The Shortlist Episode 70: Harnessing the Power of LinkedIn

With over 1 billion users worldwide and 67 million company profiles listed, LinkedIn remains an important platform for marketing, recruiting, and brand building. In Episode 70 of The Shortlist, Wendy Simmons is joined by Middle of Sixers Melissa Richey and Grace Takehara to discuss strategies for using LinkedIn on both individual and company levels—from keeping up with industry happenings, and sharing thought leadership, to selection committee research, and team recruiting. They also dive into lesser-used LinkedIn tools, like creating a QR code for quick connections, using the name pronunciation feature, featuring posts for visibility, and personalizing your URL. Whether you're newer to LinkedIn or looking to maximize social media ROI, this episode is full of practical tips to help you maximize your presence on the platform.

CPSM CEU Credits: 0.5 | Domain: 5

Podcast Transcript

Welcome to The Shortlist, where it's touring all things AEC marketing to help your firm win The Shortlist.

I'm Wendy Simmons, and today we're talking with Melissa Richey and Grace Takehara to discuss how to harness the power of LinkedIn.

Hi, Melissa.

Hey, Wendy.

Hey, Grace.

Hi, hi, Wendy.

Hi, Melissa.

Hello.

Thank you both for jumping on the podcast today to take a bit of a deeper dive into LinkedIn.

We've hit on this before in season one, and then a few times in other episodes, just when it made sense based on the BD topic or whatever we were discussing.

But today we want to go a little bit deeper.

So let's see where to start here.

First of all, I'm just curious, how do you both use LinkedIn personally and professionally?

Just the starting point, like, are you a power user?

You know every in and out.

You're a premium member.

You don't touch it, which I know is not true.

But tell me a little bit about your experience with LinkedIn as a starting point.

Maybe, Melissa, you can kick us off.

Sure.

Yeah, I feel like I check and pop in and out of LinkedIn on a daily basis.

So I use it to keep up with people in my network, see what our clients are up to, see what other colleagues and SNPS are up to, what are the chapters of SNPS doing, kind of things of that nature.

I find that as a person who works from home, I'm not necessarily as out and about as much.

So it's a great way to just see what people are up to and see what's going on.

And then Middle of Six, our LinkedIn account, we're pretty active with that.

So sometimes I'm interacting with our content, sometimes I'm admitting to being the pasteboard hoarder and InDesign on a podcast post, sometimes sharing good news that we have at the firm.

So I'm on it all the time.

Yeah, it's a daily thing for you, for me too, probably a really similar experience to what you just said.

And Grace, what about you?

How many hours or minutes or however you want to quantify it a day do you think you're on LinkedIn?

Yeah, I am on LinkedIn passively.

It's just up in a tab all day long.

So I can pop in and check what's going on related to, I do a lot of social media management for our clients and for Middle of Six.

And so that notifications icon is always lighting up and it's really having a pulse on what's going on on LinkedIn.

It's a very fluid platform and there's always new information being posted.

So I would say it's always up during the workday.

And I would average maybe an hour or two per day of work.

And just kind of keeping a pulse on things is probably what averages out too.

But it's constantly, there's always new news and always someone on the go and just something good to have, again, just like going on in the background.

And that's what I really appreciate about LinkedIn.

It's a very passive way to network and just kind of see what's going on in the industry.

Since you're involved in running or supporting or just kind of keeping track of a few of our clients, LinkedIn accounts, too.

I'd say that a couple of hours a day makes a lot of sense, but not to scare anyone else off out there who might think that they might need to be on there two hours a day.

Just to put that into context, you're thinking on behalf of many brands out there for LinkedIn.

Yeah.

Well, I don't believe that anyone listening to this podcast is unaware of what LinkedIn is.

We don't need to really define it or anything, but I was just at a conference, and speaking at the conference, and threw out a little joke that, hey, let's talk about LinkedIn, the least evil of all the social medias, and that got a bit of a laugh, because it's true, it doesn't seem like the things that are sucking as much of our time and our life away as other social media platforms.

But then, the next session I went into, it was all on social media, really, really great conversation.

The speaker there teed up LinkedIn as not social media.

He said it was really just a tool.

Let's look at it like our CRM or anything else.

And I was like, oh, it makes a lot of sense.

I love that perspective on it.

And so, I don't know, just Grace, since you're so active in social media, how do you, do you have any thoughts on that preference between thinking of it as a social or more of a business development or just marketing tool?

Yeah, one of my, as I was preparing and thinking through what we're going to talk about today and some of the points that I had, you know, LinkedIn, I think that it can be approached as or thought of as this thing that's going to miraculously like build, build your network and this brand awareness, and it will, and it does, but it isn't the magic bullet.

And it's such a complement to other business initiatives that you have going on in your firm, you know, from recruiting to networking to brand awareness.

And what other type of tool do you have where you can effectively network while you're sitting at your desk?

You know, it's just something at your fingertips that is definitely a tool.

And you have data as well attached to your content.

And you can see kind of how your campaigns or these things that you're experimenting with from content is being reacted to by your target or by your audience.

So yeah, I definitely think that that is such a helpful frame of reference of thinking of LinkedIn as a tool because it does have the data that you can use to reflect on and kind of see the results of your strategies and seeing what's affecting, what's resonating.

And also, yeah, building your network in a very, I feel like a very achievable and it's a very approachable way to network.

It can be really intimidating to go out to a networking event.

And I feel like it's a way that staff throughout your organization can connect and be engaged with business development, which I think is a great tool.

Yeah.

And as you were describing that, I was thinking about how it's so easy to throw all the social medias under the bus.

But YouTube is also a tool.

That's where we can learn all kinds of great things, you know, learn how to build a house on YouTube and Instagram provides inspiration.

There's, you know, there's tools all around us.

But I would say that LinkedIn feels like you are being very productive.

You're making progress, like noticeable progress on, you know, networking, marketing, communications, business development activities through LinkedIn.

So maybe that's how it kind of differentiates itself.

Melissa, I'm guessing that LinkedIn is a powerful tool for you as well.

You want to share any of the ways you use it, like, personally, individually, less on the company-facing side, harnessing some of those tools?

Yeah, I use it to understand who people are.

You know, what does their LinkedIn profile look like?

Where have they worked?

Have they been an in-house marketer for a long time?

Are they new to the industry?

Just to kind of get a little bit of information about someone, maybe before I meet with them, or if they are a potential new client, just to get a little bit of an understanding of who this person is, or if it's for a company, looking at what do they post about, or okay, they've contacted us because they're interested in Middle of Six working on their website, so why don't I go check out their social media feed and kind of get a sense of the vibe of this company, and does it seem like there's a good cultural fit between this company and Middle of Six?

So I think it's just a good way to get a sense of who the people are, who the company is, and it can be in a more passive way, and it's a little bit more personal, so it's like you're gonna see things like employee engagement events, or okay, they're having a barbecue, or they are celebrating the company milestones, or they have an annual meeting where everybody from all the offices across the several states come together.

You just kind of get a sense of a company beyond what you might see on their website, or just having an in-person interaction with one person.

So that's some of the ways I use it.

I can't underscore enough how valuable LinkedIn has been for me with the number of meet and greets, you know, the initial research, or even the comfort of just seeing someone's face and getting a sense of who I'm going to be talking to next.

You know, it might only be a two-minute scan of the LinkedIn profile, not necessarily even a deep dive, but just to have a comfort level, you know, those things like where have they worked recently?

Who am I talking to?

Their role is usually very clearly communicated on LinkedIn too, and sometimes that's not as straightforward in the email communications I've had, like who am I meeting with?

So that's a really awesome element that you can do in just a couple of minutes to get more comfortable going into a conversation.

Yeah, or someone gets added to a meeting invite you sent out, and you're like, well, who is this person?

Like, I don't know them, or I didn't, I wasn't tracking that name.

So yeah, it is like a quick check.

It's important to know your audience all the time, right?

So if you're going into a meeting, who's across the table?

I guess that same logic applies to when we're doing a little bit of intel or research for interview committees, that selection committee strategy.

If you don't happen to know them or recognize them from past interviews, maybe this gives you some insights into what their hot buttons might be based on their role or other companies they've worked at, or you can find some connections there too.

So as high level as LinkedIn can be, it can still give you a lot of insights when you're doing that initial research on a person or a group of people you're meeting with.

Grace, what about you?

Any kind of like things that you use LinkedIn just personally to give you comfort or to have a better understanding on the day to day?

I think that LinkedIn has been a great tool for just knowing what are leading thoughts, trends, what is the industry doing and investing in to know, you know, internally kind of do a check of, all right, like, this is a hot topic.

Is it something that the firm that we're working with or like internally, is this something that we should be talking about?

And so it's really I think it's a great tool to just kind of see again, like kind of a real time feed of what what's going on in the industry.

And so I think it's been really valuable, you know, aside from the networking and knowing the background of the people that you're working with or your competition, it's just a great place to know what are these emerging topics that we can either be leaning into or at least be aware of are happening.

And so it's been a great a great resource for just knowing what's going on in the industry.

Yeah, that competitive piece to what is your competition doing?

What are they talking about?

Yeah.

And it's a way to I mean, I think that this industry, you can really have a hyper local focus.

You know, more of a regional focus, but also it's such a great opportunity to kind of plug into the what's going on in the industry as a whole, you know, outside of our region.

And, you know, that can be West Coast to just like getting larger and larger.

So it is just such a great tool that you can scale to your advantage of is there something that we could be investing in that isn't so big in our region?

That is, you know, really a budding thought, you know, elsewhere.

And so, yeah, it's just a great, a great tool that you can, and we're using tool and tool again, but it is a great tool that there's such, there's an abundance of free and readily available information if you know what you're, how to look for it, or if you have a specific plan in mind for how to, like, hold that information.

So, yeah, lots, lots to take from LinkedIn, for sure.

Since you hit on or eluded to, like, the news feed aspect of it, or just the feed act, you know, what's going on to get the pulse of what are people talking about, what's happening in the industry.

I'm curious to hear from both of you or either of you, if you have suggestions on how to curate your network and your, the companies that you're following or other places that you're, you know, so that your feed is giving you the information that is most valuable.

I think in general with social media, that's the powerful thing is curating your feed.

And Melissa, you've shared before that you used to be very, very, very, very particular on who you would allow in your circle.

And that's opened up a little bit.

So any thoughts on getting the best out of your feed?

Well, yeah, one thing, you know, you might meet someone one time and you connect.

And if they're someone who's real prolific, but it's not necessarily someone you feel like you need to keep up with on that level, you can just unfollow them.

So there's the three little dots in the feed and you can unfollow.

You're still connected with them, but you're just not going to see all their content.

So that is one strategy I use.

I have been finding that LinkedIn, obviously, with their paid ads, which is a revenue stream for them, you're getting people you don't follow in your feed.

So sometimes I'm like, I'm not interested in this or the ads.

If I keep seeing the same ad over and over, I will sometimes say I'm not interested in this.

I don't know how much it helps, but that's what I try, because that's the tool that's there.

Yeah.

Yeah, I know that we'll go back to good old hashtags, but you can search via LinkedIn by a hashtag.

So if there is a topic that you're just generally wondering, oh, what is the conversation looking like for design build or CLT?

You can just search by those topics and just see if there's anything that's catching your eye and what the search results are in LinkedIn.

So that could be a helpful tool for just kind of a blanket, like research or kind of searching for, oh, like I never had heard of this firm and they have something really interesting to say and it can kind of take you down a rabbit hole, which I think is great.

I do echo following companies even outside of AEC.

Let's say you're a graphic designer and you're like, oh, I know of this really awesome creative firm that the work that they do is just inspiring and I just want like some more creative non-AEC work in my feed and just kind of knowing what's going on outside AEC marketing, what's going on in the creative space.

So I would encourage folks to yes, like make sure that you're following AEC firms that you admire, that you've heard of, or you want to learn a little bit more about and kind of see what their conversation looks like on like an ongoing basis.

But I'd also encourage if there's things that touch your work that would be helpful to what you're bringing to the table to also follow them just to like create like a well-rounded feed where you're getting a lot of different perspectives that influence your work.

And we don't get to see everything.

The algorithm doesn't serve us up everything.

So there's a couple of things going for us or against us in that way that you probably want to be on there so you see more things and realize that anything you're putting out there is not hitting everyone.

So just being involved a bit more and then curating it by commenting and hovering and being engaged with certain kinds of content will sort of naturally, through the algorithm, serve up more of what you're looking for.

Let's talk about it then from the company perspective.

If you are managing it for your company or contributing it for your company, all of those areas, what are some of the ways you've seen LinkedIn most successfully used?

Grace, and since you, this is your world 100%, you want to start us off?

Yeah, I think that it can be intimidating to develop a plan for LinkedIn or how to engage when you're kind of starting from ground zero.

So for me, when I'm working, like starting off with a client that they have a LinkedIn established, but they haven't been posting regularly, or they're kind of, they're wanting that guidance from us on like, what are we posting?

What's our strategy?

My advice is start small and strategic.

And so what I mean by that is, it is helpful to kind of develop like, all right, holistically, what are our key messages?

Like, is our focus on LinkedIn going to be recruiting?

Is it going to be thought leadership, et cetera, based off of what the overall strategy is from the marketing team and leadership?

But I think that it's so helpful to look at a three-month look ahead of content and starting to get your feet under you.

And you don't need to be posting every day.

And actually what we see is posting like once a week on average increases your impressions immensely if you're posting pretty irregularly.

And that feels pretty achievable.

You know, you kind of get your feet under you and you can experiment.

And as you're nearing like that three month mark, you can take a look at all right, what were our results?

Was there an effective growth of our impressions or the amount of people that were following us?

And I think that that can be really helpful to kind of right size your approach as you're getting getting linked in a little bit more into the fold of what you're producing as a marketing team.

So yeah, I would recommend don't feel like you need to be this superpower user when you're wearing a lot of hats.

It's just being smart, thinking small, a little bit of like, OK, baby steps, you know, it all builds on one another.

And I just really recommend the strategy behind it and really reaping the benefits of the data that you're able to collect and experiment and have fun and just see what resonates and what doesn't.

And you have the ability to tinker as you go, which I think is also a really massive benefit of LinkedIn.

Yes, I hear what you're saying, Grace.

And I think that for LinkedIn, especially when you're starting out, that consistency is really critical.

It will help you exercise the muscle of getting in the right cadence of creating content where you're not feeling rushed or desperate to grab content that's maybe not on the right message or the quality isn't there.

You're in a weak cycle.

That cadence is very achievable.

What do you focus on most to kind of realize that you're achieving the goal that you've set out to achieve?

Yeah, a key baseline that we've been taking a look at is impressions per month.

And to define that, and it's pretty self-explanatory, but the impressions is the split second that some user on LinkedIn sees the content.

And so that is brand awareness.

And that is so key.

And just seeing how content, either the form that you're putting it out as, whether it's a video or just simply a post or a post with photos, you're able to see like, okay, that's a really interesting data point to see what is driving more impressions, what's getting out there a little bit more effectively.

So that's a really key stat for us just to kind of hone the content itself and develop a strategy for, oh, we know that posts with photos get X amount more percentage of impressions versus posts that are just content only.

So it helps hone the type of content that you're developing.

And the goal is that because you have that strategy and that understanding, you're going to get more eyes on your content, which is great and a goal of LinkedIn and a big reason why folks should be on LinkedIn.

I just wanted to share too, I pulled a little bit of a case study just to kind of see how the impact of posting more regularly on LinkedIn has, you know, positively impacted one of our clients.

And when we started working with the specific client, they had about 500 or so impressions per month.

And in one year, their impressions per month increased by over 900 percent just by posting more regularly and with strategy in mind.

And I just want to put that out there that it's really rewarding to have that data behind you and to see that even with a little bit of effort and strategy driven, you can really get yourself out there and the firm out there a lot more effectively.

So just some data points for the data nerds out there that that is some real results that you can bring to leadership.

And I just wanted to share that because impressions are so important and the engagement rate is also something really key that we track.

And that's really to keep a pulse on, all right, we're posting content, is it resonating with our audience?

And sometimes you'll have a lot of impressions on a post, which is great, you're getting yourself out there, but maybe it's not being reacted to or engaged with as much.

And so that's something also that helps hone your content of, all right, like it got a lot of views, but maybe it wasn't resonating and maybe we need to rethink the actual presentation of that content or maybe it just needs to be something else that's focused on in the future.

So engagement rate, impressions are really key for what we track.

And we're tracking everything because we're data nerds as Grace mentioned.

We look at all of that, but it can be overwhelming.

And so if you just look at those couple, that might make it feel more approachable.

And in a lot of times in our work, it is hard to show the ROI.

And even though this actually doesn't lead to an exact return on investment, having some data there, like you said, is going to be encouraging that you could spend more time or just expand that, which does ultimately result in more brand awareness.

And probably that thought leadership turning into your leaders in the company, turning into trusted advisors, which helps people in firms win work with less effort, right?

So that's kind of what we're going for.

Congrats on those stats.

As you were saying, that stat, what popped into my head was the, you know, infamous, we just want to submit this proposal to get our name in front of them.

And I think that would give someone an argument that look at this data, this is getting our name in front of more than one set of eyes.

And we didn't spend 40 hours doing a proposal.

We could do so much content with 40.

We could build out an entire year of content if we had 40 hours.

So I think it's another arrow in the quiver of reasons why we should spend our efforts in other areas besides just submitting a proposal, if that is a refrain you get at your firm for pushback.

Good point, Melissa.

Yeah, that's so true.

Well, if you're starting small, Grace, starting with something once a week, how do you recommend or what would you recommend to other companies about what content to focus on?

What's the right mix?

And maybe that's just such a big question for this little tiny podcast, but anything you want to share related to that I think would be interesting.

Yeah.

I mean, when you break it down by one post per week, on average that's four posts per month, and it could be helpful to start, and this is a part of the strategy portion before you're launching, but develop those good old content pillars of, all right, we know that recruiting is a key focus for us, and marketing is a part of that, supporting that.

So that could be, all right, we're sharing a culture piece once per month.

For example, if thought leadership is something that your firm is focusing on, that could be one of your posts that you develop as a content pillar.

And within those content pillars, you have, like, again, recruiting as the main topic, but what that can look like in the form that it takes can really vary.

But I think that just to kind of organize your thoughts, not get overwhelmed by all the possibilities and to keep those key messages in alignment throughout, it is really helpful to tee up, all right, we have four to five posts per month.

What are those four to five post-overarching concepts, campaigns, and how can we articulate and support those content pillars based on varying content?

So I think that, again, it's kind of starting small, and then from there, it just kind of expands into this cloud.

I feel like you kind of see this chart start to develop, where you start to have these sub-content pillars within the content pillars.

And yeah, there's a lot of, I think, teeing up with main topics that resonate with your initiatives as a marketing team, and leadership is really key and foundational to developing that one post per week that is really focused.

And I think your comment earlier, Grace, about planning out three months in advance, you know that a thought leadership piece might be a little more effort and require some effort from project managers or principals in your firm.

So that could be something in month three that you're working on in month one, knowing it's going to take a little bit longer to get that together.

Yeah, that's a great point.

And kind of related to that, I was thinking about the company page in this last little bit of conversation, but then there's also every individual's page and what they're pushing out.

And I think the bigger your role is in a firm, maybe the higher the expectation is that you'd be putting out content like that.

So Grace, how do you factor in or guide that piece, the individually published content versus the company published content?

Yeah, I think that for the company posted content, it's so helpful to think of it as a content piece that can be re-shared by your leadership and your team.

And when you have a really ambitious leader that is posting on LinkedIn, one, awesome, that's not all that common, that's more of a rarity.

So that is something that as a company, you can really interact with that content.

You can associate the company if you're, let's say, commenting, liking, whatever on that individual's post.

It just shows that engagement and you're fueling each other.

And it can be really, I wouldn't say that if you're starting small and just trying to get your feet under you, I don't think that it should be the emphasis of, all right, we're directing our leadership in the individual content they're posting.

You can provide direction and provide them tools with the content that's being posted from the company page.

But I would say the focus is, all right, if they're posting, show that there's interaction and encourage it.

But I wouldn't, I would not get bogged down by trying to coordinate those individual pieces when you're as a company trying to get your content posted in the content calendar developed.

Because yeah, that's a whole other, like it's awesome because that individuals networks, that just expands the company's reach when there's that association.

But I think the focus is, all right, getting the company content really tight and posted regularly, and then it can start to evolve and build.

And there can be more of that, like direction given to leadership if you're noticing that that is something that is resonating, is a need.

But yeah, I would really encourage focusing on getting the basics done right if you're starting small.

How important is it for company leadership or just employees in general to be more than just liking the content, you know, engaging with it in a deeper level?

I, in my notes preparing for this, I just wrote many times that linked in when it's done effectively, especially in our market and our industry that is so person-focused.

It's a team effort.

And when you think about like the company's followers and then the individual's followers, it's just like, it's larger and larger of that potential for impressions and reach.

And so, yeah, I think that it's, it's really vital for employees to be bought in to the social media aspect of things and to be engaging with it.

Really, the desired interaction would be reposting because then they're just blasting it to their network.

But, you know, every comment, every like is appreciated and seen, and it does help build that reputation that this content is authentic, that the team believes in it, that the team is bought in.

And so it all builds on one another.

Please like and comment.

If that's what you have in you, do it.

But yeah, the repost really helps it expand rapidly.

And so that's really impactful for us as like social media content generators.

Do you ever run into companies that are nervous about their team member engagement, like nervous about what will get put out there?

I don't even know.

I'm not suggesting like in a negative way, but just, you know, marketing can be very, very polished.

Yeah.

Is the other way to say it.

So in my experience in the consulting seat, I haven't had that that pushback.

There is just a total excitement when you start to see once you're starting to post more regularly, and especially the content that you've asked your team to capture, like on job sites or at like company events that they've shared with you.

It's just so rewarding to see when somebody that you know, that's in seat in the company is interacting with your content, especially if they haven't in the past been engaging.

There hasn't been an issue with that.

I think that the pros outweigh the cons there.

I think that part of the overarching harnessing of LinkedIn is providing that training to your team of this is how you can use it, and this is how your firm is providing content that you can re-share, and a part of that conversation can entail conduct and all of that.

But yeah, I think that just making sure that your team is informed and has the tools that they need and has that training can likely help offset some of those concerns.

So if there are internally you're having that conversation, it could be as simple as, let's do a training for the team.

And that could be addressed there and then also help fill the team with confidence that, all right, I know how to interact on here, or at least I can give something to like and comment, and I know what to expect from our team.

And just knowing there's content available for me to reshare and it doesn't have to necessarily be all me that's generating that content.

I can lean on my team, my marketing team, for what they're putting out there.

And lean on your marketing team if you need a new bio or some additional content.

I think that most of the time, they're very, very happy to help.

Let's wrap up this conversation, but with something I always love talking about.

It's like the little tips or lesser known tools, things that we are actually using that are helpful or that we aspire to use someday.

Maybe we can just go around a couple of times and share some of those before we wrap up.

Melissa, do you have any hot tips for us, LinkedIn tools you love?

I don't know how hot the tip is, but it might be something you're not aware of.

And it's that you can customize your URL on LinkedIn.

So if you're a very early adopter, you might have had some like combination of your name with a bunch of numbers.

And now they allow you to customize that to whatever you like.

You could also customize it for your company.

And so if you do that, awesome.

But if it's linked by way of links in your email footer or QR codes, just make sure that you update that in all those other areas as well.

But there's a little tip.

Two tips in one.

If you change your link, you have to change the other parts.

But definitely looks better, makes more sense, easier for people to guess to, if they need to.

Maybe along those lines is that the name pronunciation tool on LinkedIn, I find very useful.

And I know my name doesn't seem to be complicated, but maybe some people wonder that Simmons or Simons, and I can just answer that question for them, because if they want to click on that button, there's a recording of my voice speaking my name.

And I have definitely used that when I'm going to meet with someone and I don't have a clue how to pronounce their name.

So much of the time we're reading things and we have no idea what the spoken version is.

And it can be just a nuanced thing.

It's important to get people's names right.

So if you haven't clicked on that to record your name, do the rest of the world a favor.

I really appreciate it when it's available.

Wendy, I don't want to steal your thunder.

Have you given the tip about the QR code from LinkedIn app?

You can steal that one.

It is my favorite, but yes, you can take it.

Credit to Wendy Simmons on this tip.

But if you have LinkedIn on your phone as an app, there's an ability to hover over the app and spit out a QR code that links to your LinkedIn profile.

So if you're on a networking event, I know that there's conversations about, oh, should our business cards have QR codes, whatever, but you have a built-in QR code that is easy to whip up at a networking event that folks can just scan from your phone from the app.

So that is a handy harnessing LinkedIn tool when you're doing that in-person networking.

Yeah, another one you can do on your personal page is a featured post.

So similar to a company page where you pin a post to the top of your feed, you can also do a similar thing with featured posts on your own.

So say you wrote an article for the Daily Journal of Commerce, or you won an award, and you just want it to be something, if someone is researching you, that you want to make sure they see something that you're particularly proud of.

And so that's another little feature in your personal page.

And then similar to the pinned post on your company page, if you want something noteworthy to be at the top.

I still see all the time recommendations pop up on LinkedIn from other people sharing, how to use LinkedIn most effectively.

And at the top of their list is just put a profile picture on there, put a heading picture, get your title, all of those things, the basic stuff.

So that top quadrant of above the fold on LinkedIn should be filled in completely.

And then you get to see some of those things like pinned posts and the name pronunciation.

That's all right there at the top.

I'd say if you were going to do nothing, just spend a little time cleaning that up and making that represent you best.

Yeah, including your contact information.

Oftentimes, when I go for the contact information, it's their personal email or it's a person's email from their last company.

So if you want people to have your current contact information, your company info, make sure you get that updated too.

I think that's one that people kind of set it originally and forget about it.

Yeah, especially the old company email and they're like, well, that's not right.

It's easy to forget about.

All right, Grace, any last tips or any, I don't know, closing remarks from this deeper dive into LinkedIn?

I would just recommend LinkedIn is such a sandbox for experimenting with different forms of content and really being able to track the data of what was engaged with, what got the most reach through impressions.

And so I would just recommend like, don't underestimate the power of a click.

And what I mean by that is if you have a photo or, oh, you're experimenting with uploading a document to LinkedIn as a post, just know that all of that fuels the engagement rate and impressions.

And so, yeah, just use it.

LinkedIn, of course, you want to lead with professionalism and be authentic to yourself.

But yeah, just would encourage experimentation and trying some new things out because you have the data right there at your fingertips.

And likely your target audience and specifically your industry is following.

So you can really know like what is resonating, what's not, and be able to track those results.

So don't be afraid.

Don't be too intimidated.

And yeah, just have a little fun with it.

Those are good words.

Well, thank you for sharing all your thoughts and insights.

Since you are in it the most of all the Middle of Six team, I really appreciate that, Grace and Melissa.

You are pretty much a power user too.

I see you contributing such thoughtful comments and really connecting with and engaging with your network.

You inspire me to do a better job of that.

Oh, thanks.

No, you do a really good job.

So thanks for sharing all your thoughts today.

Appreciate it.

Our listeners appreciated it, I'm sure.

And I hope you have a great rest of your week.

Thanks, everybody.

Yeah.

Thanks, Wendy, Melissa.

Thanks, y'all.

The Shortlist is presented by Middle of Six.

Our producer is Kyle Davis, with digital marketing support by the team at Middle of Six.

If you're looking for past episodes or more info, check out our podcast page at middleofsix.com/theshortlist.

You can follow us on LinkedIn and Instagram at Middle of Six.

Be sure to subscribe so you don't miss an episode.

Until next time, keep on hustling.

Bye.

Adios.

The Shortlist is a podcast that explores all things AEC marketing. Hosted by Middle of Six Principal, Wendy Simmons, each episode features members of the MOS team, where we take a deep dive on a wide range of topics related to AEC marketing including: proposal development, strategy, team building, business development, branding, digital marketing, and more. You can listen to our full archive of episodes here.