Chris Reed on how people and companies should brand themselves on LinkedIn
Digital marketer Chris Reed has just left Mig33 where he was CMO to start his own LinkedIn marketing consultancy.
In this Q&A, Reed tells Mumbrella Asia editor Robin Hicks about the most common mistakes marketers make on LinkedIn, who has the best LinkedIn profiles in Asia, and why it’s important to be less English and more American in your approach to the business social network.
You’ve launched a consultancy that specialises in how individuals and companies should market themselves on LinkedIn. Why should a client go to you for advice when they can just ask LinkedIn themselves?
Most people need more than just advice. Most of my clients know what needs to be done, they just don’t have the time to do it.
They tend to be CEOs, MDs, COOs, CMOs of SMEs and MNCs and are high achievers running successful businesses. They simply don’t have the time to manage and develop their own LinkedIn profile on a daily or even weekly basis.
LinkedIn themselves are great at giving advice, I am constantly talking to them about new elements of the product and new things that I could be doing. But ultimately someone has to turn the advice into action, and that’s were we come in.
What in your view are the common mistakes people in the media and marketing industries in Asia make in their approach to LinkedIn?
Underestimating LinkedIn, assuming it’s just for talent searches and headhunters and not updating their profiles or adding visual content.
It’s a sales and marketing tool and when people use it properly they can reach anyone on LinkedIn for business. For such a visual industry, marketing and media people have been very slow in adding visual content to their summary and job sections of their profiles. It’s a great opportunity to demonstrate your work.
People also don’t invest time in developing their personal brand on LinkedIn when it’s so easy to do so, and they have worked so hard and achieved so much in their lives. Yet they are let down when it comes to how their personal brand is presented on LinkedIn because they haven’t updated their jobs or haven’t added content or don’t update or don’t post their own blogs, for example.
What’s the best piece on advice you could give someone from the media and marketing industry setting up a LinkedIn profile for the first time?
Don’t be afraid to promote yourself and what you have achieved, don’t be very English and be reserved, be more American and be open and confident with your achievements. You have worked hard for them and for your reputation – communicate that on your LinkedIn profile. Don’t hold back.
Use all the aspects of LinkedIn that they allow you to the max. Add visual content to your summary, it’s the most read section of a profile – add it to your job sections too.
Really make LinkedIn work for you, fill it up and see it as a constantly changing story that you’re adding chapters too. It’s dynamic, just as the business world is, so maximise all the potential opportunities of it for your benefit.
Also, your LinkedIn profile never sleeps in a global market and if you’re in Asia and working with multi-nationals or partners across the world, or you’re recruiting or hoping to be headhunted you need your LinkedIn personal profile to be positive, and assertively marketing your personal brand as well as your company brand every day. If you’re not, your competitors are.
Who do you think has the best LinkedIn profile in Asia, and why?
That’s a great question. I would obviously say that mine was up there in terms being a dynamic story that is constantly being updated, due to the number of connections I add and have, my content communication, presentation of my work and my content, general updates, the number of groups I engage with, my blogging content and general engagement, as that’s why I believe that I am in a good position to help other people. I practice what I preach.
Apart from that I would say that Damien Cummings [the former Samsung Asia regional marketing director, digital and social media] has a fantastic profile. Other great ones are Miguel Bernas at Singtel, Nicholas Kontopoulos from SAP, Hari Krishnan is leading by example at LinkedIn, as is Olivier Legrand, who is also setting a great example at LinkedIn.
But many others from big tech firms and big creative agencies have no content, no profile, no summary, no updates, no visual content and are really missing an opportunity.
What’s the most unusual LinkedIn profile you’ve ever come across and why?
That’s a very difficult question because LinkedIn pages have a set format which people can follow to the max or the bare minimum. But there’s little room for additional features that would make a page unusual or additional creativity. So the most unusual tend to be those who have used their creative and content interestingly or outstandingly.
This could be where people have a particularly interesting photo or intriguing slides or their descriptions are anti-conservative business and focus more on personality. They could also be those that really use their rich media to market what they do well.
We ran a piece last year on the most ridiculous LinkedIn profile pics within Asia’s creative community. What’s the silliest pic you’ve come across on LinkedIn?
Rob Campbell’s has to be the weirdest, but also funnily enough still on brand for him!
Do you think there’s a need for creative types to be wacky on LinkedIn to stand out?
No I don’t think it’s the place for it. I think your professional reputation, experience and work should speak for you.
If what you have produced is funny, creative, interesting, thought provoking and outlandish then that resonates with your personality and your profession if it demands it and can be presented as such.
You can be witty in your summary if that is the personal brand that you are selling and your rich media can also communicate humour and many discussions about campaigns can end up being very funny.
However I think it’s very hard to be “wacky” and then still expect to be taken seriously in business on LinkedIn. Let your personality shine through by all means, but this is your future, your career, your sale at stake. So you have to ask yourself: how are other people are going to perceive this “wackiness” and will it help your in your business objectives?
Ultimately what you have done and what you can do for someone speaks louder than anything else.
You are the most prolific poster on LinkedIn I’ve ever known. But don’t you think there’s a danger that, if you post so often, you’ll be seen as spammy?
No, because people have the choice to stop connecting with me or switch off the feed. I get emails every day from people who say that they love my news feed and find it interesting. It becomes their business news updates a bit like The Pulse/LinkedIn Today is just from a different perspective.
I am always very careful not to just promote either my business or me, and most of my posts are relevant and interesting business articles that have nothing to do with me. Of course I promote my blogs through my network, but that again they are based on relevant and interesting business topics. I think that my network finds the posts interesting and can help them in their daily business lives or just find them revealing and something that they may not have seen for themselves. If they didn’t, I wouldn’t do it. The fact that people tell me all the time they like it and to keep on posting tells me that it’s a positive thing.
Also, you have to remember that most people don’t use LinkedIn every hour, every day, so they will only see a fraction of anyone’s posts. As your network grows, ironically you also see less posts from individuals as more people are posting. Therefore by necessity if you want to create awareness for your content or promote your services you need to be more creative and post more but at different times to catch people’s attention.
LinkedIn is popular but not perfect. What do you think it could do to improve the platform, particularly with the media and marketing industries in mind?
Well, I think they should reinstate people’s updates on their profiles for other people to see which they’re phasing out. This was great as it really told other LinkedIn users 1) how active someone is, and 2) more about their business personality, which you can really get from a series of profile specific updates.
Apart from that I think that the Company Pages need more work.
You should be able to create additional features or apps for your company page which help demonstrates a company’s brand and work or creates a call to action as with Facebook.
You should also be able to send inmails from your company page for example, and people should be able to contact someone on the company page automatically. There should be a ‘contact us’ tab for each company page.
I also think that the analytics on the company page are fantastic and you should be able to have that on your personal page too. They’re getting better, allowing you to see page impressions for updates, but no where near the detail of the updates on the company page.
Got to admire the chutzpah. Launches new LinkedIn consultancy and within days has articles all over the trade press telling everyone why LinkedIn is great for their business. Great earned marketing Chris.
ReplyInteresting stuff, Chris. Has caused me to rethink my own page, which till now seems to be doing a good job of my personal branding. But where oh where is my visual content, ie footage from workshops and our intro demo, for instance? I’m getting onto uploading those right this minute. Cheers!
ReplyNo criticism to ever pervasive Mr Reed.
ReplyBut my observation of Linkedin is that only losers who are always looking for their next gig by constantly trumpeting everything they do and have just read use it.
Savvy employers have learnt to discount the achievement inflation by half, right off the bat.
Secure, successful and well employed CEOs and MDs prefer to build on what they have. Not job hop.
Using Likedin is like throwing your CV out of the office window to passerbys.
If that sounds like a boss you are working for, quit.
Hey Michael, thanks for sharing, well i have to practice what i preach!
Also to be fair i have been telling people about the benefits of LinkedIn since i came to Asia 5 years ago as it helped me create and win business for several b2b agencies from nothing with no contacts. It does work!
Have a great day!
Chris
ReplyGreat Stu, glad this has helped, sometimes we just don’t use all the tools available to us and especially in media and marketing we’re so visual that our LinkedIn profiles should reflect this too.
ReplyThanks for your thoughts Self Praise but not only do I fundamentally disagree everyone who has been approaching me this last week since i launched the agency also disagree.
Also your facts don’t stack up. There are 1.3 million of the 2.5m PMET’s in Singapore actually signed up on LinkedIn and the rest will be on soon. If they’re not they will be missing out on new business, new clients, new career opportunities, new ventures, new information, new business news and a host of great content not to say sharing great business case studies that people can learn about.
My clients are very secure, very successful high achieving CEO’s, MD’s, CMO’s and COO’s of both MNC’s and SME’s. These people are not to be taken lightly and are seriously ambitious. They also may not have the time or the skills to get the most out of LinkedIn.
This doesn’t mean that they are looking for their next gig but they are also aware that being in such a position of power and responsibility means that they are the most likely to be chopped should cuts come or performance dip.
Therefore enhancing their LinkedIn profiles creates greater awareness of their achievements and their standing in the community and strengthens their position within their existing company and ensures that should the worst happen they are well placed to be attractive to another company. We are in marketing after all where chops and firings and redundancies happen increasingly often for various reasons not all of which you can control.
Other clients just want to me to help them market their company and themselves on LinkedIn to create greater awareness for their company services and create new business, new clients. They may be excellent at the account delivery or management or creative or strategy once they have the business but that is a very different skill set to opening a door by gaining interest through a raised LinkedIn profile, content sharing and inmail for example.
People in marketing often don’t like asking for money ironically, from clients, I help companies and people get in an otherwise closed door so that they can work their magic and close a sale and start delivering for a client. Different horses for different courses.
So don’t dismiss the LinkedIn profile the way you have and I take what you said about people seeing other people’s achievements and halving them with a pinch of salt. We’re all in marketing, brand perception and personal brand reputation is everything and Linkedin helps people with that.
If you don’t wish to use it that’s your perogative but your competitors will.
ReplySelf praise,
I also have to disagree with the point of view you have tabled here.
I use LinkedIn to stay in touch with my global network of peers, whilst also harnessing it as excellent platform for crowdsourcing content that is relevant to me.
One of my favorite apps on my Smartphone is the LinkedIn Contacts app. Each morning it notifies me about people’s birthdays, role changes or company moves, which is simply awesome as it enables me to stay abreast of such important activities with minimal effort.
In the last couple of years (which is almost a life time in the digital world) LinkedIn has evolved its capabilities beyond being merely a ‘digital CV Posting Board’ to become a powerful channel for todays professional digital natives.
ReplyIts really an interesting article with full of rewarding details regarding an ongoing wave of marketing and media advertising. Thumbs Up !
ReplyThanks for sharing Shabbir
ReplyI’ve just been pointed to this post by a friend of mine who said, “you are officially weird”.
Putting aside the fact that I think my Linkedin bio pic is rather cute, I like this post.
The bit that resonated most was when Chris said the best way to demonstrate your skills is by the work you do, not the image you try to convey.
While that would appear obvious, this is a region where title inflation is rife which is why many Linkedin profiles seem to have more fiction in them than your average Harry Potter novel … hence the importance to ensure your profile represents substance, not just style.
Of course I’m a hypocrite given the way I use it, but that aside, I want to say good luck to Chris, it sounds very interesting and I’ll be following his progress with interest … though whether that gets me to change my profile picture is still to be seen.
ReplyThanks Rob, I am honoured by your presence on my humble interview post and your profile pic. Let me know if Black Marketing can help you too!
ReplyThere is a lot of trouble that people go through to put together an opinion or post for Mumbrella or LinkedIn for that matter. My question is, why disparage it in such a totalitarian manner. If you do so, adopting the tonality that some of the comments here have chosen to, you will never be able to enter the debate in a constructive manner. The only thing that will not advance is your own body of knowledge as a consequence.
While everyone is entitled to their own opinion, I feel that Self Praise has chosen to express theirs in a fairly unnecessary manner. I do think Self Praise has a point when Self Praise says that savvy employers discount LinkedIn profiles by half. However that only strengthens Chris’ case and amplifies the need for the services his new endeavour offers.
To be fair to the debate, and the people in it, Self Praise should also reveal his identity – anonymity is one of the things that allow us to be less thoughtful and measured in our response to others. If LinkedIn is for losers, well then WPP’s Martin Sorrell is one, as is Peter Brabek-Letmathe Global CEO of Nestle and Tesla’s Elon Musk.
My LinkedIn profile sucks. I haven’t had the time or patience to think about it. I might just get the help of Chris to help me do that.
ReplyThank you for your support and kind words Patrick, you are so true in what you say.
I also agree that there should be no anonymous posters, why remain anonymous? What do you have to hide?
ReplyHave your say