and for your insight about LinkedIn and Clubhouse and all things, the other things that we talked about. Where can people learn more about you?
00:24:06
Speaker
So far, it's definitely on LinkedIn. Who would have thought? It's an obvious question. Yeah. And I'm also actually in the process of setting up my own like website. So that's going to be at MolaMarketing.pro. But it's not there yet. But I hope in a few weeks that I'm going to be up there and people can connect with me there. Okay, great. So this, this will keep me accountable.
00:24:30
Speaker
For anyone listening to this podcast, if you are looking for insight on how to get better with LinkedIn, then you should definitely follow Moritz, if not connect with him. He's got some great content and a string of tips on how to use LinkedIn in new and different ways and learn somehow the secrets of LinkedIn. Thanks for listening to another episode of Marketing Spark. If you enjoyed the conversation, leave a review and subscribe by iTunes, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app.
00:25:00
Speaker
For show notes of today's conversation and information about Moritz, visit marketingspark.co slash blog. If you'd like to learn more about how I help B2B SaaS companies as a fractional CMO, consultant and advisor, send an email to mark at marketingspark.co. I'll talk to you next time.