Guest Interview with LinkedIn expert Maureen Kane

Maureen helps elevate peoples Linkedin profile. She helps them create more opportunities and visibility. That creates more leads and more business.
Maureen tells her story. She started off in the world of sales and marketing. She went from telemarking to field sales. To then running sales teams working with tech startups. As a Sales and marketing director LinkedIn was always her go to platform. She has always known that it is such a great tool.
About 12 years ago Maureen had a son and wanted to work for herself. She started being a general marketing consultant. Before lockdown she was 50% marketing consultant 50% Linkedin work. During Lockdown this moved to being 95% LinkedIn marketing and only 5% marketing consultant. And this has stayed ever since.
Sam asks about LinkedIn recent restrictions for those not paying to use LinkedIn. LinkedIn are now heavily restricting the number of people you can follow. So Maureen says it is getting harder to use, but is still a great platform to use.
Marcus asks the difference between Brits and Americans using Linkedin. Maurenn thinks this just reflects the difference between US and UK culture and business culture. People are happier promoting themselves in the US than they are in the UK.
Sam says photographers do like to hide behind their camera and really need to come out from behind it. Maureen says this is very understandable, but photographers do need to try and get over it. Maureen says having packages can really help, so you can get out onto LinkedIn and sell your package rather than have to sell yourself, which is harder to do.

Maureen says Linkedin is used to give clients value and build a community. But she does do one sales post per week. It might be subtle but she always has one. Marcus said for a commercial photographer then LinkedIn is amazing as it is B2B. which Facebook and Instagram isn’t. Maureen says focussing on a sector really works well on Linkedin. Send out posts for your niche, use relevant hashtags. And connect to people in the right sector. She says with a connection message you should get 1 in 3 or 1 in 4 connections. But connection messages are being limited. But, you can still connect with more people without the message.

Maureen says that if you spend an hour a day on LinkedIn you can achieve a lot. Send time posting, making new connections and follow up messages.
Marcus says also that business people need photos for Linkedin for posts, headshot, banner images and more. So photography for people to use on Linkedin is a great area for photographers to work in.

Sam asks Maureen some top tips for their LinkedIn profile. She says a profile photograph is a must. She has 5 pillars of success on Linkedin and the profile is one of them. Look like the top dog that you are. Your LinkedIn profile needs to be generating work for you. It needs to have an amazing tag line. It needs to really shine. Your banner needs to be excellent. As a photographer you can feature things like images you have taken recently. The more visual your profile is the more you will stand out.

 

One of Maureen's other pillars is let the other steal the show. So tell stories about other people you have been working with. Maureen says she gets customers by giving out hints and tips and talking about people she’s been working with.

 

You can find Maureen on LinkedIn (big surprise) or at her website

https://www.linkedin.com/in/maureenlkane/
https://linkedinbreakfastclub.co.uk/