How to Build Your LinkedIn Strategy: Insights from Louise Brogan

[00:00:00] Amanda Webb: Welcome to that analytics podcast. And my guest today is the amazing Louise Brogan, who is not only my business hero, but it’s also a good friend. So welcome to the show.

Louise Brogan: Thanks so much, oh my goodness, what a way to start.

Amanda Webb: Now we’ve known each other for a good few years now and I think when I first got to know you, that was the moment that you were beginning to transform into becoming just the LinkedIn specialist. We’ll talk about that in a moment. But I’d also like to talk about where this all started. How did you get into marketing? What was, what, what was your path there? Because I think lots of us started in a completely different career.

Louise Brogan: Yeah, no, absolutely. So back in the day, I was originally a software engineer, then I worked in health service as an IT project manager and I, it’s a bit, it’s a long rambling story which we’re not going to go into in depth, but

[00:01:00] Louise Brogan: basically I had three children and was working part time in the health service in my IT project management role and I was ready to step up to the next level of my career and I was told that that would not be happening unless I went back to work full time and I didn’t want to go back to work full time because I had One child about to start primary school, one starting nursery school, and a, a, a tot at home. And I didn’t want to be at work from, I didn’t want to be out of the house from eight to six every day. And lots of people choose that, and I’ve no problem with that. It just wasn’t the choice for me. So I had to start thinking, what else am I going to do? And I started, my first proper business, Amanda, was actually a craft shop. I’d actually met somebody this morning and they said to me, Are you still doing crafts? I was like, Oh no, oh no. Not even recreationally. I knew I wanted to have a business and my sister was really good at card making and

[00:02:00] Louise Brogan: I thought why don’t we start card making classes and I ended up opening a shop selling paper craft supplies while working in the health service and so it was exhausting and being a mum to these three kids but I still, I did manage to get the kids from school and nursery and all that stuff. But after about a couple of years in the shop, Somebody from the local council came to see me and to go through my books and to give me some support with my business. And within half an hour she just turned to me and she said, Louise, How are you with honest feedback? And I was like, I am here for it. Give me the honest feedback. Like I was struggling. And she said, this business is not, you’re not even paying yourself. You’re not, you know, it’s not really thriving and you’re exhausting yourself. And look at, look at these numbers, look at those numbers. She said, but actually you’re really good at Facebook. This was back, Amanda, in 2013 when most small

[00:03:00] Louise Brogan: businesses knew they should probably have a Facebook page but didn’t really know what they should be doing on there. And she says, I think actually you could take your skill set and you could help other small businesses with how you use social media. And that’s where it all began. So thank you so much to that lady. Nula who started me down this path. I was so lucky. I was able to get the lease from my shop really quickly, closed the shop and didn’t quit my job for another two years because I’m very risk averse and I didn’t want to just, and you know, I needed to build up a social media business. But that’s how it started. And I don’t have any marketing qualifications. I do have a master’s in computing, but that was like programming and, you know, coding and stuff that wasn’t to do with marketing. and in the health service, I was basically helping nurses implementing software programs for nurses and social workers who needed to become digitized. So no marketing background there

[00:04:00] Louise Brogan: either.

Amanda Webb: I think our stories are quite parallel because I went down a route. I want to start a business, started a business and realized that actually what I was good at was the digital marketing piece and I started with Facebook too. So why then you started with Facebook? Why the transition to just focusing on LinkedIn?

Louise Brogan: So when I start building the social media business, I did Facebook, Instagram, Twitter. back then, we didn’t have all those other things like TikTok and stuff. And I actually ended up working with Facebook and Instagram on their She Means Business program. So I used to host events in Northern Ireland for the She Means Business program. But I started working with, everything changed for me when I started to invest in my business and invest in coaching. And I was working with a coach out of the US who I met through podcasting and I’ve been in business 10 years, so there’s lots and lots of moving parts to all of this. But she suggested that to stand out. In my space, I could consider niching down to one platform,

[00:05:00] Louise Brogan: and I had started to speak locally at business events, and I remember. I was in a room at the council and there’s about a hundred people there and they’re mainly men in suits from my memory and it was like a management institute type event and I was there to speak about social media and the guys on the floor just kept asking me about LinkedIn and I was like, Oh, don’t really know much about LinkedIn. So I thought I should start learning about LinkedIn because these guys have a bit more money than my lovely clients who are kebab shop owners and Pilates class owners and people like that who are also lovely, wonderful clients. and I started looking into LinkedIn and it just all kind of fell into place that, this is back in 2018 I want to say, nobody wanted to touch LinkedIn. So it was a wide open market, like, you know, so I started learning more about how to use LinkedIn. I realized on LinkedIn, I got clients far quicker than I got on the other social media platforms. And I got clients who had money

[00:06:00] Louise Brogan: to spend on their marketing. So that was lots of different reasons why. but that’s where I kind of stuck my flag in the sand for LinkedIn. And it was so good, Amanda, because then I started to get I started to niche down into learning everything about one platform so I didn’t have to worry about the updates on all the other platforms. I started to write articles about LinkedIn, like really in depth articles about LinkedIn. My podcast switched to LinkedIn. It was just became easy because I only had to consider one platform. and it, it absolutely paid off because as you know nowadays. A lot of people want to know about LinkedIn, and there’s a lot of people who are LinkedIn experts and consultants around, but I’ve been doing it longer, so that’s nice.

Amanda Webb: You got in at exactly the right time. When LinkedIn was still a little bit boring, I’m going to say, because now we know it’s like a fun network, but back then it was a lot more sedate, so you’ve grown with it, I’m guessing.

[00:07:00] Louise Brogan: Yes, but actually, interestingly, my clients are A lot of them are professional B2B companies who don’t want to be creating fun videos. They want to be creating, you know, quite serious videos. And I, I, I explain how it works and how to test out different things. But a lot of my clients hire us because they want, you know, they want to be seen as professional, serious, B2B. companies. They are in financial services. They are in learning and development. They are white collar businesses, a lot of them, and that’s how they want to be represented. So yeah, I have, I have wonderful coach consultant clients who are not necessarily like that, but you know, a lot of my clients are people who, don’t want to see pictures of you with your cocktail on a Friday night on LinkedIn.

Amanda Webb: And you know, as you say that, I imagine that there’s a whole bunch of people who are listening that are breathing a sigh of relief. And I might actually be one of them because I’m absolutely terrible at sharing

[00:08:00] Amanda Webb: personal content on LinkedIn. Like, I just want to tell you about analytics all the time, right? This, this sort of thing is, about as personal as I get. So you saying that and saying a lot of people go, oh, thank goodness. I don’t have to be fun

Louise Brogan: Yeah, no, just like no, honestly, how LinkedIn works best is get on there and share What you know most about in a way that helps other people and they will be so Grateful for it and they will start to follow you because you become the person known for Analytics, you know, if I want to follow your, I don’t know, cycle rides to the grocery store, I’ll do that on Instagram. If you’re doing that.

Amanda Webb: Which I don’t do very well at all. Anyway, enough about, enough about me. So you’ve mentioned video and that’s really why I wanted to get you on because you did a great session for our analytics day about video. And I know that’s something you’ve been specializing in. So let’s talk about that a little bit.

Louise Brogan: Yes, so I am

[00:09:00] Louise Brogan: firmly both feet in promoting people doing video on LinkedIn. I think there’s lots of different reasons for this, and this is how I generally operate. Like, you just heard my story about how I ended up working in, in the space of working with LinkedIn. I consider lots and lots of different options, but if you think about all the AI that is floating about, And we’re trying to figure out, is that real? Is that, you know, did they write that themselves? When you put a video of yourself speaking onto LinkedIn, for now, we know it’s you, we know it’s you, you come across, we connect with you, we connect visually far faster than we do with the written word. But the other thing with this is, I have come up with this. I love a good acronym, Amanda. the COPE method of using video on LinkedIn, which is create once, publish everywhere. And what that looks like is I record a video with a client. so an

[00:10:00] Louise Brogan: example is a client, let’s call her Lynn. last week we recorded an hour’s worth of video, which we will turn into eight. video posts for LinkedIn, but it doesn’t stop there. We then take the transcript from that and we write a blog post. That blog post goes out on LinkedIn as a LinkedIn newsletter. We cut that blog post up into short written pieces for LinkedIn. We have the eight videos for LinkedIn. Then we are now moving into also repurposing that video onto YouTube. Clients are embedding the videos onto their website along with the written blog post. So it is Create one piece of video content and do as much as you can with it. And we don’t, we don’t put it on other social media platforms, but we give the clients the video and they are putting it on to their other social media platforms as well. So it’s just such a, it’s, you know, it’s that key pillar piece of content that you can take and chop up as

[00:11:00] Louise Brogan: many ways as you want and repurpose. And, you know, you don’t just stop. With that, we create a whole month’s worth of content in that one hour. But you could, in six months time, pull those videos back up again and, you know, repurpose them and share them with a different angle in the post. So just keep, keep using and using and using. And clients love it because It only takes an hour of their time in the month. So it’s like, Oh, okay, we need to market. We just, we need to create marketing collateral. What do we do? Well, you know, you give me an hour of your time and we will create a month’s worth of content. Like who, what business doesn’t want that? but also very LinkedIn loves video. I don’t know if you’ve seen yet that they have got a new vertical video stream. If you’re listening in the. In North America, I think it’s in Canada as well as the US, right now there is a whole brand new news feed in LinkedIn for video. We don’t have that news stream,

[00:12:00] Louise Brogan: but if you start watching a video on LinkedIn on your mobile and you scroll up, suddenly you are in I think about like the swimming, you know, and swimming in lanes. Do you go in the lazy river in a water park, and you’re coming in like the wee feeder lane, and suddenly you get swooped along in the current of the median lazy river? So it’s kind of like that. You’re kind of swooped in. Once you start watching a video, you’re swooped into this vertical video feed. so LinkedIn are really invested in video as well. So it’s a win win for everybody.

Amanda Webb: Now, I’m going to roll back a little bit because I had a question came up when you were talking about your repurposing, because this is something I’m trying. And I know probably a lot of other people are, cause this is what we’re told we should do, right? and I was really good at this when I did the digital coffee, but now I’m a bit stuck because I have this new show. I do the show. How do I like, is there a way that when you’re recording that initial one hour video that you make sure there are actually going to be clips that are useful that you can cut out separately?

Louise Brogan: Yes. So what, and

[00:13:00] Louise Brogan: this is so funny, Amanda, because you know, the cobblers children have no shoes. I was talking to my operations manager last week and I said, Oh, how are we going to like promote this package? And she said, well, Louise, you’ve got to do it for yourself, for your own business. And I’m like, Oh, okay. How’s that going to work? Cause for my clients, I’m the one prompting them with the questions. So I’m going to have to prompt myself. So what we do is if, if we have an hour and we want to get 8 videos out of that one hour, I have eight questions. It’s as simple as that. But we also, I don’t know if you have seen StreamYard recently, Amanda, but oh my lord, they have upped their game big time. So I have moved recording the video content into StreamYard, not for streaming live, which was originally, I think, what it was supposed to be doing. That is what I use for my live streams. But when you record, you do a recording on StreamYard now, It will generate the five best clips

[00:14:00] Louise Brogan: from your video for you and they are under a minute long and I have to say they are really good at picking out really good clips to use. So that is, that’s something that I’m doing and I, I learned. I would never have thought of doing StreamYard for this kind of work, except it’s Mike Stelzner’s fault. I was on the Social Media Examiner podcast and he says, Oh, we use StreamYard now for these. I was like, really? That’s interesting. And so that’s, and it was more to do with zooming in and out of people and you can have different focuses during the recording with it. but this, this generating of clips, from the video, it’s so easy to do. and it’s, yeah, it’s really, it’s any, any little tool that can help you in that kind of way, I think is just a bonus. So yeah, that’s, that’s one way, but, but then the initial way we do it is we have eight questions and the client knows in advance. These are the eight

[00:15:00] Louise Brogan: questions Louise is going to ask me. and I ask them and then they answer them. I’m not in their videos, by the way. That’s the other thing. it’s just the client space, a talking head video. So if you have somebody in your team who can do this with you and prompt you on, that’s probably the best way to keep track of, rather than just like talking and talking and talking for an hour. And I’m thinking, well, what am I, am I pulling out of this?

Amanda Webb: Yeah, I definitely need to think of a structure for mine because I used Descript to pull out the clips and it pulled out some good clips, but they just weren’t working in my head Anyway, that’s a whole other thing because we want to talk about analytics. That’s why we’re here I just thought I know people have that question. I know people are struggling with that if I am then other people are right so All this video, it’s okay, even if you’re just spending an hour recording a video and hiring somebody to do the repurposing like you, that’s still a time investment and it’s a money investment. So you want to know it’s working. And that’s the thing with everything we do. Like back in the day when I first started,

[00:16:00] Amanda Webb: maybe when you first started, we just put content up and cared about reach, but times have changed, right? So how do we measure the success of this?

Louise Brogan: Okay, so if you forgive me, video watchers, I’m going to get my actual data on my phone so I can give you an example. So I did an experiment on comparing newslet, LinkedIn newsletter, LinkedIn video, and LinkedIn, YouTube video, because I wanted to see if I’m creating this content and putting it out there, where am I getting the most bang for my buck from? So I’m just going to share some of those stats with you guys now, okay? So the LinkedIn newsletter, I have five, over 5, 000 subscribers. So if you don’t know what a LinkedIn newsletter is, by the way, it is, you can create one on your company page and you can create one on your personal profile. When you first publish it, everybody in your network is invited to subscribe to it. I try to publish one every Sunday. and

[00:17:00] Louise Brogan: you pull in different pieces, you know, it has to be interesting for people to read basically. So, of my newsletter that I published, 5, 328 subscribers, 673 people read the newsletter in the last week, so that was great. Then, YouTube video comparison, I have, at this stage I had 53, 504 subscribers. Of that, 38, 564 people had watched one of my videos in the last 7 days. Like, that’s a massive amount of people. If you think that the newsletter, 673 people read it, the video on YouTube, 38, 564. Now that’s a not just one video. Of course, I didn’t do this on one video. then I posted a video on LinkedIn. And in two days, I had 558 views.

[00:18:00] Louise Brogan: In two days. So And that was on one video. That was one video, yeah, and it, so how a view is counted on a LinkedIn video is if someone watches it for more than two seconds, right, so like, oh, well, like, Louise, but if you think about it, that when people are scrolling, and they just zoom past your video, that’s not counted, so, 200 people scrolled right on past, so it was shown to 558 views in two days and it was shown to 792 people. Okay, so I think that the video content, so you’ve got the views and the other thing is you watch them over time because they increase. So that’s interesting as well. On LinkedIn, if I went to that same video now, it would be watched by a lot more people. It’s not like you publish it and it’s gone. If you look at somebody’s personal LinkedIn profile or their company page, video has its own tab on your

[00:19:00] Louise Brogan: profile. So if someone wants to go, like while you’re listening to us, go to LinkedIn and look me up, Louise Brogan, and you’ll see So newsletter is set to the first thing that you see in my content. But there’s also a tab that says video and if you click on that you’ll see Just my LinkedIn videos, so people kind of go through them like a little library, so it’s not like other social media where if I put a video up on, say, Instagram or something, it’s kind of gone. People aren’t going and looking at it. So I think that’s really powerful. And also, thinking about people who watch video on LinkedIn, they’re really interested in the topic because, as you say, there’s a lot of stuff on LinkedIn, there’s a lot of fun stuff on LinkedIn, so for 550 people to want to watch my video, which will have been talking about something to do with LinkedIn, it won’t have been like, you know, me trying a unicycle and falling off or something silly.

Amanda Webb: although we would like to see that.

[00:20:00] Louise Brogan: Because I would fall off. So it’s really, it’s really specific. And you know, for someone who has been focused on LinkedIn since 2018, you might think, you might go to my profile and go, Oh, she’s only got like, 13, 000 followers or subscribe, or, you know, people in our network. I am not here for a hundred thousand people on LinkedIn. I’m here for people who want to learn in the way I teach on LinkedIn. So again, that’s another piece of analytics that I think is really important. You know, the people with the largest following might not necessarily be giving you the advice that would be tailored to you and your business in a way that you want. So there’s lots, there’s lots of moving parts in the LinkedIn analytics I do like to see my LinkedIn newsletter subscriber base increase, because usually in that newsletter, I will embed videos into the newsletter as well,

[00:21:00] Louise Brogan: but in that newsletter, it will be focused on a specific message. And there is always a link to book an inquiry to talk about whatever I’ve talked about. So if I’ve talked about, why I use LinkedIn video or this week, I wrote about, how to, how to repurpose your video content or I think I did actually talk about capsule podcasts as well and how to create a piece of content and create multiple pieces of content out of it and at the bottom of that I will there’ll be an invitation to work with me and that at the end of the day is what matters is are you getting leads? Are people, are the right people, signing up to book a call to talk about your products and services? And where are they coming from? In my inquiry form, it asks you to say where did you hear about this? And, you know, you click YouTube or LinkedIn or wherever you’ve heard about me as well. And those are the key things that I’m measuring, like, where is the effort that

[00:22:00] Louise Brogan: I’m putting out? Where am I getting the return on that time spent that is leading to inquiries that are leading to opportunities to work together.

Amanda Webb: And that’s great, you know, cause I think, you know, with obviously I’m very, I love all the tools. I love analytics. I love all that, but you cannot beat asking on your form where people heard from because what with cookies and everything, very often we don’t know. We, you know, as good as analytics is, whatever platform you use, whether it’s Google or something else, there’s going to be a certain amount of information you lose. So I think that’s a really important step to have that in your form. And even if you don’t want to delve into analytics and UTMs, that’s something everyone should be doing. Bringing it back a little bit. So you’re telling me that the process that we go through, which is great, is there a value in two second video views and what is that value?

Louise Brogan: I would say it is about visibility and awareness. don’t they say that it takes nine or ten touches for someone to become interested

[00:23:00] Louise Brogan: enough to want to reach out to work with you? So, there’s analytics Amanda, and then there’s real life where people meet you and say, Oh, you’re in my news, you’re in my LinkedIn news feed all the time. And that is, that is to do with video because they’re not talking about the posts, they’re talking about when they see my face. on video. so yes, I do think there is value in that. I think that people, we’re all busy, like I don’t watch loads of videos online. This is the irony. I, I do podcasting and I do writing and I do video. and how do I learn how to learn something? I want to read it. I usually find people through podcasts. And then if I want to really learn something, I tend to want to read it, even though my own content goes out. mainly it’s video. I know that’s like, I’m sure that’s, it’s not abnormal for a lot of people.

Amanda Webb: No, it’s not. I, I’m kind of the same

[00:24:00] Amanda Webb: except for when it’s something like I wanted to fix my bike at the weekend and I do have books and manuals, but sometimes you need to see it on a video to know how to do it properly. And sometimes with analytics, it’s the same. I need to watch someone’s video, but yeah, totally there. And I’m also totally there. I was challenging you, but not in a difficult way. Cause I know the answer. Right. People see your face. They get to know you. They get to know they want to work with you, even if it’s for two seconds. And you do get that when you go to events. People as somebody who’s been visible on video a lot, I always get people that will say they know me for video or feel like they know me because they’ve seen me on video. So I just kind of wanted to say to people a two second video view. That’s more important. I kind of like dissed reach earlier. I also think reach is sometimes important. But that’s another day’s discussion. But I totally, a two second video view is worthwhile. It’s you, it’s your moving face. And it is at least two seconds as well. It’s not all those five hundred whatever views you got weren’t exactly two seconds. And I remember, because I

[00:25:00] Amanda Webb: used to be a swimmer, And my coach, they used to say, how do you count? Cause you had to you count in your head when you’re swimming, when you’re in a competitive swimming environment, and it’s 1001, 1002. That’s actually, it’s not like one, two, you know what I mean? 1001, 1002, that’s enough to pop up on screen and someone to go, Oh, she’s there talking about LinkedIn again. You know, right. I’m off to meet my friend for a muffin and a coffee now. But, then when someone says, Oh, we need help with our LinkedIn and I’ll say, Oh. that’s what Louise Brogan talks about on, on LinkedIn. Have you seen her, her stuff? so it, it is long enough to be noticed, I think, like I just say a lot of people watch them for a lot more than two seconds.

Amanda Webb: Yes, exactly. Some people are watching all the way through. It’s just that the minimum amount of time they’ve watched for. Yes. Okay. Is there anything else metrics wise that LinkedIn offers us around our video views or just videos

[00:26:00] Amanda Webb: in general?

Louise Brogan: Yeah, no, they definitely do. again, I’m going to pull up on my mobile, just to, because I want to get this right for you guys. Okay. So I’m just, while Amanda and I are, talking about this, I wanted to pull up the screen, just to walk through it. Not, not on the video on YouTube, which you, if you’re watching us on YouTube, hello. but on your video analytics, you have got, so you’ve got your impressions and your unique views. Your impressions are the numbers of time that LinkedIn has served your video up to your audience. So I’m just looking at another video that I’ve got that is under a minute long that posted one week ago, and it has 1262 impressions. and 756 unique views. So the impressions, it served it to 1200 people, and out of that 756 people watched enough of it. to be recorded. It then says that that’s 160 minutes viewed. So actually for that

[00:27:00] Louise Brogan: video, because it is one to one minute long, that means 160 people may have watched the whole thing or else maybe out of the 560 views people watched at least half of it. It doesn’t tell you exactly that. The other thing it gives you is the top video viewer demographics. So I think this is really important. Who is actually watching my video? And if I look at that, 10 percent are founders, 8 percent executive directors, 7 percent business owners. It’ll also tell me the top demographics. So mine are Belfast, London, Dublin, and then Manchester. And then it will also tell me, companies, if that’s available. So, then it says, who viewed your profile since this post? I find this really interesting because it actually gives me people’s names, which I’m not going to read out on the podcast. These are second level connections who have looked at my profile since this post.

[00:28:00] Louise Brogan: And out of that, one of them actually looks like somebody who would be a perfect client for me. So then I would go in. And I would send that person a connection request and say, Hello, internet member, my example earlier was somebody called Lynn. This person’s also called Lynn. So, hi, Lynn, you know, I would look at their profile first and I’d see what we had in common and then maybe send them a LinkedIn connection request. So, it’s always worth going in and looking at your actual, that’s on the individual. analytics on the individual video post. So who’s looking at you? Where are they? and are they your ideal client?

Amanda Webb: And when it names those people who have gone, so they’ve seen the post and they’ve gone to look at my profile and it’s related to that video post, of those people, are there any of those people who look, who fit my target? Ideal client and one of those people does and that would be somebody I would reach out to. And to me, Amanda, that is like a really, really strong

[00:29:00] Louise Brogan: lead. You know, the other two guys look like they are the, I get, bombard is not quite the right word, but I get a regular influx of people who are video editors going, Hi, Louise, I looked at your channel. This is everything that’s wrong with it. Would you like us to help you? We could get, I’m not getting into this conversation now, but I had something like that happen recently. I just blocked the person. It was like, Oh yeah. Insult me. That’s gonna work.

Amanda Webb: Well, people are being taught this, so I was listening to a podcast this morning and someone was talking about this. It’s a book, it’s called Recession Proof Your Business and this is what you do. This guy’s literally saying, reach out to somebody and tell them three things that you can fix for them for free. And then they’ll hire you, you know, it’s going, I don’t think that really works with me. Maybe that works in different cultures.

Louise Brogan: Yeah, doesn’t work with me either, just in case anyone’s thinking of leaving a comment. Please don’t.

Amanda Webb: Anyway, as I said, so I love this. Why I love this is because, yeah, we can go, woohoo, I got all these video views, but we can actually see

[00:30:00] Amanda Webb: what percentage of those video views are relevant. Even if they’re not like a direct customer, are they even falling into the right industry? Are they the sort of people that might pass your information on? And then. How many of those are actual potential clients that you could follow up with? So it’s not just a two second video view. There’s so much more we can see out of it. And because they’ve seen you on video for two seconds, when you do message them, you’re, they’re going to feel like they have that stronger connection.

Louise Brogan: Like I’m a big advocate of video for exactly that reason. And the other thing Amanda is LinkedIn is definitely a long game. So here’s another example of a real. story I’m currently in. And by the time this podcast is aired, hopefully I’ll be working with this person. So I have been in the same online community with a person for probably as long as I’ve known you, actually. And they were working for themselves and now they’ve gone into a role working as a, Like a global marketing

[00:31:00] Louise Brogan: lead role and they’ve been watching me on LinkedIn and they reached out to me and said, Louise, our CEO needs some help with LinkedIn and dah, dah, dah, dah, dah. How did they come across me? Because I am so visible on LinkedIn through my video content and we are having, we’ve had the first sales call, we’ve got a second sales call coming up and I’m feeling really like so positive about this potential work together because they have known me and followed me and been connected to me for six or seven years. Now I’m not saying if you start doing video on LinkedIn today it’s going to take you six years to land clients. Hopefully not.

Amanda Webb: Hopefully not.

Louise Brogan: In fact one of my clients who is based in China found me on YouTube, reached out to me and we started working together within a month so of course it happens that way as well. But There’s something to be said for building a network of value on LinkedIn and that to me that is some people who

[00:32:00] Louise Brogan: If you went out to a conference, you would love being in that network of people. You would have stuff to talk about. You’d be interested in what they had to say. They potentially could be a source of leads for you or people that you might refer your clients to. And that’s the kind of network I have built up on LinkedIn. So people who connect with me or send me connection requests, who look like they’re about to try and sell me their services that I haven’t asked for, I just don’t connect with them. I just, I’m quite happy to say no, reject that connection request. And when you do that and you’re consistent in showing up and talking about your area of expertise, then people just refer you business and reach out to you and say, can we have a chat about your services? Or can you help our company with X, Y, Z? And, and that to me is, is, is great. That’s why LinkedIn is really powerful, but as long as you use it in that way, so you’re more cautious is not the word, but more, thoughtful, like thoughtful, strategic about how you’re using it,

[00:33:00] Louise Brogan: who you’re connecting with and what you’re showing up and talking about. So yes, of course I could talk about, you know, fabulous, exciting things going on my personal life, but would that actually drive me any business? And the other thing, I had a discussion with somebody recently, with a group of people recently about negative posts on LinkedIn. So where people are like, you know, exposing someone else for doing this, that or the other. And I might know those things go on. But nobody wants to work with me if all I do is complain about stuff as well. So, again, be strategic in how you’re using this platform. What do you actually want to be hired for? Or what work do you want to do? And show up and talk about that stuff. And the work will start to come.

Amanda Webb: Great. And I, I am also an advocate of this. I know it works. So definitely try. And definitely though, I do think you need to keep an eye on the things like the metrics to make sure you are reaching the right people because

[00:34:00] Amanda Webb: sometimes we can just end up talking to thinking we’re doing great and then realizing that we’re reaching all the wrong people. That’s happened to me in the past.

Louise Brogan: Yeah. That’s, you know, the people that LinkedIn is showing my video to. Will be based off of the network that I’ve already built. That’s the other thing as well So if you like when I looked at those video analytics there that I just that I just talked through a minute ago if that was saying that all of those people were I don’t know voiceover artists I’d be thinking what am I doing wrong here? Why am I? I have lots of lovely voiceover artists in my network because I did do a session with them a couple years ago Nothing wrong with voiceover artists. They’re amazing Digging myself out of a hole here Um But I want to work with people who are the decision makers in a business. And when you look at the job titles of the people who are watching my videos, that fits. So it’s really important to check that you’re not just sharing loads of content out

[00:35:00] Louise Brogan: to people who are very lovely and supportive but are never going to work with you.

Amanda Webb: So that’s great. That’s one takeaway. Check who’s watching. The other takeaway I had is definitely your form because I’m into this. I’m kind of going, do I have that on my form? No. but definitely you need to track down, I will always ask on a call where did you hear about me from? For various different reasons, like yes I want to know what’s working, but also sometimes affiliate links don’t work properly and I want to make sure that everyone who sends me affiliate traffic is getting paid correctly, you know, so there’s always that as well. analytics doesn’t do that all the time. It does it some of the time, but because of cookies and ad blockers and all sorts of things, it’s important to ask that question. Thirdly, you gave me a tool. I told you I was going to ask for a tool, but you gave me a tool, which is StreamYard. I’m a big e-camm person, so I’m not moving, but it does sound enticing. I love the fact that it automatically picks that stuff up for you. and I think you have another tool suggestion, which I may have

[00:36:00] Amanda Webb: already mentioned.

Louise Brogan: Yeah, so when we used to StreamYard, we don’t stop there. We then go to Descript and, and StreamYard actually is starting to do the edit by transcript as well. So watch this space and we go to Descript to, as an aside Amanda, what do you think about Descript’s Name for their AI being underlord.

Amanda Webb: I was gonna say that. I was gonna say at the end, I absolutely love it, . It’s like every time I see it, it makes me smile because I often talk about in like , you know, in amusement I talk about AI overlords. I don’t really, you know, buy into the whole, they’re taking over the whole world thing. I just put one. Yeah. But yes, I love it. AI underlord, from Descript.

Louise Brogan: It makes me think, it makes me think that there is definitely a company that’s created by lots of bros, actually. But yeah.

Amanda Webb: Or people like me, I’m not a bro.

Louise Brogan: No, you’re not a bro. I

[00:37:00] Louise Brogan: love the script for how it takes away, it’s so easy, it takes away the ums and the ahs and you edit everything by the words. I think that is fantastic. It has got something, I don’t really, I haven’t used it yet, where it’s supposed to do, and I’m not sure I want to do it, it’s meant to track your eyes. So that you

Amanda Webb: Oh, I saw that. Yeah, I haven’t done it either.

Louise Brogan: That your eyes are looking into the camera. so I don’t know if that means you have to record it and it pulls your I don’t know, it’s a bit weird. So I haven’t done that. But, the other bits, I think, are really good. It is not as good as picking out the best bits. As StreamYard is so far for me. but yeah, no, I, I, I love both those tools. I, I also have another tool that I use and that’s, Adobe Premiere Rush. that’s, and you know, I’m sure that somebody who has probably got qualifications in, graphics and media

[00:38:00] Louise Brogan: will be going, Oh Louise, you can do all of that in one tool, all those things you’re talking about, you know, you learn how you learn, you like the things you like. But yeah, Premiere Rush we use, and that’s where we put in like the, you know, the fade screen at the start and the, you know, the divider bit that says, oh, here’s the next chapter, blah, blah, blah. So yeah, that’s another tool as well that I use. but yeah, so StreamYard, Descript and Premiere Rush are three tools we use on our video content at the minute.

Amanda Webb: Fabulous. Now, time for our quick fire round. And this is the, you’re the first person to answer, so everyone else’s answers come after you. Data, data, or data?

Louise Brogan: Oh Lord. Okay. So I did a master’s in computing and information systems and we, and that’s where I met my husband and we can’t agree on this. So a dat, a database, but I’m using data.

[00:39:00] Louise Brogan: So I do both. Sorry. You know, I do sometimes say data almost by accident because I’m definitely a data person But I think it’s because we just have so many influences now, you know, we hear american voices We hear english voices and there’s somebody I don’t even know where he’s from I watch his youtube videos and he’s called loves data and it’s like I don’t even know where that comes from He’s not english. He may be Australian or New Zealand so or South Africa. I’m just terrible at accents So it does I understand where you come from, but I’m definitely at heart a data person. So the other word that I apparently, I used to have a real problem with this, was the word king. I used to always say keen, keen and queen. And I think that’s actually from where I live, because other people do it too, I say keen and queen and I’d be going, why am I saying keen? It’s not keen, it’s king. and then the word Chicago. My daughter’s like, Mom, it’s not Chicago, it’s Chicago. And I’m like, I just call it Chicago. So, apologies. I can come with you in

[00:40:00] Louise Brogan: Chicago, but I’m definitely not with you in King and Queen.

Amanda Webb: King. I know it’s weird.

Louise Brogan: But that’s, that’s like regional differences, right? You asked me for data or data because I use both.

Amanda Webb: Cookies. When a website asks you for cookies, do you dunk or delete?

Louise Brogan: It depends what the website is.

Amanda Webb: What would stop you?

Louise Brogan: Oh, that’s such a good question. If I’m looking for something, just a quick look for something that I’m not normally looking for, then I reject them. I also, this sounds really weird, it’s how they ask. Would, you know, I would say yes or no. If it’s a company like, no, it’s not a company like, if it’s a national trust, I’d probably accept. It doesn’t even make any sense.

Amanda Webb: Is it because they have the word trust in their name?

Louise Brogan: There you go. I don’t know. My answers don’t make any sense to any logically minded person.

Amanda Webb: You’re not going to discount everything I said in this podcast.

[00:41:00] Amanda Webb: Okay, final question, but I kind of know the answer to this after our discussion, AI or no AI?

Louise Brogan: Oh, yeah, we’re using AI. Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, if you are running a marketing business. In 2024, you have got to be using AI or you will get left behind so fast, honestly. Saying that, Amanda, like we, we write content for our clients for LinkedIn, and it’s a human writer that writes it, and then we take it to AI and say, I actually, I love this. So it’s how you prompt everything, isn’t it? And I’ll say, could you please make light edits on this and please highlight the changes that you want to make and then I’ll review them, you know. So it literally will be in a paragraph of maybe 20 words. It might just change like two words. and it, it just reads a little bit better. So yeah, absolutely. I’m using the AI to generate you know, what are the best clips from this? Blah, blah, blah. Yeah, absolutely.

Amanda Webb: So now I feel like, because you’re

[00:42:00] Amanda Webb: the first person I’ve asked this question, companion question, ChatGPT, Gemini, or Claude?

Louise Brogan: I have only used ChatGPT out of those three.

Amanda Webb: Well, there you go, you’re a Chat I don’t think it matters. I used ChatGPT and Gemini. Basically, because I do training for Google. I started on Gemini and they do kind of give you different results. I haven’t used Claude yet.

Louise Brogan: I did delve into, or delve or dabble in Claude because I think, Anne Handley, who writes an amazing, Fortnightly, newsletter. She mentioned it. So I went off to look at it. but yeah, I have the paid version of ChatGPT and I find it really useful. So, you know, it’s one of those things, isn’t it? If you start, if you start shopping in a particular shop and you like it, it’s really hard to get people to change where they start. So it’s like winning hearts and minds at the start.

Amanda Webb: Yeah, yeah, definitely. Great. Okay. So,

[00:43:00] Amanda Webb: now it’s the time for you to tell us more about you, what you do and where we can find you.

Louise Brogan: Absolutely. So, you can find me on LinkedIn at Louise Brogan. You can find me on louisebrogan.com and you could come and join me over on YouTube. cause my whole channel there, it’s called raise your visibility online. And rather than LinkedIn, because actually I talk about other stuff on there too, you know, how to use Calendly and booking software and stuff. And, and I have a free download for anybody who would like to know a little bit more about, using video on LinkedIn or LinkedIn in general. And that’s, you can grab that if you go to, louisebrogan.com/thatanalyticsshow.

Amanda Webb: Love it. Love it. I feel. And of course you’ll get all those links. I don’t even call them show notes because I’m writing a big blog post on this. I’m using AI to help me.

Louise Brogan: Fabulous.

Amanda Webb: So you’ll get them in the blog post and that should translate into show notes

[00:44:00] Amanda Webb: once I’ve worked out how that works. So thanks for joining us. Absolutely delighted to have you, Louise. Have a fabulous day.

Louise Brogan: And thank you so much for inviting me. And we’ll see you soon. Bye bye.