LinkedIn Personal Branding and Engagement Tips with Melissa Cohen

Larry Roberts [00:00:09]:

What is happening, everybody? I'm Larry Roberts.

Sara Lohse [00:00:11]:

And I'm Sara Lohse. And this is Branded. Your comprehensive guide to creative branding.

Larry Roberts [00:00:16]:

And on this amazing episode of the podcast, we've got a guest with us that we met at the. Wow, Go figure. Badass Business Summit. Obviously, that summit is a tremendous event, so if you're in the Dallas Fort Worth area, do yourself a favor and check it out. This year in 25, it'll be sometime in the fall. Don't have any real information on the exact dates yet, but with all of the guests that we're bringing on from last year's, again, just do yourself a favor and be there. But with us today is Melissa Cohen. Melissa left behind a successful career in the fashion industry to follow her heart.

Larry Roberts [00:00:51]:

How fun is that? That's what we all want to do, right? She helps people gain clients, grow their business or land their dream job by leveraging the power of LinkedIn. And you know, we've had some LinkedIn discussions, but I think we're going to get some insight that we haven't seen before here on the show with Melissa. So, Melissa, thank you very much for joining us.

Melissa Cohen [00:01:11]:

Thank you so much for having me. And I'm going to also give a shout out to Babs. And you don't have to be in the Dallas Fort Worth area, right? Because I'm in New York City, so. You're welcome, Donnie.

Larry Roberts [00:01:20]:

Very, very true. Yeah, Donnie's going to smack me the next time he sees me. He's like, dude, it's a national level conference. And you're right. So thank you for correcting me there.

Sara Lohse [00:01:31]:

Melissa is the queen of all things LinkedIn. And you also had a book come out, if I'm not mistaken.

Melissa Cohen [00:01:39]:

I did. Thank you so much for mentioning that. You were so kind. You were at my book signing that we had in.

Sara Lohse [00:01:46]:

I was, I was posing.

Melissa Cohen [00:01:49]:

You were with. And you know you stand out in that photo, right? Because you are branding expert yourself. And so you're in your hot pink outfit and so you just made that photo. So thank you. I did write a book. It came out late last year, right before Babs, actually. And that in itself is a testament to the power of LinkedIn because I met my co author basically through LinkedIn. We do not even live in the same state and we wrote our book together mostly over Zoom and Google Docs.

Melissa Cohen [00:02:22]:

So power, power of LinkedIn is real.

Larry Roberts [00:02:25]:

That is super cool. So I think a lot of folks have some, some predispositions to LinkedIn, thinking that it's strictly just for looking for jobs or for, you know, corporate America. But we found out recently, though, that, you know, LinkedIn is really just another social media platform. Give us your perspective on that. Why? Why are people still locked in on LinkedIn? Just being locked in on LinkedIn. How'd you like that? Why do people still think that LinkedIn is primarily just a professional platform?

Melissa Cohen [00:02:56]:

Yeah, I mean, so it's actually one of the first sentences in my about section. Right. It's not the LinkedIn of 2015 anymore. And I was guilty of that thought process too. So I joined LinkedIn in March of 2008. I had to go back and look on my profiles. Like, when did I join this place anyway? So, March of 2008. And the first time I made a post was in 2020.

Melissa Cohen [00:03:19]:

So for 12 years, I basically ignored that platform. Wow. Because it was boring, right? Right. It was boring. It's where your resume went to die. And that was it. If you needed a job, you went there. If you started a new job, you posted about it so everyone could say congratulations, and then you disappeared until you needed another job.

Melissa Cohen [00:03:41]:

And so what happened to me in 2020 is I lost my job. And it was a job, you know, with my dream company, where I'd been for over 11 years. And it was right in the middle of the pandemic, living in New York City, super isolated, heavy lockdowns. And I said, well, okay, I better go on LinkedIn because I need a job. And I was shocked at what I found there. It was not where your resume went to die. It was exactly as you said it was a social media platform. And I say without really any irony, that LinkedIn kind of saved me.

Melissa Cohen [00:04:15]:

It gave me a social outlet. There was so much misinformation here and so much fear and, you know, going outside and going to the grocery store felt like your life was in danger. Right. And so I started to actually enjoy spending time on the platform and getting to know people there and looking forward to seeing their content. And it. It really became like my virtual water cooler and my virtual Starbucks. LinkedIn is still a more professional platform, so I appreciate that. No offense to any ex fans, but it's not X, right? X is like super toxic for me.

Larry Roberts [00:04:50]:

I go there, I'm like, dude, I can't get on there. If you're on there for more than like 30 seconds, your day is ruined.

Melissa Cohen [00:04:55]:

Yeah, it is.

Larry Roberts [00:04:57]:

It is the most vile, the most aggressive, the most hate filled platform I've ever been on. It is just. And, and I've tried to change My feed. I've tried a variety of things to make it a more positive experience, but it. It. I just can't. I can't go on there. It's just.

Sara Lohse [00:05:12]:

I can't even get on board with calling it X. I'm sorry. I will forever call it Twitter. I won't. I probably won't use it, but I will still call it Twitter.

Melissa Cohen [00:05:20]:

I. I still have to call it a tweet because. What's the. What's the version of tweet that fits with X? Nothing.

Larry Roberts [00:05:27]:

I think it's a zee. Z. It. I. I don't. I don't know. I just made that up. But, yeah, it's.

Larry Roberts [00:05:32]:

It's just not. Not a cool spot there. But LinkedIn is really, really cool because. And again, you know, I. I probably jumped on the LinkedIn bandwagon early last year, you know, thinking that this is really where everything needs to be and starting to understand the platform as more than just where your resume goes to die. But it still surprises me when I see posts that I would typically expect to see, like on Facebook, over on LinkedIn. I still struggle with that. Do you share that kind of content or.

Larry Roberts [00:06:01]:

Or how do you use LinkedIn?

Melissa Cohen [00:06:04]:

So, you know, that's a common sort of complaint, right? This isn't Facebook. Save that for Facebook. I think there's a line, right? Do I think some people tend to overshare? Yes. But if that feels right to them and that's authentic to them, you know, no judgment. Right. I think the line between the personal and the professional was forever changed, forever blurred in the pandemic. Right, because you're no longer. A lot of us are no longer going into an office every day.

Melissa Cohen [00:06:34]:

Right. We're no longer working those typical corporate hours anymore. A lot of us. So many of us are working from home or we're working in a hybrid situation. And, you know, all those years. Well, I guess it wasn't years. It felt like years. All those months of Zoom Calls being the only way to communicate.

Melissa Cohen [00:06:54]:

You know, we saw a lot of each other's personal lives that we might not have been privy to previously. Right, because you were taking Zoom Calls from home. So suddenly, you know, people's homes were in the background. People's children were making appearances on Zoom Calls. People's pets are making appearances on Zoom Calls.

Sara Lohse [00:07:12]:

All I can think of now is, like, all of the accidents on Zoom Calls. Like, someone. I was on a Zoom Call, and she walked into the bathroom, and I can just hear her peeing.

Melissa Cohen [00:07:21]:

Oh, my God.

Sara Lohse [00:07:23]:

And the video was still on.

Larry Roberts [00:07:25]:

Oh no, maybe, maybe you accidentally stood up and, and you saw that you're still in your PJ bottoms in your house shoes, right?

Melissa Cohen [00:07:32]:

So at least you're wearing pants, right? That was like a big one.

Sara Lohse [00:07:36]:

Right?

Melissa Cohen [00:07:36]:

Some guy stood up in the middle of a meeting and didn't have.

Larry Roberts [00:07:38]:

Oh yeah. Oh yeah, yeah.

Melissa Cohen [00:07:41]:

So, you know, I, I also firmly believe that people want to work with people and people want to hire people. And so that's why, right, personal branding, it's like super buzzy term, but that's why it's important, right, because you want to know the person you're going to hire, you want to know the person you're going to work with. And so I don't mind that. It's more, a little more personal and a little more fun. I actually think that that makes it super interesting. But what I love about LinkedIn is that we are posting for the most part under our real names, right? And so in that way it's a little bit of a self policing platform and you don't get all of that toxicity, right. Because are you going to post something being a complete jerk, knowing that your boss could see it or that your clients could see it, you know, it, you're less likely to do that.

Larry Roberts [00:08:33]:

Shoot, I, I could, I consider that even sometimes when I am on X and somebody says something I don't necessarily agree with and I type out this, I'm going to tell them. And then after I type it out I go, eh, someone could see this. Delete, delete, delete, delete, delete. You know, it's the same thing. But I think on LinkedIn it's even more exposing because like you said, it's, it's under your name, you don't have a username or a profile name or a pseudonym of any sort that you're going by. This is really you and it's going to reflect directly on you with your colleagues and potentially your boss and friends and everything.

Melissa Cohen [00:09:06]:

Correct.

Sara Lohse [00:09:07]:

I think with LinkedIn too, like if you go on Facebook, a lot of us, we have our Facebook page and we have our company Facebook page and the content is completely different. But then I know for me, if I go on LinkedIn, I have a company Facebook page, I mean a company LinkedIn page, but I'm still posting 99% of the content to my personal and it always, when I do it that way always performs so much better. Can you talk a little bit about that and why even, like if you're building a brand on LinkedIn, you still should be using your personal page instead of a company page.

Melissa Cohen [00:09:42]:

Yeah, 100%. So two reasons. One, people want to work with people. Right. So if I want to work with favorite daughter, I want to know who you are. Right. Who am I working with? What's Sara like? What does she talk about? What is, you know, is she a person that I want to work with? And then the other reason is company pages just don't get any love on LinkedIn. They just don't.

Melissa Cohen [00:10:06]:

I would guess because LinkedIn wants you to pay for boosted ads, you know, boosted posts, basically paid advertising. But if you post the same exact content from your personal page and your company page, your personal page is going to get way more engagement. It's going to get way more impressions, and people are going to react to it more because they're going to see it more. So there's no, no harm in posting from your company page. And I would say absolutely do it from time to time. But for sure, you're always going to want to leverage your personal profile.

Larry Roberts [00:10:37]:

You know, when you, you mentioned engagement. And whenever we talk about engagement on social media, I tend to go down this rabbit hole of folks are expecting people to either like or heart or whatever, or maybe even comment on their content, but then they don't take the time to go back and comment on every comment and create that whole social aspect of social media. On LinkedIn, how important is it that you go back and actually engage with those that have engaged with your content?

Melissa Cohen [00:11:05]:

Oh, you're speaking in my heart. This is my favorite subject. I could talk all day about this. It's super important, right? So I always liken LinkedIn to, like I said, a virtual water cooler, a virtual Starbucks. Sometimes I refer to it like a dinner party. If someone walks up to you at a networking event and asks you a question, what do you do?

Larry Roberts [00:11:28]:

I just walk off.

Melissa Cohen [00:11:30]:

That's what you're doing on LinkedIn when you don't engage, Right. If somebody says, larry, I love that hat you're wearing, you're probably going to say, oh, thanks, and then talk about it. Talk about, Right, exactly. And so it's kind of rude if people take the time to engage on your content, not to respond back. So from a selfish point of view, it's also good for your engagement. Right. The algorithm that, you know, we all love to talk about the algorithm. The algorithm rewards activity.

Melissa Cohen [00:12:01]:

And the algorithm loves to see what we would call comment threads. Right. People joining in the same conversation and on the same thread of comments. That's highly rewarded. And that will help push your content out further. So from a selfish point of view, it's good to do, but it's just good manners. And I have made so many connections, so many friends, and really in real life, friends because of commenting, because you start to have conversations in the comment section and then next thing you know, you're setting up a video virtual coffee, you're setting up, you know, to meet somewhere in person. And those become real relationships, whether business or personal.

Melissa Cohen [00:12:41]:

So I can't stress enough the importance of commenting and responding to the comments that you get. Now, it can get hard, right? If you're fortunate and you get a lot of comments, it can get really hard to keep up. And so, like me personally, my goal, my goal is always to respond to all of them if I can, but if I can't, you know, at least 75, 80%, when you were, we were.

Sara Lohse [00:13:04]:

At Babs, you sat on a panel for about LinkedIn and one of the things that I remember you guys saying was like, LinkedIn, everything happens in the comment section. Like, the comment section is just where LinkedIn's magic lies. But I know, like, if someone comments on my post and they say something, like a lot of the times I do respond back, but all I really know what to say is like, thanks. What are like the best practices for actually commenting on posts in a way that's going to be impactful and not just like a thumbs up? You're cool.

Melissa Cohen [00:13:39]:

Yeah. So I think the comment itself, right, should be as interesting as possible. And to your point, a lot of people don't know what to say on the initial comment. Right. And so you'll get a lot of those, like, great post, thanks for sharing. And yeah, that's nice. But it doesn't start conversation. Right.

Melissa Cohen [00:13:59]:

So can you refer to something specific that was shared in the original post that really resonated with you or that you really agree with, or maybe that you don't agree with. But you can say it nicely, right? You can say like, oh, you know, that really made me think. And here's how I see it, right? Like, polite discourse is totally cool. Like, I think the majority of people on LinkedIn are really open to having conversations about issues that matter to them. It's just doing it in a way that's respectful and thoughtful. And then as far as like responding to a comment. So ideally, if you can ask a question that hopefully then requires the original commenter to respond back, that's a lot of times what I'll try to do. Sometimes really all you can say is thank you.

Melissa Cohen [00:14:47]:

Because I know sometimes those comments are, you know, like, yeah, all you can really say is thank you, but I try to ask a question back or again, if the comment is, you know, like, meaty enough, like, mention something in their comment that really resonated with me, that. That really stayed with me.

Larry Roberts [00:15:05]:

See, I'm bad at that. I just say thank you. You know, I'll make sure I reply back to that person and tag them and thank you so much. I'm just filled with gratitude. And I mean it. It's not like it's an insincere thank you, but like, you're. You're pointing out there. It doesn't necessarily relate to or lead us to an engaged conversation.

Larry Roberts [00:15:23]:

It honestly, it kind of ends the conversation. It can.

Melissa Cohen [00:15:27]:

And you know, listen, not every comment is a conversation starter, right? So sometimes saying thank you is honestly pretty much all you can say. And it's nice, right? It is still polite. And it's nice that you take that time to thank the person for commenting. And I do that too, right? Because not every conversation. Not every comment is a conversation starter.

Sara Lohse [00:15:48]:

Now, commenting back on your own post is good, but then I feel like one of the things you guys also talked about was if someone comments on your post, then you should go over to their profile, find a post, and comment on one of that. On one of theirs. Did you say that? Or am I having a fever dream?

Melissa Cohen [00:16:09]:

I'm sure one of us probably said it. Yes. You know, and again, so I'm all about. I'm going to say this word wrong. There are certain words I cannot pronounce.

Sara Lohse [00:16:21]:

Reciprocity.

Melissa Cohen [00:16:23]:

Thank you. Yes, I'm all about that word. But I'm also all about things shouldn't feel transactional. And if you're keeping score, it's like you've already lost the game, Right? So I never want to feel like, oh, my God, Joe commented on my post. I better go comment on Joe's. But if I see Joe commenting on my post a bunch of times, yeah, of course I'm gonna go check out what he's doing because he's taking an interest in me and I should go take an interest in him. So I don't think it has to be always like a one for one. But for sure, if you see that this, you know, someone is consistently engaging with your content, then absolutely.

Melissa Cohen [00:17:03]:

I think it's the. Again, it's just the nice thing to do to go and see what they're talking about and how can you support them.

Sara Lohse [00:17:10]:

Reciprocity.

Larry Roberts [00:17:13]:

Recipes I do love a good recipe. So what are some other best practices? If someone's just now jumping into the LinkedIn deep end of LinkedIn swimming pool, what would you say would be some of the primary things they need to focus on to really make an impact and start getting that engagement on this platform?

Melissa Cohen [00:17:34]:

Yeah. I mean, the biggest thing is just starting. Right. There are so many people who are so scared of LinkedIn, it's really funny to me, right? Because they have no problem posting on Facebook or on Instagram, but LinkedIn just scares them. So the biggest tip I have is honestly, just start, like, don't be afraid. It is truly the most supportive community I've ever found on social media. The majority of people on LinkedIn really want to have, if they're active. Right.

Melissa Cohen [00:18:03]:

Want to have conversations and want to engage and want to support you. The other big tip I would say is to be consistent. And so sometimes it's actually the opposite. People be like, okay, I'm all in on LinkedIn. And so they will post, you know, like, every day for three weeks, and then they get super burned out and then they disappear.

Sara Lohse [00:18:21]:

So that was everybody at the Babs for like a week and a half after Babs, when at the last day, and Donnie's like, you guys need to actually do this or else you are letting me down personally. And then we're all like, okay, I can't do that. Uncle Donnie said so. And then we're. No, I let him go.

Larry Roberts [00:18:40]:

Crushed it for 10 days.

Sara Lohse [00:18:42]:

Sorry, Donnie.

Melissa Cohen [00:18:46]:

We'll talk to him. We'll smooth it over. It's. What can you do that you can sign up to being consistent. Right. If that's posting once a week, that's cool. If that's posting twice a week, that's fantastic. If you post twice a week regularly, consistently, you're already in probably the top 3% of LinkedIn users.

Melissa Cohen [00:19:08]:

Right. Because LinkedIn has over a billion users. Yeah. And the vast majority of them do not post content consistently. So you will stand out already if you're just that consistent. But it requires being that consistent. And I know we talked about it, but for sure, my truly, from my heart, my biggest piece of advice is comment, comment, comment, comment. That is how you meet people.

Melissa Cohen [00:19:36]:

That's how you grow your following. That's how you make relationships. That's how you find clients. It could be how you find your next role. Right. Like, we always think, and this is specific to job search and career, but we always think that it's our network that's going to get us Our next opportunity. And a lot of times it's those like, quote unquote, loose ties, right? It's those people. It's people that.

Melissa Cohen [00:20:02]:

Who we know, that they know. And so, so many opportunities come from just meeting people on LinkedIn.

Sara Lohse [00:20:10]:

Is there? So my DMs are always filled with what I respectfully call nonsense. But I do know a lot of people get a lot of business through LinkedIn and through almost like cold outreach on LinkedIn. Is that something that you do and really, like, believe in, or does that. Have you not found the secret sauce for that?

Melissa Cohen [00:20:35]:

So I am super, super fortunate. I don't do any cold outreach. Sorry, Donnie, I don't. I am super blessed.

Sara Lohse [00:20:45]:

Like, you are the LinkedIn queen.

Melissa Cohen [00:20:46]:

You don't know. Where's my tiara? I'm still waiting. Like it got lost in the mail somewhere.

Sara Lohse [00:20:52]:

Send me your mailing address. I got you.

Melissa Cohen [00:20:54]:

I will. My business is all either inbound or referrals, and I'm super grateful for that. With that said, LinkedIn is an amazing platform for outreach. Right? And there are Incredible tools for LinkedIn for outreach. I don't use Sales Navigator, but I know a lot of people who do. And Sales Navigator is pretty robust and pretty awesome. And it is definitely a way to really call down those leads, keep track of them. There's all sorts of ways you can filter them.

Melissa Cohen [00:21:29]:

You can do a less intense version without it. Right? Just with LinkedIn Premium or regular LinkedIn, the search fields aren't as robust. There's not as many filters. It doesn't let you do as many things. But you make a really good point. Right? The DMS can be a gold mine and they can also be absolute purgatory. I am forever battling the clutter in my DMs. I actually spoke about this yesterday, did a webinar yesterday, and I think we talked about this at babs, and it always gets a laugh from people.

Melissa Cohen [00:22:01]:

So if I can give one piece of advice of what not to do in the DMs, it's the pitch slap, right?

Sara Lohse [00:22:08]:

Yes.

Melissa Cohen [00:22:09]:

Nobody, nobody wants to be pitch slapped.

Larry Roberts [00:22:14]:

We have actually used that term, I think. Did it come from you? I think it came from you, didn't it?

Melissa Cohen [00:22:19]:

I don't think I can take credit for it originally, but yes, I think I was the one who said it.

Larry Roberts [00:22:24]:

Okay. We had never heard it before and we have gone on to use it multiple times.

Sara Lohse [00:22:28]:

We have a whole episode about.

Melissa Cohen [00:22:32]:

Because it's the most awesome term. Right. And somebody was just posting on LinkedIn about it today. Right. Talking about it from the webinar that I did. And they were like, it's when you connect with someone and they pitch you so hard that, you know, your head spins. And I was like, yep, that's exactly what it is. So nobody wants to be pitch slapped, right? Nobody wants to.

Melissa Cohen [00:22:52]:

You know, I send a connection request to Sara, hi, Sara, you know, it would be a pleasure to connect. And she accepts. And then the next thing I do is I'm telling her about my services and how she can work with me. She didn't ask me for that. She doesn't even know who I am yet. Right. And nobody wants to feel like your relationship is just transactional, and so you really have to build that rapport over time.

Sara Lohse [00:23:16]:

I think it was Liam Darmody at Babs who said whenever he gets pitch slap in his dms, his response is, does this work for you? And basically reverses it to be like, I can help you do this better.

Melissa Cohen [00:23:29]:

That's. That sounds like a Liam question. I think it was you.

Larry Roberts [00:23:33]:

100% serious.

Melissa Cohen [00:23:36]:

So I've been tempted to say that when I get the hi, dear, you're pretty, you know, like the, like creepy messages.

Larry Roberts [00:23:44]:

I don't even get those. What. What am I doing wrong?

Sara Lohse [00:23:47]:

I was about to say, I'll send it. I got you.

Larry Roberts [00:23:49]:

Thank you. Thank you.

Sara Lohse [00:23:51]:

Every week.

Larry Roberts [00:23:53]:

Let me ask you this. And I asked this question at Babs, but some folks listening to the podcast obviously weren't at Babs. So I get those, those emails all the time to say, you've been selected as a professional in this industry to answer these questions. Is it valuable to answer those or is that basically a waste of time?

Melissa Cohen [00:24:12]:

The collaborative articles, yes. So they used to be a very sought after piece of information on LinkedIn. Right. Because you used to be able to earn a badge, so you used to be able to earn these top community voice badges. And so you get them for a specific category. Right? Like, I had a couple of them at one point. I had like top personal branding voice, top thought leadership. They looked nice on your profile.

Melissa Cohen [00:24:41]:

But what happened is people started to realize how to game the system because it became quantity over quality. So instead of really focusing on providing good information and sharing your knowledge, it became, okay, how many of these can I do and bang out in an hour so that I earn one of these badges? And so LinkedIn disbanded the whole badge program. Right. So now the only badges that still exist are the blue top voice badges, which are from LinkedIn editors. So those goldish kind of color badges don't exist anymore. I do still say that the collaborative articles have some value. It is just another avenue for getting your thought leadership out there. It is another avenue for sharing what you know.

Melissa Cohen [00:25:26]:

And they do still show up in my feed, right? So I still do see them. When people that I'm connected with contribute to them and they're SEO friendly, you can find them through search. So I would say if it's a topic that resonates with you and you have something you want to say, there's, you know, absolutely no harm in sharing it. And they're very limited in character length. I don't remember what it is anymore. But you know, you don't have to write a dissertation, right? It's. It's a pretty quick way to share something, you know. But I don't focus on them the way I used to.

Melissa Cohen [00:26:01]:

When they first came out, I thought they were awesome.

Sara Lohse [00:26:03]:

What about because you have the ability to write an article just by yourself. What's the difference with making a LinkedIn post and then writing a LinkedIn article and which one is gonna have more of an impact on getting eyes on your content and all of that?

Melissa Cohen [00:26:21]:

Articles don't get as much traction on LinkedIn. I can't. Why? I couldn't tell you. It's one of those mysteries posts, short form posts will always quote, unquote, perform better. Articles are when you need to write something longer, right? Because there is a character limit on your posts. And so if you have something very lengthy that you want to share, you would write it in an article. What I would actually recommend, if you feel that you have a lot of information that's lengthy that you want to share on a regular basis, is start a newsletter. And a newsletter is just basically an article.

Melissa Cohen [00:27:02]:

So if you ever decide, oh, I want to start a newsletter. It starts out as an article and LinkedIn makes it very easy to do a newsletter on platform. It's very user friendly, it's very plug and play. I'm not the most tech savvy person in the world and you know, it was super easy for me. What it also does is it invites all of your followers to subscribe and every time someone new follows you, it invites them to subscribe. So I started a newsletter on the platform. I don't know, it might be getting close to a year now, I'm not even sure, but I have like 8,000 subscribers and I've done nothing to advertise it or market it or anything. So yeah, super easy to get readers.

Melissa Cohen [00:27:50]:

The biggest problem is that I don't own their data. Right. So I can see who those 8,000 people are, but I don't have any of their emails. So if like building an email list is important to you, then I would say you want to have a newsletter that's off platform. And I just started an off platform newsletter in December. And let me tell you, building that email list is hard.

Larry Roberts [00:28:15]:

Yes, yes.

Melissa Cohen [00:28:16]:

It is not easy. It is nowhere near 8,000.

Larry Roberts [00:28:19]:

Yeah. I write the newsletter for PodFest and building that email list, even though it's a massive conference, has always been a challenge. And you know, it's almost like you plateau and you just get stuck at that number and it just seems to stay there forever no matter what you're doing. I mean, we did a tour of the whole country and at every stop we said sign up for the newsletter. And when I look at the, the subscribers, yeah, it's about the same. So newsletters can be extremely difficult. So I think it'd be cool if you're wanting to do that to get started on, on LinkedIn. You know, granted you don't have their contact information, but it allows you to get in there and start writing and start sharing and start establishing yourself as a thought leader.

Larry Roberts [00:29:00]:

And then when you do launch an off platform newsletter, there may be an opportunity for you to leverage some of the followers you have on LinkedIn to immediately sign up on your brand new newsletter.

Melissa Cohen [00:29:10]:

100%.

Sara Lohse [00:29:12]:

Yeah, I mean I do a lot of work with lead magnets and just thinking like if you have all the subscribers on your LinkedIn 1, having the call to action of every article, be a lead magnet that then gets there them to sign up for the actual newsletter is probably going to build that a little faster. Unless you're already doing that, then ignore me.

Melissa Cohen [00:29:34]:

No, we probably should talk.

Sara Lohse [00:29:36]:

We'll talk offline.

Melissa Cohen [00:29:38]:

We should talk.

Sara Lohse [00:29:39]:

I've got, I've got a lead magnet about lead magnets.

Melissa Cohen [00:29:43]:

I love it.

Sara Lohse [00:29:44]:

Favorite newsletter?

Larry Roberts [00:29:46]:

I have a newsletter on LinkedIn all about building lead magnets. So no, I don't really have that. I'm just kidding. But you very well could. And I'm not sure why Sara doesn't, honestly, because she does such a tremendous job with her lead magnet.

Melissa Cohen [00:30:00]:

So thanks for the idea.

Larry Roberts [00:30:01]:

Yeah, there you go. So. Well, Melissa, before we wrap this thing up, what's one little piece of advice you would say other than just get started? What, what is that other little piece of advice that you want to leave people with?

Melissa Cohen [00:30:15]:

Don't underestimate the power of LinkedIn. You know, LinkedIn changed my life. I say that, and I know that that sounds like so hyperbolic and ridiculous, but it has completely changed my life. It gave me an entire new career. Right. If you ever would have told me that this is what I was going to do for a living, like 10 years ago, I would have said, I'm sorry, did you hit your head on something? Like, what are you talking about? So completely new career has introduced me to some of the most incredible people. I mean, people that I admire and also people that truly I just love, you know, like, they are some of my dearest, closest friends, wrote a book, speak on panels. You know, all of these opportunities are because I decided to show up on LinkedIn and it was not easy for me.

Melissa Cohen [00:31:04]:

And I think that's something I do want to share before we wrap up. The first time I posted, first of all, it was a God awful post. I mean, it was so bad. But I thought I was gonna, I thought I was gonna throw up. Like, I felt so vulnerable and so like, oh, my God, what am I doing? Because you have this mindset of everyone I know is going to see this and what are they going to think of me? And they're. And you know what? Nothing bad happened. Nothing bad happened. And from there I just, you know, grew more confident.

Melissa Cohen [00:31:34]:

And so that's my big piece of advice. Do not underestimate what the platform can do for you when you come with good intentions.

Sara Lohse [00:31:42]:

I need to say now because I'm just saying I'm still really excited about it on LinkedIn. I just connected with an actor from one of the shows that I watched as a kid on Disney Channel, and he's like a story coach and doing all this, like, workshops and stuff now. And I DM'd him with a question that I've had since 2006 about the TV show and ended up on a call with him. And now he's gonna be on the podcast in a couple weeks and I am so excited. So for any fans of Life with Derek of Disney Channel circa 2006, like, dreams do come true on LinkedIn, we're gonna have Sheldon on the show.

Melissa Cohen [00:32:22]:

Oh, my God, I love this so much. This is, this is the kind of stuff that gets me, like, so geeked out. Like, I love it, I love it.

Larry Roberts [00:32:29]:

So, Sara, in 2006, were you, were you 10? 11. 11. Okay. All right, so, yeah, I'm gonna leave now.

Melissa Cohen [00:32:36]:

Bye. It's been real.

Larry Roberts [00:32:39]:

Yeah, I'm right there with you, Melissa. So, hey, before we do go, if you would please share with people how they can find you.

Melissa Cohen [00:32:45]:

You can absolutely find me on LinkedIn. So my name Melissa Jocker and my website is melissabethcohen.com and what is your.

Sara Lohse [00:32:57]:

The title of your book and where can people find that?

Melissa Cohen [00:33:00]:

Oh, my God, you're the best. It is your career resilience blueprint and it is mainly sold on Amazon is the easiest place to find it.

Larry Roberts [00:33:09]:

Very cool. Very cool, everybody. Check that out. Melissa is amazing. We did have the pleasure of hanging out with her a little bit at Babs last year and the knowledge that she has about LinkedIn is just. It's unparalleled. So reach out to her.

Sara Lohse [00:33:20]:

If you have any questions, subscribe to her newsletter.

Larry Roberts [00:33:23]:

Do that, too. I'm glad you jumped in there because I was getting choked up. But anyways, with that, hey, if you enjoyed this episode, do us a favor, go ahead and hit that subscribe button so we can continue to bring you these amazing episodes each and every week. And with that, I'm Larry Roberts.

Sara Lohse [00:33:38]:

I'm Sara Lohse. And we'll talk to you next week.