The Agents of Change Digital Marketing Podcast

Like any social platform out there, LinkedIn is always changing and evolving, as is its algorithm. So you’ve got to stay in the loop and keep your profile and content fresh to make sure you’re connecting with not just a lot of people, but with the right people. We gathered some of your top LinkedIn questions – and ours – and went to the LinkedIn Expert, Viveka von Rosen-Martin, to get her answers, thoughts and advice, on everything from how many followers you should have, if hashtags make a difference in LinkedIn, ‘connect’ button versus ‘follow’ button, and so much more….(including a ninja trick to make your headline longer.)

This is a special episode of The Agents of Change Podcast. I’ve been getting a lot of questions around how—or even if—you should market a business during the Coronavirus (COVID-19.) As someone who owns a digital marketing agency, (and runs a podcast on digital marketing), I’ve been giving this a lot of thought. Here’s my take on marketing and advertising during a crisis.

Once upon a time LinkedIn was a very different place than it is now. It used to be that you kept your network small and tight knit, and it was treated more as a ‘connect & pitch’ platform. But Gaetano DiNardi is here to tell you that LinkedIn has transformed into more of a broadcasting platform these days, where you use it to amplify your content. To use LinkedIn strategically and successfully, your end goal should be to have a personal brand that is so big and respected that when you start promoting content or putting stuff out there, you’ll get the engagement and support that you need from your network that you’ve built. And that’s why it pays off to play the long game with LinkedIn.

If you’re a small to medium sized business, you’re probably short on both time and money, so you’ve taken a DIY approach to many aspects of your business. But when it comes to SEO, this can seem like an impossibly daunting task that only an expensive professional should tackle. Well, take it from Matthew Woodward, who’s been taking the DIY approach to SEO long before there was even a name for it, who guarantees you can see immediate success on your own by following a few specific strategies and utilizing the help of some great plugins.

When it comes to digital marketing, content is king. But it’s also difficult and time consuming to create. So how can you create content that works well in both search and social? Melissa Sciorra, who is the Senior Manager of SEO & Content Marketing for SmarterTravel Media, shows us how your content can do double duty.

We might think we know what our customers are thinking, but we’re wrong, according to revenue coach, Kristin Zhivago. And in order to really go down that journey of better customer service, you first need to toss aside any expectations of what you think your customers are going to say, and actually be willing to start talking to them.  By doing this, you get to find out your company’s strengths and weaknesses. You find out the things you're really good at that you want to promote, and the things that you need to fix in the background. And once you fix them, then you can promote those.

Not getting the results you want from your most recent Facebook Ads campaign? Was it the creative? The targeting? The bid? In this week’s episode we unpack a wildly successful Facebook Ad to better understand what works and what doesn’t. Jason Hunt, of Merged Media, was gracious enough to share some details of a marketing campaign he recently did for a small local company that was a roaring success and the lessons he learned.

To some people, Public Relations seems like this mysterious and intricate job reserved for people that have spent their careers making a lot of important and influential connections with big names in various industries and professions. And although that may be true for some in the business, even a PR expert like Dmitry Dragilev promises that you can actually do it on your own and still achieve similar success. If you have a compelling story, you can get the interest of journalists. And once you have that, there are some tried and true strategies that will help you gain access to personal contacts, backlinks, and leverage yourself as an expert.

If we’ve learned nothing in this digital age of social media domination, it’s that businesses need to up their game when it comes to customer service because it is more front and center than ever before. And as a brand advocate and customer experience expert, Jay Baer has seen how businesses can turn an unhappy customer into a raving fan for life, if they just follow a few key rules.

How we market and sell to our clients has changed over the years. Gone are the days of sounding like a slick, pushy, and overbearing used car salesman. As Nick Usborne will attest, you need to engage in a conversation with your clients, not just talk at them. Building trust can come through in tone and word choice, so opting to use everyday simple conversational wording over tech jargon will go a long way in building relationships and making sales. Discover how to “write  for the web” and engage your customers by engaging in conversational copywriting.