Leveraging LinkedIn as a Speaker with Top Voice Melissa Cohen

Welcome to My First Stage, the podcast where experienced public speakers share how they started getting booked on stages and how they've used them to grow their business. I am here with the amazing Melissa Cohen. I'm so excited to be able to talk to her again. She is a former fashion executive and now an author, speaker, and LinkedIn Top Voice. She helps leaders, founders, executives, and their teams leverage LinkedIn for personal and business growth. And thank you so much for being here, my friend.

Thank you for having me. I'm super excited.

I am too. And I just found out, um, one of the fun things about your speaking is that I was actually there for your first stage.

Yes.

And I could not tell that you— that was your first stage. So good on you. Uh, you crushed it. But let's talk about it. Uh, your first stage was at the Badass Business Summit. How did it happen?

Yeah, so, uh, Donnie Bovine, who we all know and love, um, he reached out to me and said, hey, you know, I'm having this summit, Badass Business Summit, which of course made me laugh. And, uh, he said, I want to put a LinkedIn panel together. Would, would you want to be part of it? And, you know, it's funny, I was always a little bit intimidated, uh, public speaking. I actually was that kid in elementary and junior high school who dreaded speech competitions and did them anyway, and usually did pretty well, but absolutely hated them. And so I've always kind of had this love-hate relationship with, uh, speaking publicly.

But that's amazing because I've like— I do that as an adult. Like, I hate public speaking, but I get on stages. But as a child, absolutely not.

Yeah, I would have been like mean teachers. Yeah, they encouraged us to do this stuff. Yeah, absolutely. Like, in front of the whole school. Can you imagine, like, being on stage in front of the whole school having to read?

I had to give a speech at, like, I think it was like the honor society induction or something. I was president because I was a nerd, and I'm pretty sure I vibrated so hard that, like, this— you could hear the stage move. Like, it was awful, and I only had to talk for like 3 minutes. And no, I can't imagine being like No, I'm terrified, but I'm going to do this willingly and for fun.

It was so interesting because I could always remember sort of thinking— because there would be a bunch of us, right? And you didn't know what order you were going to go in necessarily. And I would sit there going like, don't pick me, don't pick me, don't pick me because I'm not ready, I'm not ready, I'm not ready. And yet the greatest relief is actually to be called and go up there and do it and be done. And so it's this weird sort of mental argument you're having with yourself of, I don't want to go. And like, no, just— just do it, just go. Um, so for whatever reason, um, I said yes, and it was a fantastic experience. Like, I absolutely loved every second of it, and I really used that to show myself that I don't have to be so afraid. It's actually a really wonderful experience.

And that was, if I remember correctly, it was a panel, and it was you, uh, Ken and Liam.

Kevin. Yes, Kevin.

Okay, I knew it was a K.

It's a K, it's a K, man.

Uh, you, Kevin, and Liam, and you're talking about, uh, LinkedIn. And with you being like one— you're a top LinkedIn voice, so you're always creating content on LinkedIn. Would you consider that to be a stage?

Oh, that's such a good question. Yes. And it's a different kind of stage because you can prepare for it. Mm-hmm. I can write a post in advance, even if I'm writing it on the fly, obviously I can still edit it. I can read it, tweak it, make adjustments. When you're on the stage and it's live, that's it. You can't go back and change anything.

You can't edit your words. You can't go back and erase something that you said. So yes, it's absolutely a stage. It's just a different kind of stage.

And how would you suggest people start creating their own stage on LinkedIn? Like, and why? Like, how has it really impacted you and your work?

Yeah, I feel like it still almost has that reputation in some areas. Like, some people are like, why would I be on LinkedIn? I already have a job. Versus there are the people that are on LinkedIn building a platform and like putting out content, and it actually is one of the better places to put on content because it's so much less like competition.

There's less competition, although AI is starting to make that a little less true, but there's a lot less competition. It's also a lot less toxic because you're posting under your real name. Yeah, so you're not hiding behind a screen name so nobody knows who you are, which kind of frees you to say some things that you probably wouldn't say if everybody knew it was you saying them. But probably the most interesting thing that happened to me when I lost my job was realizing how much of my own self-worth I lost along with that. Like, my identity was so tied up in who I worked for and what my title was. And that's really why I encourage everybody to build a personal brand. I know it sounds like ridiculous, build a personal brand. I didn't even know what a personal brand was, but it's, it's essential, right? Because you have no idea what's gonna happen today, tomorrow, next month, next year in your career journey.

You need to build something that is always yours wherever you go.

And how did you do that?

I observed. For a little while, 'cause I was intimidated. And when I got brave, I started to comment. So, to this day, I will tell anybody who listens that commenting on LinkedIn is a very underrated tactic. It's also just a very underrated way to make connections, meet people. Some of the most incredible relationships that I have to this day in real life, in person, started out because we commented on each other's posts. We started those conversations, um, and that's kind of all I felt comfortable doing for a little while, right? Because it's a little less visible. Your comment is one of a whole bunch.

It's not just your post out there. Um, but then one day I said, okay, I, I need to post. I need to do this. And it is probably everything I would tell someone not to have done when posting content, because I didn't know what I didn't know. So I I reposted, strike number 1, an article from Women's Wear Daily, which was the fashion industry newspaper. It was paywalled, strike number 2. And I added like 1 sentence of my own thoughts on it, strike number 3. Terrible post in every way.

But nobody yelled at me. Nobody was mean to me. Nobody said, what are you doing? I got a— I actually got a little bit of engagement. I, I say jokingly, people probably just felt sorry for me. Um, but I survived. But the— I, I tell this story a lot. I had to get up, walk away from my computer, and leave the room because I was going to take it down because I was so terrified of that visibility. But I survived, and I went on from there.

Now Today, Melissa, who is like the goddess of LinkedIn, what, how would you post that today? Like what would you do differently? Not strike out 3 times.

Um, if I were really going to post that same sort of content, I would summarize what I found most interesting in the article, my own thoughts, my takeaway from it, what left the biggest impression on me. I would screenshot something in the article, a picture, an image, something relevant. And then I would either put the link in the body of the post, which this is very controversial. Some people will yell at me and say that kills your reach. If it's important for people to look at the link, then you have to put the link there. Now, in this case, I would say it's not that important to have the actual link, right? Because it's probably. Not accessible for a lot of people anyway because it's paywalled. And so what I would do is say, if you wanna read the full story, the link will be in the comments.

And then I would put the link in the comments and say, might be paywalled. But by sharing my own thoughts, my own observations, what I took away from it, people can still get the idea of the article and what I thought about it. And then it becomes my point of view as opposed to just, oh, here's an article I found interesting, which, which is pretty much what I said.

That's, that's so important too. And I, I remember when you were speaking at Babs, and I don't know if it was you in particular or someone on your panel, but I remember it to this day, talking about the importance of commenting. And it's not just like, cool post, or like, nice. Like, you actually have to comment, comment, talk about that. What, like, how, how do you actually do it?

So yeah, um, thanks for sharing. Um, yeah, none of them are conversation starters, right? You wanna start a conversation. So I like to sometimes quote back a little piece of what they wrote, right? If there's a, a line in their post that really resonated with me, really made me think, I might copy paste that, put it in quotes. Say it back to them and then say why that struck me so much, right? Why did that really resonate with me? I might ask a question if I can. That's the best thing to do because when you ask a question, hopefully they're gonna respond and then you start really having a dialogue with one another. But you wanna leave a comment that's actually meaningful, that's substantial, that other people can then react to. Like, that's the best thing for me when I see people sort of having a comment party where they're all having a little conversation with one another. Sometimes it's not even just with the author, right? It's with other people who have come onto the post.

So ask a question, make a good observation. Um, and, and I'm not saying to do this for tactics, right? There used to be, I don't even remember what it was, but some guideline of like LinkedIn values comments that are more than 12 words or, or some such nonsense. I, I'm not looking at it that way. I'm looking at it, have a conversation, right? If somebody says something to you at a party, you're gonna say something in response. You're not just gonna walk away. And that's how I view comments on LinkedIn.

It, it's so important. It's the same as like people just post and ghost and they just post something and call it a social media strategy and they're not staying and interacting. They're not commenting back, they're not doing anything. They just post and ghost and it doesn't have the effect that they're looking for unless their goal is just to make their social media page look like they're posting.

The only people that that will work for, and work is a relative term, is if you already have a massive following, right? If you already have a massive following, yes, whatever you post is going to get engagement just because people want to be seen on your page. But for the average creator or the average person who's posting, it's actually that engagement that drives your post further out. Into the algorithms, right? That's what they're looking for. They're looking for reciprocity of engagement, right? Not one-sided engagement. And I firmly believe that if people know you're going to engage on their content and you're going to respond to their comments, they're a lot more likely to leave them on your own post, right? Because nobody wants to speak into a void.

You make such a good point with that only works if you have a massive audience. And I talk about that all the time with podcasting because we can't mirror what we're doing in a podcast on what the big shows are doing because the big shows already have a following.

Yeah.

And it's not gonna work the same. It's just like with social media, you can't, like, if I were to post a picture of me wearing a brand of sunglasses with a link in the comments of where to buy them, no one is clicking that link. Nobody cares what sunglasses I'm wearing. But it works when you have a massive following and people want to do what you're doing. And like with a podcast, I have to tell people like, no, you can't name your podcast your name, like Joe Rogan, right? Because Joe Rogan never— when he launched his podcast, he was not a podcaster. He's just a celebrity with a podcast. He already had an audience. And Oprah can put out a magazine named after herself because everyone knows who Oprah is.

But when you don't have that audience, you can't do that. And you have to make decisions that are different than what you're seeing mainstream. And I think that's why following creators like you, people that are putting out content on these platforms that are underutilized and doing it strategically is so important because if you're just following these big like influencers, big name creators, you're doing. What's working for them now versus what was working for them when they were getting started and where you are.

Yeah, 100%. A lot of people will have a strategy of commenting on a huge creator's post, right? Somebody whose posts routinely get thousands and thousands of reactions. That's really only gonna work if you are a very early commenter. If you get in on the first couple of comments, that's actually going to work and people are going to see you. But if you're comment number 250, you're not really likely to get seen by a lot of people. You're much better off finding like a mid-sized account to comment on.

It's like ending up on like the fourth page of Google.

Exactly.

Nobody has gone that far in the Google search pages to find the 407th most recommended website.

Exactly. You have to be on page one.

Yeah, no, that's, that's important. Now, you had said that you got your first speaking gig just because basically someone reached out to you on LinkedIn.

Yeah, I mean, yes, technically Donnie and I met through LinkedIn. 100%. Yes.

And how did you use that opportunity, um, to whether it's grow your business, increase what you were doing. Like, what did you do with that stage, um, moving on?

It gave me confidence that I could actually do it, right? As, as an adult, not as a kid anymore, as an adult, as somebody speaking about something that not only was a passion of mine and something I'm really enthusiastic about, but also, to your point, is my business. Um, it, it gave me that confidence to continue to seek out those opportunities, whereas Sometimes when you are not sure that it's gonna be successful, you kind of shy away from those opportunities, right? Because you don't wanna make a fool of yourself. You don't wanna mess up in a big public setting because not only was that a fairly large audience, but it was also being livestreamed on LinkedIn and there were a lot of people watching, right? So I sort of had that, that dual audience. And so I used that to, give myself the confidence to say yes when other people ask me to be on stage or ask me to speak. I had, you know, I'd done podcasts, I'd done Zoom things before, but not a lot of live speaking. And I'm so much more comfortable now because I had that positive experience. And it was a great positive experience, right? It was a panel. It was people that I knew.

It was people that I was really comfortable with. I had people in the audience that I knew. Um, and it, it just really catapulted me into having belief in myself, and that's really important.

I love that. What, um, what other stages have you been on since? I know of one because we ran into each other at Podfest and you were speaking on a panel there. Um, what was that one like? How was that one different? And, uh, like, what other stages have you been on?

So Podfest was super interesting because I don't have a podcast. And so at first I was kind of like, huh, I don't know, is this an audience that wants to hear from me? But they did. And it was really interesting. We did some polling before we took the stage and it was like, what's your impression of LinkedIn? Do you think it's valuable to you as a podcaster? You know, like very, somewhat, not at all. There were a lot of not at alls or very little. And, you know, that was a little daunting knowing that you're taking the stage with a— I don't want to say hostile audience because they were very, very nice, but, you know, they had sort of a negative opinion about what I was going to talk about. But a lot of people came up afterwards and said, you know, you gave me a lot to think about. You made me maybe change my mind.

You made me think maybe there's some value to being on LinkedIn and I absolutely believe there is, right? You know that there is as a podcast host. So absolutely fantastic place to share your podcast, to connect with people who are going to be guests on your podcast, sponsor opportunities. There's all kinds of things that are going to happen on LinkedIn. Um, so that was a really good experience. It was the largest conference I've ever been to. I mean, massive amount of people. Really almost a little overwhelming from an attendance standpoint. Yeah.

And then obviously the room where you're speaking is, is smaller, um, but definitely an interesting experience in that regard, for sure.

And how did that one come about? Did you apply to speak? Were, were you approached by other people on the panel?

Uh, we applied to speak. Uh, so it was me, uh, Wendy, and Zach, uh, the three of us. We applied. Uh, Zach is sort of Mr. Podfest. I mean, it literally— I felt like I was there with the Godfather. Like, everybody knew him, right? We couldn't walk two steps without someone being like, hey Zach, you know, and starting a conversation. So, uh, I'm grateful for that because I don't think I would have been able to figure out, like, how to maneuver through the whole application process and all of that without his guidance.

Um, but we applied, um, and so we got accepted for the 30-minute presentation, which was, which was great. And again, I loved that it was a panel, right? I always like that interaction, and I love that we had time at the end for Q&A because that's what really makes me excited, right? Being able to answer people's questions and really giving them the answers that are going to help them instead of just coming with a pre sort of conceived notion of what they want to hear.

I completely agree. There's— there was an event that I was a speaker, but I also was selected to just lead like a, just like a chat session where it was basically just the entire session of just Q&A.

Oh nice.

And oh, just about podcasting. And I loved it because I'm just like, I can guess what y'all want to know, but I'd rather you just ask me so I actually know what you want to know.

So much.

And It's so much better. But I also love what you said about, like, you were there not as a podcaster, and it was a podcast conference, and you're talking about a topic that you're not even sure people really care about. And I think that's actually really important. And like, for me, I've spoken at podcast conferences, of course, and I like almost always speak at Podfest, but I'm there as a podcaster speaking about podcasting in a but like on just a list of other speakers speaking about podcasting. And it's hard to stand out that way versus I've gone to conferences in completely different industries. I've gone to finance conferences, education conferences, real estate conferences to speak on podcasting. And when that happens, it's like I'm the one talking about this. I'm the only one that's talking about this.

And if you want to hear about this topic, you You have to come and see my presentation. And I feel like that was kind of what happened to you. Like, you're— everyone's there talking about podcasting, but you're talking about LinkedIn.

Yeah.

And suddenly it's like you're starting off as a differentiator.

Yeah, absolutely.

It kind of puts you in a more like— I don't know, like it makes it almost like a more valuable experience as the speaker, I would think.

Yeah, no, you're, you're right. It, it's kind of nice to be a little bit of the outlier, right? One of few as opposed to one of many. Yeah. And, and it did also make me feel like if you came to hear us speak, you were really interested in the topic, which is something I really loved about Podfest, right? You had to make choices all day long as to Well, there's these 5 things going on at the same time, but this is the one I'm gonna spend my time in. And I really liked that, right? I, I really liked that you had to be deliberate about how you set up your schedule, who you went to see, who you heard speak. It, it made you feel special that somebody decided to spend their time with you.

Now, as the LinkedIn goddess, how can a speaker use LinkedIn, just whether it's to grow as a speaker, to share their experience as a speaker, to book, get more bookings as a speaker, whatever it is, like what is like the LinkedIn path to follow as a speaker?

I mean, put yourself out there as a speaker. I was actually working with a client the other day and she wants to do more speaking and I said, nowhere in your profile does it say you're a speaker. It's not in your headline, it's not in your about section. You don't have any photos of you speaking, you don't have your speaker reel in your featured section, I would never know you want to be a speaker or want to do more speaking. I would have no idea at all. And so it's all about positioning. And, and nowadays so many of us are so many different things, right? We're not just in this one little neat box. We have a lot of different talents.

We have a lot of different things that we want to do. So make sure that it says on your profile, in your headline, speaker. Post your speaker reel.

Now, at what point do you add speaker? Do you add it after like your first time speaking? Like, okay, I did it. Now I'm technically a speaker. Let's add it. Do you do it after you've been a paid speaker? Like what's, what's the like rule of thumb there?

That's a great question. Great question. Um, look, it's all about what you're comfortable with and what feels authentic to you. I would probably say not after like your first speaking, because that just feels a little too soon. Um, I don't think there's a magic number necessarily, but I think when you have, you know, enough reps under your belt that being on stage feels comfortable and exciting. And yes, when you have that social proof, right, when you can— if somebody were to say, well, let me see, you know, some examples of your speaking, that you actually have video of you speaking, you have a sizzle reel, you have all of those things, and you have people who can attest to, yes, you know, yes, she came and spoke, She was great, audience loved her, here's what she did, here's, you know, the takeaways. You have all of that social proof. That, that is what's important to me because I think you ask a very good question.

It's easy to say that you do anything.

Mhm. I also, and I, I agree, I feel like you don't want to jump the gun too much. It's like, I got on one stage, but at the same time, about a second and a half of one of my podcasts episodes got added to a documentary on Netflix. And if you don't think as soon as I found that out I didn't go on my website and put 'as seen on Netflix'—

I love it—

with all of the confidence of like Trump calling Melania a movie star, like, oh my God, I'm a Netflix star right here.

You, you are a big deal, and you're not telling any untruths at all.

I was definitely on Netflix. Every ex-boyfriend I've ever had texted me to tell me I was on Netflix. Like, did you know? I'm like, actually didn't, but thank you.

Um, so wait, somebody— you found out because people told you? Yeah. Oh my God, that's amazing.

They did. Oh, they didn't ask. It was, uh, Branded, um, the last of the podcast that I hosted with Larry Roberts. Yes. And we did an episode about, uh, the, the Liver King, who is this like— he was a health and wellness like fitness creator who his whole brand was that he He— the reason he looks like a Buick basically was that he just eats raw liver and all of this. And then everyone found out he was doing steroids and he kind of fell from grace. But we did a show about building your brand around lies and what happens when that like falls apart. And they did a documentary about him and a clip from our podcast is in it.

And I'm getting texts from so many people like, did you know you're on Netflix?

And that was on Netflix. Is that— and they don't have to ask your permission or anything? That's fascinating.

I think they use a, like, a short enough piece that it was okay because it was, it was like maybe 2 seconds. Like, it was very, very short. So I think they probably do that strategically. Yeah. And if they were to use anything longer, then they would have to like ask permission or pay royalties or something. So they know what they're doing.

But clearly they made the right choice because they got you in that in the 2 seconds.

Oh no, he's the one talking.

I'm just sitting there. Darn. All right. All right. At least you're there.

I'm there. Like, my face is on everyone's screen that wants to learn more about the Liver King. I always want to say Lion King when I talk about that, but I wish— food market— I said it with my full chest when I'm just like, as seen on Netflix.

I love it.

So I— that's probably jumping the gun, but you know what, I'm gonna—

that's okay, I'm gonna use it. But because you're not saying, um, Netflix documentary star, that would be inappropriate. And believe me, there are people who would consider it and probably do it. Um, Melania is a movie star. Yeah, exactly, exactly. There's, you know, I think as seen in is, is okay. You were seen in.

I, I was seen. I was texted and let— and I was told I was seen.

And here we are, by multiple sources.

Exactly, multiple sources. I know every time you come back from an event, you do like a kind of like a roundup post, um, on LinkedIn. And I know you did one for, um, Podfest because you tagged me in it. And I've never had more notifications in my life than when Melissa tags me in something on LinkedIn because it blows up. Every single time. Um, do you have any tips for like, I just got off stage, I wanna post something about my experience? Like how do you, like how, how do you recommend someone post about on LinkedIn?

Yeah. Um, storytelling, right? Tell a story. Don't just, you know, we've all seen those. I'm really honored and privileged to have spoken on the stage at X. Oh, okay. Great. But tell a story, right? What did it feel like? Why was everyone there? Tag a few people. A big, a big thing that I see that I don't love is people think that the more people you tag, the better your engagement's going to be.

I never like to see, you know, 30 people tagged at the bottom of the post, right? There is a limit actually that LinkedIn has, and I don't even remember what it is. Is it? It's somewhere around like 25 or 30, and you see people maxing out on that, I— it just doesn't feel authentic to me, right? I tagged you because I was genuinely excited that I saw you, right? I hadn't seen you in a year. Oh yeah. Oh my God, I saw Sarah there, you know? And I tag people because they matter to me and they were part of my experience, not just because I want all these people to engage on my post. So tag thoughtfully. But tell a story, right? Why were you there? What was something really interesting that happened? Who was another speaker that you really found interesting, right? That's another great way to bring somebody into the post and into the conversation. And use really good pictures, right? The best pictures you can find. Not necessarily because it's the best picture of you necessarily, but because there's something interesting in it, right? Like your fantastic background, right? There's something bright and colorful and eye-catching because you wanna stop that scroll.

In a lot of ways, LinkedIn is— it's never gonna be Instagram, I really hope, but it is becoming, you know, a platform. Exactly.

Please.

Um, that is more visual, right? So you want something that's gonna grab people's attention and make them stop and go back and read what you posted.

I need to ask, 'cause I feel like there's a lot of talk about like, are hashtags dead? And that's a big conversation on like Instagram, Facebook, but there's also hashtags on LinkedIn. Are they dead on LinkedIn?

So for my purposes, yes, they are. Um, however, they are still searchable. They're still indexable, if that's a word. Um, what they don't do anymore is back in the day there were certain hashtags where if you use them, then a lot of people who followed that hashtag would see your post. That doesn't happen anymore, right? And hasn't for a really long time. So it used to be, if you've been on LinkedIn for a while, that if you would type a hashtag and then start typing, it would auto-populate or auto-suggest some of the more popular hashtags, right? That hasn't happened in a really long time. Or if you used to have creator mode. Back in the day, you were allowed to have 5 hashtags at the top of your profile.

Those were the things you talked about, right? So I used to have like hashtag personal branding, right? And things like that. Those are long gone.

I think I had those. I think I had like podcasting, webinars, branding, or something. Yep. I think I, I think I had those.

I'm sure you did. I'm sure you did.

And have they been removed?

Oh yeah. Those are gone for a pretty long time now. Yeah. They're not there on your profile anymore. So to be truthful, I only use 2 of them and I use them for the 2 series of posts that I still run. Friday is LinkedIn Nuggets. Sunday is 4 to Follow. I still use those more for my own tracking than anything else.

Um, and also cuz I just think people kind of are used to them and sort of expect them.

Yeah. Um, at this point it's personal branding more so than maybe anything else.

Yeah, exactly, exactly. So you can still search for things by hashtag. Um, so I wouldn't say they're dead, but they don't have the use case that they used to have anymore. They're in a coma. They're, they're, they're, they're sleeping for sure.

Okay. Okay. Anything that a speaker really should know about LinkedIn and how to use it that we haven't talked about yet?

LinkedIn is the world's greatest free advertising. I mean, put yourself out there, right? Don't be afraid to put yourself out there. Talk about what you're doing. If you want more speaking gigs, talk about the speaking gigs you've had. Post clips, right? Not too long. Everybody on LinkedIn has a super short attention span. Please don't go over a minute. Don't even go to a minute.

You know, keep it under. But it's, it's free marketing. Don't be afraid to do it, right? And especially if that's a path that you wanna get more traction on, keep talking about it.

So how can people find you and follow you and learn about LinkedIn and all the things that you're doing?

Well, you can follow me on LinkedIn, of course, um, Melissa Cohen. And then, uh, my website is Melissa Beth Cohen.

Com. I love it. Thank you so much for being here. I could talk to you all day and would love to. Well, anytime. Um, everybody that's listening, thank you so much for hanging out with us and come back next week for another My First Stage Story.