LinkedIn Profile Mini-Audit for Coach / Consultant Danielle R. Harris Ep 107

Are you a solopreneur, business professional, or solopreneur looking to get a bigger slice of the LinkedIn Pie? Watch this LinkedIn profile mini-audit of Danielle R. Harris. https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniellerharris/

TIPS we covered include:

▪️  Zooming in on your professional Headshot Photo field, so your face is 50-60% of the circle

▪️  Removing the duplicate headshot photo in the Header Image

▪️ Regularly posting and engaging with others

▪️ Suggested LinkedIn Headline updates

▪️ And more!

Watch it on YouTube:
https://youtu.be/8X28LhasXdo

Want a LinkedIn profile mini-audit? If you're a coach / consultant / solopreneur, download these 15 LinkedIn Profile tips, and follow the instructions in the final email: https://www.mellermarketing.com/list

LinkedIn "Power Hours" (Single Session, x4, x12)
Each package includes: 

• LinkedIn consulting / coaching, personalized to your needs and focusing on your questions.
• Review of LinkedIn profile / company page to provide guidance / advice / recommendations

https://www.mellermarketing.com/powerhour 

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My name is Brenda Meller. I'm a LinkedIn coach, consultant, speaker, and author. My company is Meller Marketing and I help business professionals get a bigger slice of the LinkedIn pie.

Visit mellermarketing.com

Let's connect on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/brendameller
(click MORE to invite me to connect and mention you listened to my podcast)

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:49

Hey, this is Brenda Meller, back again for another LinkedIn Profile Mini Audit, and I'm joined today by Danielle Harris. Hey, danielle, how are you doing today? I'm so great. How are you doing? I am doing good. Before we get started, danielle, why don't you take a minute? Tell us your name, what do you do and who do you help?

Speaker 2: 1:08

Yeah, my name is Danielle R Harris. I am a marketing and messaging consultant and I primarily work with coaches, consultants, service providers, on helping them use information that they already have, plus telling their story to attract more clients into their programs.

Speaker 1: 1:25

Wonderful, okay, well, do you have any questions you're looking for me to address during the Profile Mini Audit, or are you just open to some general recommendations? What will be most helpful for you?

Speaker 2: 1:35

Well, on one hand, I would love some general tips and directions of what I could, should be doing and sharing things of that nature, but I am always curious about the whole like okay, how do I like first quickly really grab people's attention? Your kind of thoughts, philosophies on what we should be doing within, like the actual body of the post, what performs the best, how I should go about approaching that I would love to hear that from you as well.

Speaker 1: 2:02

Okay, awesome. Well, let me share the screen as we get our conversation started here. So that was a question, I guess, more about posts itself. Why don't we start there and then we'll jump back to your profile? Does that sound okay? Yeah, I love that. Okay, so I'm going to scroll down to your activity section First. I'm going to start with just some you know, some basics on posting on LinkedIn. And, Danielle, how often would you say that you're currently posting on LinkedIn?

Speaker 2: 2:29

Infrequently. So I would say that I would go through a period where it's like, oh, maybe I'll post three times a week or maybe twice a week for a bit, and then I might go through weeks before I post again. So it looks like I'm fairly active, but in reality it's like not not so much, okay.

Speaker 1: 2:53

Well, I'm just going to find a recent post and I see the latest post you've done was within a group called Brain Expansion Group. Below that it looks like it was a similar post. So I'm just going to start with this post and I'll kind of break down and give you some recommendations on what I'm seeing here. First of all, I want you to keep in mind that LinkedIn is a long game, danielle. So you're going to get the best results on LinkedIn if you are participating in LinkedIn on a regular basis, and to get the best success with posting, it's actually a two-pronged strategy.

Speaker 1: 3:22

Sometimes I say it's like two sides of the same coin Posting is one side and engaging with others is the other side. So you definitely should be posting, and I would say at least once a week minimum. That's a good frequency, no more than once every business day. But on the other side of that, you should be engaging with others posts on LinkedIn as well, because of the whole concept of this social media karma and reciprocity. The more people that you engage with, the more likely they will be to return the favor and engage with your posts, and also, that trains the algorithm as to who to show your posts to. Does that make sense?

Speaker 2: 3:59

Yes, that's something that I've traditionally struggled with, so noted.

Speaker 1: 4:04

Okay, very good, okay. And then the next thing I want to think about is when you're posting on LinkedIn. This is like my little hack, if you will. I want you to think about you're speaking to one person. You're speaking to your ideal target audience. You're not speaking to the 1 billion people around LinkedIn some of our former co-workers and some are industry leaders and Fortune 500. Don't worry about all of those people. Just focus on the person that is your ideal target audience.

Speaker 1: 4:27

And you want to make sure that the information that you're publishing out in your LinkedIn posts is informational, educational. Sometimes it could be entertaining or using different hooks to engage them in on the post, but you really should be directed towards that person, so providing value to those individuals. So the post that I have on screen right now starts with you've heard your business coaches say to look at your notes to get inspired and write content, and then we've got to click on see more to see the rest of the post. So one thing I've seen people do that can be really effective is making sure that whatever you have in those first few lines in the previewable area is enticing enough to get you to click on it to read the full post Because a lot of times they won't click on it to see more. So we got to make sure we're getting their attention in the beginning.

Speaker 1: 5:16

And you, sometimes I see techniques like asking a rhetorical question like does this, does this feel like you? Asking that question to bring them in, or keep reading to learn why, something like that that's getting them engaged in on the post. And what I love about here is it feels like you're speaking to one person and you don't do it for three reasons you don't know what you're looking for. You don't know how, how to convert what you find into content. You think it'll take too long. I mean, the good thing is you're speaking to your ideal target audience in here. And this you said listen to the latest episode of Marketing that Works. Is that your podcast? Yes, yes, it is. I think we just got a little bit of an audio delay. I'll edit that out Editing, but I want to ask the question again Is Marketing that Works? Is that the name of your podcast?

Speaker 2: 6:04

Yes, Marketing that Works is my podcast that I host.

Speaker 1: 6:08

Wonderful. So you say lucky for you, I'll talk about all of this in the latest episode of Marketing. That Works. Go to the link in comments below to listen now. And then you say then DM Blueprint to book a call. So we've got two calls to actions here and that's one of my recommendations for you Only include one call to action in your post, and the call to action for this one might just be listen to this episode. If you say listen to this episode, then DM Blueprint to book a call. Now you've given me two options of things to do, and I'm less likely to do either when you give me two options. So just give me one thing to do inside there.

Speaker 1: 6:42

Sometimes what I see people doing is adding a second call to action inside the comments. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, but I want to look inside here, inside the comments. You have listened to episode 15, and then you have a comment from someone who looks like it's just random, probably not your ideal target audience, inside here. So I think this is due to the fact that if you're not engaging on a regular basis, linkedin's kind of throwing spaghetti on a wall when it's serving your posts up to people, so it's just serving them up to random people who may not be as relevant to you, and that might be part of the reason that you're not getting engagement. Does that make sense?

Speaker 2: 7:20

Sounds. Yeah, that sounds like way.

Speaker 1: 7:22

Okay, all right, very good. Now I'm going to go to your profile. In our last five minutes I'll give you a couple of pointers based on your profile and again, any specific questions. Or are you open just to some general pointers here?

Speaker 2: 7:33

Oh, I'm. I'm open to anything that you think will take me to the level that I need to be at.

Speaker 1: 7:40

All right, awesome. So I'm gonna do a quick page refresh. For some reason, your page header is being hidden a bit by the banner bar at the top. There it goes. Sometimes we get little hiccups on LinkedIn and I know when that happens I'm like that shouldn't be what we're seeing on here. So happens, I'm like that shouldn't be what we're seeing in here. So part of the reason I refreshed this is I wanted to see your banner in its entirety, because the two areas at the top of your profile are the most important your headshot photo and then the banner image that sits behind you Headshot photo.

Speaker 1: 8:07

What I'm looking for in there is it's a professional looking image. Your face is 50 to 60% of the circle. It's zoomed in on there. I might suggest for you zooming it in just a bit more on here. I usually say from the face, you know, from the top of your forehead to the bottom of your chin. That should be about 50 to 60% of the circles. You have a pretty good alignment, but I might suggest zooming in a little bit more so that your face is a little bit larger. And part of the reason that's so important, danielle, is most people that are looking at your profile. Aren't looking at it from this desktop view. They're seeing your headshot photo appear in search results when you post, when you comment and when you have your face more zoomed in. It makes you appear more personable, more approachable and more important, so to speak. Does that make sense?

Speaker 2: 8:52

Yeah, sounds good.

Speaker 1: 8:53

Okay. Next thing I'm noticing is you've got two really great photos, but they're both of you. We've got your headshot photo and then we have the photo that's used in your banner. Now, when you use your photo in the banner, I want you to keep in mind your banner and your headshot photo are always going to accompany each other. You're never going to see the banner without that. So I almost feel like it's a bit redundant to have this photo of you in both places. If we were to remove that photo of you from the banner, then probably what would? What would happen is your eye would be drawn to the headline instead. Use your story to grow your business. Right now, the focal point for that header image is really the photo in the middle, and I'd rather have the focal point be, you know that, that headline. Use story to grow your business, or maybe the thing that you've highlighted in yellow work with me one-to-one to get more clients with your marketing. What do you think about that?

Speaker 2: 9:44

Yeah, that's a simple fix I could do right now.

Speaker 1: 9:47

Yeah, awesome, there you go, All right. And then another important item that I'll give you as a pointer on your profile is your headline. So what I like to tell people is the goal of your headline is really to draw people back to your profile. Most people aren't going to be reading your headline from your profile. They're actually going to be seeing your headline when you post and when you comment. And let me show you what I mean by this.

Speaker 1: 10:10

And while I'm pulling this up, I want you to keep in mind that you've got 220 characters in total that you can use for your headline, but really only the first 40 to 60 characters are going to be visible when you post, when you comment and when you reply. So here's an example when you post it on LinkedIn, this is what appeared in the homepage feed your headshot photo, your name, and then underneath that, we see a portion of your headline. Now what I might suggest is, instead of leading with strategic marketing consultant which certainly is important, danielle, and it is the work that you do, but to me it says salesperson in some aspects, so someone might see that and see salesperson why not lead with maximizing brand visibility through creative campaigns and thought leadership and then put strategic marketing consultant at the back end of it. That way we can get more of that. Maximizing brand visibility. Statement in the viewable area. What do you think about that?

Speaker 2: 11:05

Yeah, I can do that and actually I was recently playing around with another version of it and I wish I could go back and find what I had on there before this. But, yeah, no, that makes total sense. And do you have thoughts about really like identifying like the specific person that I work with?

Speaker 1: 11:28

your header image is a bit different than what you have in your headline. Now, who is your ideal target audience? Is it a solopreneur? Is it a person who works for a larger business? Like who is that ideal customer for you?

Speaker 2: 11:38

The great majority of the people that I work with are solopreneurs or people that are growing their own business. They might still have a nine to five, but they want to grow their business and have that become their main thing.

Speaker 1: 11:54

Okay, so I might. If I were you, I might incorporate the word solopreneur or side hustle someplace in your headlines, because that's really going to speak to that individual, that particular audience. So, for example, maximizing brand visibility for solopreneurs through creative campaigns and thought leadership, that to me might speak more to that audience. To help me to click to come back to your profile.

Speaker 2: 12:12

Okay. All right, changes will be made.

Speaker 1: 12:16

There you go, awesome. Well, in closing, I'll just remind our audience. If you're watching this on YouTube, the link will be below. If you want to visit Danielle's profile, and if you're listening on the podcast, you can find Danielle on LinkedIn. Her name is, or her LinkedIn profile, I should say, is, linkedincom, slash in slash, danielle R Harris. That's D-A-N-I-E-L-L-E, r-h-a-r-r-i-s, and I want to thank you again, Danielle, for giving me the opportunity to look at your profiles today. Was this helpful for you? Yes, it was. Thank you so much for your time. Wonderful Well, it's a pleasure seeing you, and thank you again for the opportunity For our audience. I'll remind you if you're interested in a LinkedIn profile mini audit, go to my website, mellormarketingcom slash list, and if you download my tips of 15 LinkedIn profile tips for coaches and consultants pay attention to those emails you get from me, from the last email in that series We'll have a link that you can build. You can book a profile mini audit with me as well. With that said, thank you again for listening and have a great day.