Enthusiastically Self-Employed: business tips, marketing tips, and LinkedIn tips for coaches, consultants, speakers, authors, solopreneurs & small business owners
Enthusiastically Self-Employed is designed for you if you’re self-employed as a coach, consultant, speaker, author, solopreneur, or small business owner. Listen in for business, marketing, and LinkedIn tips, sprinkled in with stories along the way.
Listen to Enthusiastically Self-Employed for education and insights to help you to be successful and support the love you have of your business, while also supporting your bottom line. That means growing your revenue, reducing your expenses, and optimizing your processes.
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Enthusiastically Self-Employed: business tips, marketing tips, and LinkedIn tips for coaches, consultants, speakers, authors, solopreneurs & small business owners
LinkedIn for Course Creators CHECKLIST Review Ep 145
This episode explores the strategies outlined in the "LinkedIn for Course Creators" checklist, offering actionable tips for maximizing your course launch on LinkedIn. https://www.mellermarketing.com/linkedin-for-course-creators
00:00 Introduction to LinkedIn for Course Creators
00:25 Background and Course Overview
01:36 Tip 1: Promote in Your Header and Headline
05:32 Tip 2: Utilize Custom Links
07:10 Tip 3: Add to Your Experience Section
08:40 Tip 4: Announce Your New Role
09:51 Tip 5: Set an Away Message
12:12 Tip 6: Connect with Webinar Registrants
14:32 Tip 7: Encourage Social Sharing
16:54 Conclusion and Final Thoughts
If you have downloaded this checklist, send me a LinkedIn DM to let me know if you found it helpful!
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My name is Brenda Meller. I'm a LinkedIn coach, consultant, speaker, and author. My company is Meller Marketing and I help business professionals get a bigger slice of the LinkedIn pie.
Visit mellermarketing.com
Let's connect on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/brendameller
(click MORE to invite me to connect and mention you listened to my podcast)
In today's episode I want to do a review of my new checklist. It's called LinkedIn for Course Creators Seven Ways to Supercharge your Course Launch Using LinkedIn and I'm going to tell you a little bit of the backstory, maybe give you some bonus tips along the way. By the way, if you're interested in downloading this checklist, if you don't already have a copy of it, go to mellormarketingcom slash checklist and you'll see it there listed on the page. All right, so a little bit of background here. Right now I have two technically three courses, but really two categories of courses, and one is really dedicated to using LinkedIn if you're self-employed or work for a company. The other is using LinkedIn for job search, and I've been doing online course delivery for gosh going on about four years or so now, and I've been doing online course delivery for gosh going on about four years or so now, and I've realized that I now have this really great ability to take my vantage point of being an expert, so to speak, on the LinkedIn platform, combining that with my knowledge as a course creator and a marketer, and I can bring this knowledge to all of you. So what I did is during my last course launch of the Recipe for Social Selling, which launched in the fall. I started taking some notes down about the types of things I was doing before course launch, during my launch webinars and after the webinars until cart closed and I decided to put it into a checklist for you.
Speaker 0:So what I'll be reviewing today are the seven ways to supercharge your course launch using your LinkedIn profile, and I guarantee there's going to be a couple of tips inside here, at least a couple of tips that you're going to pick up some new insights. So follow along with me. We're going to start with first promoting it in the very obvious places on your profile, which tip number one is promoted in your header and your headline. And this is something that I recommend that you start to do as soon as you have announced your very first webinar dates. And if you're following different philosophies out there, I follow Amy Porterfield Digital Course Academy, which suggests that we announce two webinars at a time. So as soon as you have those first two webinar dates out into the public, you want to create a LinkedIn header and promote those first two webinars. So even if you're offering three or four different dates, only put two of them in the header on there. And what I like to do in the header is make sure that you're giving all the who, what, where, when, why. You know the basics, so to speak, in here, and it is a lot of information you're trying to put into your header in here, but, most important, the topic of the webinar, the dates and the times, including the time zone. Maybe it's your time zone, but the landing page definitely should have all time zones because you want to make it as easy as possible for your audience. I'd like to put both a website link, like the friendly URL, so to speak, as well as a QR code, because that way it gives the person the ability to type it in or just to hold their phone up and look inside there. And, really important here, I'd mention the word free, if it's free Now, I always like to think about changing up my header image periodically.
Speaker 0:If you haven't changed your LinkedIn header in a while, I recommend changing it at least once a year, but during launch periods, it's not uncommon for me to change my header image even more frequently than that. Now, the good news here is LinkedIn will not push out a notification every time you update your header image. The only time people are going to see it is when they visit the profile, so it's not really creating noise out there, so to speak. It's only reaching people who are clicking to go to your profile. So changing it periodically it's not going to cost any additional time or effort. It's really just something they see when they go to your profile. So make sure that you're swapping that throughout your webinar, changing it after the first webinar to promote your second and third webinar, and make sure that that's reflected and that's accurate going throughout.
Speaker 0:Now what I like to do as we're going through the process is, at some point, we want to shift from promoting your launch webinars to promoting your online course. Now what I like to do is after my second webinar, that's when I put the course in my header image at the top, and again, you want to make sure that it's easy to read the name of the course and there's a web link that's in there. You may or may not wish to put the QR code. During my last launch, what I like to do is I showed like a collage of all the things that you get when you sign up, so if it's a screen capture of a desktop, some checklists, a mobile app showing that it can be mobile friendly as well. So it kind of shows a collection of things. I like to have that little collection of images that's inside there.
Speaker 0:Now your header and your headline on LinkedIn really should be consistent with each other. I want you to think about your header image at the top it's like the billboard on the side of a highway and your headline it's almost like the teaser right, and there's some more keywords and information that's inside there. So make sure that whatever you have in your header image, there's some nod to that in your headline as well, as it relates to your course launch. Add to that in your headline as well as it relates to your course launch Now inside your headline. What I like to do is make sure that my headline is mentioning the name of the webinar or the course and it should be doing so in the first 40 to 70 characters of the headline. They do give you 220 characters in your headline in total, but I like to think about the first 40 to 70 is about the first line that follows you around LinkedIn and every time you post, you comment on someone else, you reply to someone. That headline is a little bit of a teaser out there and if you can write this in a way that intrigues people to come back to your profile, that's even better, because then they'll be able to see the header image and they'll be able to see the custom link which we're going to talk about in a minute here. So that's tip number one to promote your online course launch in your header image and in your headline.
Speaker 0:All right, tip number two I just alluded to that your custom link. This is something that you can get to from your top header card. You got to go into the little pencil icon there and scroll all the way down to the bottom, and then you can add a custom link into your top header card which will allow people to click on that link to go to the webinar or the course launch page. Now, make this super easy for people. But let's also let's make this a little bit more descriptive. So, instead of just having the website link, add in a description of 30 characters or less. That's describing or promoting your webinar, okay, so make sure that that's in there. So it doesn't say mellormarketingcom slash supercharge, but instead it will say free live webinar three ways, and it's kind of speaking to whatever that topic of the webinar or the course is, depending on where you're at in the launch.
Speaker 0:All right, and what I like to think about inside here is make sure that the link does include a part of your course name, a keyword or two in there, and I also like to add a little pop of color in the form of an emoji, and I want to use an emoji that is appropriate for LinkedIn. First of all, it's a professional networking site and also it's a nod to the type of course. It is the knowledge that you're gaining, etc. And you could simply use a green checkmark that has a little pop of color. Sometimes I use a little key symbol in there. It's like a gold key, or sometimes I use a diamond symbol, which denotes that this is something of value, right? So any of those types of symbols can help to draw a little bit of color and draw some attraction to folks to visit that custom link. All right, so there's two tips already.
Speaker 0:Tip number three is to add something to your experience section, and what I specifically like to do is add this in as a new role. So what you'll do is you'll go to your experience section, click as if you're starting a new job and put in there course creator at program name. You'll want to fill in the blanks there, of course, and add that to your experience section, along with some description of your program and a link to your program signup page. Now you might be thinking well, brenda, my course launch isn't open yet. Well, I hope you have a waiting list. You have a waiting list, don't you? I hope you do. If you do, then you can just have the wait list, be collecting their name and email up until launch date. If it's already opened up or if it's a future launch, you can describe that inside that description section. But I would highly recommend that you add this into your experience section.
Speaker 0:Now a couple of pro tips in here. I know LinkedIn. I know the way that LinkedIn will kind of push out some certain things, and other things are just quietly added to your profile. If you want this to be pushed out as a notification, you need to set the start month of this new role as the current month. Even if your course launched months or even years ago, or if it hasn't launched yet, that's okay, but put the current month in there, because that way LinkedIn will see it as newsworthy and it will push out a notification to your connections and followers. Now you also need to make sure that at the very top of this ad experience pop-up box notify network is turned to on. A little green tab will appear when you do so. That way, it will be pushed out as a notification. Now, as soon as you are completed adding that into your role, maybe you have a link to your webpage etc. Inside there.
Speaker 0:We're going to move on to tip number four, because this immediately follows with adding a new role, which is to do my. Tip number four is to do a post about your new role, and LinkedIn will create something for you, and it uses a cheesy-looking graphic with some animated cupcake, and it's fine to use that if you don't have any course graphics yet. But if I were you, I would create your own graphic and put it inside there and I've got an example in the checklist to show you what I did with this and then modify the text announcing your new role and maybe describing a little bit about the program as well. Okay, now, if it's not launched yet, just say coming soon inside there, it's perfectly fine to give yourself the role of course creator, even if you don't have a course launched yet, because you are in the process of creating it. Right now, you wouldn't be listening to this podcast, if you're not right. So it's perfectly fine to take that. I want you to keep in mind.
Speaker 0:Linkedin is not a legally binding document. It is a marketing tool to help you to promote your business, to promote your online course, to get some of that momentum generated and excitement for your course in there. All right, so that is tip number four to post about the new role in there. Okay, tip number five is to set an away message Now.
Speaker 0:Now I put a little asterisk in the checklist here because the away message is actually something that's not available to everyone. It's only available to LinkedIn premium members. If you are paying for premium whether it's job seeker premium, business premium or sales navigator or one of the other versions you will have access to this feature and you have to go into your messaging area to set this up. But I personally feel like if you're paying for premium, you definitely should be using the away message. And, by the way, if you're ever curious what I'm doing in my away message and if we're connected on LinkedIn, just send me a message and just say testing your away message and you can grab some of the language that I use in mine in here. Perfectly fine to do so. It basically works as an outoffice email. So think about this If you're emailing someone over the holidays, for example, and they're out of the office, they put an out-of-office notification in and the first time you email them, you'll get a bounce back from them, right?
Speaker 0:It'll say I'm currently out of the office, on the holiday, whatever. So the away message works similarly, in that it is only sent out to first-level connections who send you a direct message on LinkedIn. This message will only go out once a day to them and typically people only email you or direct message you once on LinkedIn. They don't message you multiple times over the course of a week. It's usually just once, right, and I always let people know that your away message.
Speaker 0:You're going to get sick of it before other people will. I'm going to let you know that right now, because you're going to be like I see it all the time. Yes, you are going to see it all the time, especially when you go into your messaging, because you're going to see the back and forth messaging between yourself and all of your connections, keeping in mind, the average connection is only getting this message once. You're seeing it every single time, so that's why I got to let you know you're going to get sick of this before they do. Now, during your course launch, you're going to set up an away message in the beginning promoting your webinars. You're going to be changing that periodically, depending on the dates of the webinars, right, and then, as you start to move into getting closer to the course signup date, you're going to start to promote your course launch in there and again inside the checklist.
Speaker 0:I've got examples of both the webinar promotion in my away message as well as my course launch promotion in there. Check that out if you need some inspiration, and please do feel free to send me a test message on LinkedIn. If you'd like to look at my language that I use inside here, feel free to borrow it and then change it up to make it your own, all right. So that was my tip number five. I've got two more to go on here. Tip number six is to connect with webinar registrants, and this is something I just started to do and I'm having a really great response rate here.
Speaker 0:Now, granted, I teach people LinkedIn for a living, so we're using the platform that I'm teaching them in, so I'm certain that that has something to do with this, but I do want to let you know that many people are more open to connecting with you on a professional networking platform like LinkedIn than they are accepting friend requests on Facebook or follower requests on Instagram, where it might be more their personal activity right. Linkedin is more like going to a professional networking event, and people are more likely to accept invitations from you. Now again, if you've got LinkedIn Premium, this really comes in handy because you'll have the ability to add a personal note to every single invitation that you send. If you're using the free, basic version of LinkedIn, you won't have the ability to add a note to everyone, but you can do it with five invitations each month. For the other people, what I might do is go to their activity feed, comment on a recent post and then send them an invitation to create a little bit more familiarity with your theme. But if you do have the ability to do so, I would highly encourage you, as people are enrolling in your webinar or course.
Speaker 0:Go to LinkedIn, look them up If you're already connected with them, send them a message and say I see you're signing up for my webinar. See you soon. Or I see you signed up for my course. Congratulations, looking forward to helping you. If you're not connected with them yet, then I would highly encourage you to invite them to connect with you If you have the ability to do so. Add a personal note, mention that you saw their upcoming webinar registration or that you saw that they recently enrolled in your course, and you can also end with something like let me know if you have any questions you'd like me to address in the webinar.
Speaker 0:Inside the checklist, you're going to see my script that I've used for my most recent webinar, and this was really powerful. I got people warmed up to me even before the webinar and even before the course launch. I want you to think about this how often does a course creator message you with a private note? Right, that doesn't happen very often, and I think this can be very powerful with helping to build that professional relationship with a webinar attendee who could potentially be a course client for you as well. So really powerful technique there.
Speaker 0:That was tip number six. And finally, tip number seven. Tip number seven is to encourage people to take photos and share them online. So during the webinar, I will do this at least once, if not twice, during my webinar, I will encourage participants to grab a screen capture of anything that they feel is helpful to them and to post it on social media, and if they're doing it on LinkedIn, I encourage them to tag me in the post and I always let them know that I will reply back afterwards and help to give them a bit more visibility and reach on there. But I think what's key here is that giving people permission, and what I would like to do in my webinar is actually hold up my phone and I show them. I said, turn your phone sideways, you get a wider view, and I let them know. It's perfectly fine to grab a screen capture. People like to know that they have permission, because we're in a day and age right now of identity theft and licensing and what's okay to share and what's not okay to share. So I like to give people permission to do so and even demonstrate that, and I like to do it at least once, but if not once, twice in the webinar and I remind them that I will be commenting back afterwards, which is the second half of this is when the webinar is complete and the day or so afterwards you wanna scan for any mentions of you or your webinar or your online course, and make sure that you're replying back.
Speaker 0:I always tell people that liking a post where you're mentioned. It's kind of like patting somebody on the head, but I want you to imagine if they were standing right next to you and they gave you a compliment. You wouldn't just pat them on the head and walk away. No, instead you would turn to them and you would be polite and you would say thank you, right, and you would give some type of response in here. So feel free to look at the checklist.
Speaker 0:In there I demonstrate what I replied back to this person, dan, who did post about my webinar and then in that note in this case I think this was the second webinar and I was offering three. So I also mentioned, for anyone interested, I'm offering this free live webinar again and I put the third date and time and I put the link inside there as well. Now I know Dan's not gonna mind that I did that because he was very open to promoting how helpful the webinar was to him and it's a great way of creating that FOMO, that fear of missing out for other people. They might see that post that that person did and they may be intrigued oh, I missed out on it. But then you come in with the marketing on a silver platter, so to speak. You're promoting the upcoming link and you mentioned it's free and you're inviting more people in. This technique has been very powerful at helping to build up referrals for me, for people who come into future webinars that I am offering.
Speaker 0:All right, and my final bonus tip for you is, if you have downloaded this checklist, to send me a LinkedIn DM and let me know if you found the checklist helpful and if we're not connected yet, invite me to connect on LinkedIn. I'm one of those profiles that I have the follow button as the default on my profile. So if you look me up, brenda Meller, m-e-l-l-e-r, instead of clicking on follow, I would encourage you to go to the more button or, if you're on mobile, the three dots, and you'll see a menu underneath with an option that will say personalized, invite or connect, and then just mention the checklist or maybe the podcast here, and I'll be happy to accept your LinkedIn connection. All right, my friends, that's it. This again was a review of my newest checklist, which is called LinkedIn for Course Creators Seven Ways to Supercharge your Course Launch Using LinkedIn. The very same techniques that I used during my course launch. I'm now bringing these to you. I do hope that you found this episode helpful and I look forward to seeing you on LinkedIn.