Building a personal brand on LinkedIn is important because it establishes your professional identity, showcases expertise, and fosters connections with a relevant audience.
In this episode, Olga provides detailed insights on;
Name: Olga Andrienko
What she Does: VP of Brand Marketing at Semrush
Company: Semrush
Noteworthy: She is a judge of UK and EU Content Awards, and US Social Media & Communication Awards. She also has 10+ years of experience including brand building, brand management, audience retention, demand generation, advertising, and marketing in both B2B and B2C, private and public companies.
💡The Importance of Personal Branding
Olga Andrienko discusses the significance of personal branding as a powerful tool, regardless of one’s career stage. She elaborates on how building a personal brand can amplify skills and knowledge, attract the right audience, and even open opportunities for lead generation, career transitions, and business growth.
💡Overcoming Imposter Syndrome and Engaging Authentically.
Olga addresses the common challenge of imposter syndrome and explains how it holds many back from actively engaging on platforms like LinkedIn.
She offers actionable advice to overcome this obstacle by exploring others’ posts and expanding one’s network. Olga suggests that by identifying content that resonates and adding unique value, individuals can recognize their own expertise and contributions.
💡Strategies for Effective LinkedIn Profiles.
Olga discusses how to create a compelling LinkedIn profile that resonates with your personal brand. She provides detailed insights on optimizing profile elements such as the profile picture, background image, headline, about section, and featured section.
She emphasizes the importance of aligning your online presence with your real-life persona, tone of voice, passions, and values to establish authenticity.
💡Crafting Captivating Titles and Hooks.
Olga discusses the significance of crafting compelling titles and hooks to grab the reader’s attention and encourage them to read the content. She acknowledges the challenge of using clickbait titles and doesn’t recommend it.
However, she recognizes their effectiveness in stopping users from scrolling and reading the content. Olga shares her strategy of using intriguing hooks that make readers curious to know more about the content.
💡Choosing Effective Content Types
Olga discusses different content types that work well on LinkedIn. She suggests that infographics, reports, and industry-related jokes or memes can generate shares and amplify your content.
For meaningful connections, Olga recommends focusing on trending topics and sharing your thoughts and feelings about them. This approach can spark conversations and lead to deeper interactions with your audience.
Overcoming Shyness and Anxiety in Online Sharing
Olga addresses the challenge of shyness and anxiety when it comes to sharing content online. She suggests seeking help from a friend to publish the content on your behalf if the act of posting causes anxiety.
Additionally, Olga advises starting with engaging comments on others’ posts to build confidence gradually. Positive engagement and feedback can boost your self-assurance in sharing your own content.
Posting Frequency and Engagement Strategies.
Olga advises starting with consistent posting, even if it’s just one post per week. She mentions the importance of building an audience through engagement with other users’ content.
She recommends commenting on posts related to your expertise and engaging with other users to expand your network. Olga suggests focusing on engagement over creating a large amount of content, and she shares her own practice of posting at least three to four times a week.
Effective Content Formulas
Olga introduces content formulas to structure posts effectively. She presents the What happened-Feel-Think-Next formula, which helps create engaging posts by discussing what happened, sharing personal feelings (Feel), providing thoughts or opinions (Think), and discussing the next steps (What happens Next).
Olga demonstrates this approach by using an example of a post she wrote about Elon Musk and Twitter, showcasing the formula’s application for impactful storytelling.
Connect with Olga;
Chima Mmeje 0:09
All right. I’m really excited for today’s episode because LinkedIn is one of my favourite platforms. And today, one of the people I consider one of the most successful, which is in LinkedIn, and Branding, Olga, I don’t know why I do this every week, but how do i pronounce your surname, I should have asked you this, before I hit the record button, every single week, I make the same mistake.
Olga Andrienko 0:29
It’s Olga Andrienko
Chima Mmeje 0:31
Okay, we have Olga Andrienko with us today. And she’s going to be walking us on how to use LinkedIn to build a personal brand. Olga thank you so much for doing this, I’m going to hand over the mic and my screen to you.
Olga Andrienko 0:46
Amazing, thank you very much. And I’m going to share my screen. Okay, so while it’s while it all starts, I will be like I will start speaking and on personal branding and how to build a personal brand, I started being very intentional about my personal brand, only one year ago, but it happened to I’ve been a part of SEMrush for almost 10 years. So that also happened that gradually that I was speaking on behalf of the brand.
And that’s why I got to grow my audience. Alright. Good. Perfect. So how to build a personal brand that attracts the right audience. And we’ll start with I, I think that most of the people now realise that there’s this strength of the personal brand. But just a quick section, why it’s important before we dive deep into the health, and just personal brand makes you like, regardless of whether you’re employed, or you’re unemployed, or you like you want your transition, you run your own business, it would amplify your existing skills and knowledge, or your existing business if or the businesses that you’re just starting out.
So if you have clients, then it could be a very strong lead generation machine. If you’re employed and just want to diversify, it could be a great way to start a side hustle. Or you could gain more influence, you can gain more visibility for your existing employer and get promoted or they get the bonus. Or maybe you would then in time, while you like once you create a community in the following, then you might venture out and start your own business. So that works for basically wherever you are right now in your career.
And something that so you’re listening to me now, because I have influenced I have influenced because you like when you look at my profile. I like it, you see that I have an audience. And then you trust me more because other people trust me. We have a summer at seminars, we have like 1500 employees. So not everyone would say like if you search for summer employees, you would not even of course, brand amplifies my personal brand. But we have different experts and we have a lot of very talented people.
But anyway, if you search SEMrush employees and LinkedIn, then my profile would show up more. And I have one of the largest audiences so then that’s why for example, I get invitations to speak a lot more than others and I have a lot more media attention and also my colleagues so that is this irrational. What while some of them like well, we’re all like talented professionals but we have people who just choose not to really be vocal and then give everything they have professionally to summarise and well that that’s true for any other organisation and but they will not like have this exposure or they will not have this trust of the audience.
So that’s like, where you amplify your presence, your voice, and then the world kind of sees it and says, Okay, well, we recognise your, your skills. So that’s where like, it’s, it’s easier to grow them from there like for, for me, and for whoever builds the presence, it’s easier to grow to be whatever you want to be next in your career. And I see this as the apple tree. Because where most people fail, they want immediate results.
And if you focus on really big goals, that that would actually vary, that would be very discouraging, you would not be able to really like enjoy the ride. And imagine you put a seed, and then you take care of the tree, and then maybe in a few years, you’ll get the fruit. So here, it will be a lot sooner than a few years.
But still, it’s not immediate. And it also really depends on your effort. So if you take good care of your tree, then it will give you fruit bear fruit earlier. So that’s what you need to focus on is the mini goals, and then some of the like interactions and engagement. And then later, you will be able to really get bigger benefits from your exposure. And in terms of defining your main goals, those are the apples from the apple tree.
That would be maybe again, finding another job since starting a side hustle. So if you start the side hustle immediately, you might not have the audience. So that’s where like you need to start, like growing your presence, but then they go the anvil would be starting a side hustle, maybe you want to have like having firms to ensure that you hire different kinds of people to who you can hire today.
That’s also something that well, I see personally, as my goal, because I connect with a lot of people I hired over the from LinkedIn connections, and I see this as my HR machine as well. And also, I am able to change the perception of SEMrush as a brand, and especially HR brand, with my thoughts, and how I talk about our campaigns to ensure that other marketing people would say we think and feel they want to be a part of my team.
So then we move on to how this is a big section, we’ll talk about the LinkedIn profile, we’ll talk about engaging and also creating content of course for them, for them prefer LinkedIn. So, the really important thing is that you in real life need to be you online. I am not this very. So if I would be talking about the like the future of marketing and like playing this, like a visionary of I know what’s happened next and commenting in every like marketing or marketing tech or any news that’s going to like that one out there.
This is a very strong profile. But that would be not me. Like I want to talk more about leadership because that inspires me, I want to talk about my team about more of a creative campaigns, I want to talk about brands, and I I want to lift people up. So that’s what I try to focus my content around. And also that’s what I want my profile to be and that’s what I want my presence to like transmit.
So also I write as I speak with some edits, but I try to I can not over edit at this. There might be some mistakes, there might be phrases that I would use but might not be like that can grammatically correct but there are a lot of other ways that are proper to say something I would still choose my wording because this is me like this is how I speak I want people to also meet me in real life later and then already kind of like pre meet me for LinkedIn, so you in real life needs to equal your online, your, your tone of voice, your desires, like your passions, your values, things that excite you,
This all needs to be reflected in your profile and in your content and in how you interact. So, definitely analyse your tone of voice, the easiest thing to do would be already like even to copy paste some of the messages that you have and working chats on not working chats, because that’s private information, forget that.
So I knew some of the messages like to friends or to or LinkedIn conversations, or if you already write content, then copy paste this, you need quite a lot of it, and then put it to chatgpt and ask them to analyse your tone of voice in like in 10 or 15 words. So they would describe your tone of voice.
And later you would be able to adjust the writing, because you might not even like your you might not even able to describe it with the tone of voice yourself. But Chatgpt really helps you here to guide you on not just to give words descriptions to how you write. And in terms of passions and values, for example, like I I have like a humilities as one of my values like I want to. So I want to write I then read it.
And then I try to ensure that there is always value in something I write and also it’s not about me content, that’s you content. So that’s something that would not be very, my persona centric. So that’s how I also try to see my content and adjust it to to to like how I want to be perceived even. And I also have, well for values, this is something I really recommend that’s more like deep deeper than LinkedIn.
So I have freedom, integrity, courage, and creativity and adventure as my like for values. And that’s where I everything I do those that needs to have those four values. And even like in my work and freedom, I need to adventure I need to be myself there. And so I identify also your values and ensure that you talk about them, or see any topic from the like from the perspective or those values.
For example, if I like freedom, then my topic is actually remote work. And I really like I’m very energised about this topic, and how to choose your niche because a lot of people also like asked me how how to start out like how, what if I want to change something, and I don’t know what my niche is. So of course, if you’re sell something, then it’s new like it and it’s your product service.
Also something that you something you do well, you might even not realise it. So ask others what you do well, a niche where you where you feel your pet like you’re you’re passionate about so now on now everybody gets excited about AI it’s not the topic if everyone’s excited about it. And of course that’s part of your work that’s maybe not the topic that you actually need to focus on that needs to be deeper and AI can be embedded in this because that’s just a way of doing things that’s not the niche itself.
Your top skills, maybe you have unique experiences and hobbies is a bit challenging because hobbies sometimes something that a cute choose to stay away and relax from work so if you if your hobby later becomes your work, then you need to find something else to relax from work. So and then you no longer enjoy the thing that you chose as hobby because now like you have to do it you don’t choose to do it. And yep, so that’s but those things like those types of things, they just um can make you think of what what to choose and what topic to go for.
And if you’re a case study and something, there is an account of a person on LinkedIn that, like she’s started bodybuilding, and then she started like a really healthy lifestyle. And then now she but she, she ended up in a completely different even way of looking like she thought that she will become thinner and the end like she actually has very healthy body but that she she even gateway because of the muscles. So she talks about her journey. And then now she like she has some business related to that. I hadn’t been team, let’s see.
And she used to be a lawyer. And she turned into a content writer. And later now she also works on LinkedIn, and helping companies with their company profiles. So she, she could talk a lot about how to make a transition, because she is a case study of changing a career dramatically. So think of what you also have, like what stories you have in your journey, where you can show yourself as a case study and analyse your experience.
So any transformations and new radical shifts any patterns that you can identify. And also a lot of people now like ask my advice and personal branding, because I started talking about personal branding. And that’s like what I have is my passion topic. And here is just the example of what like the post that I did. And this post reflects that.
Had that I always learned by acting. And then I didn’t know a lot of things when I started working at sem rush. And this is also like this, this is like my transformation basically in one post that this like I got to a lot of like small successes. And then ultimately I got to very well, I got to have like a lot of knowledge and skills. But I, I was not, I didn’t come to SEMrush with knowing all of them, like I learned on the job.
And also something I like to ask is what would you be doing even if you would not get paid for it? Because I would be building a community. And I did that without getting paid. And that’s because I’ve had a passion for building like getting people together, having like giving them the space to interact with each other. So and that like fires me up. So also think of what you’d be doing and because that’s where your passion is, this is what you need to talk about.
This is where I need to put more effort and eventually like you can build a business out of that. So your LinkedIn page and how to optimise it, what you must have on it what is optional, depending on what so it’s not a CV, like LinkedIn page and CV is of course for someone looking for a job they while the recruiters would look at their page and that’s what they optimised for, but it’s still a professional landing page it’s not a CV is detailed and it’s very much like okay, this is the experience I have this is results LinkedIn page has like your beliefs well in this in about section you talk more about like you in general they also the while you interact with people there so you LinkedIn professional page means that you’re you’re there a lot more as a person than on a CV and must have elements of your profile URL that’s well mine is linkedin.com/in/olgaadrienko.
And if you have numbers there, I would not keep it like I would change to your name, there is sometimes people put like linkedin.com sessions or marketing or whatever, I would not recommend it, this is your page, it should have your name. Also your name and surname, title, and the title can be long. But I would, I would advise no more than like, three sections. So I have just VP of marketing at SEMrush, then I could put like helping businesses grow their presence online.
And then maybe I could put like, grown SEMrush, like from start to SEMrush brand from started to do. So that would be my maximum. I choose not to do it. But if you let’s say if you have like, main activity and the side hustle, then you could then have two sections. There is another mentee I worked with Alexandra. And she had the she she’s she was in marketing tech. So she had more tech consultant. And then she was also a co-founder of a nonprofit.
So she could she put co founder of it. So it’s, I would not recommend the extensive one profile picture, just your face. Smiling, preferably looking at the camera with the queen background. And background image is the image next to your I will see maybe I will Yes, I have. So this is the profile picture. This is the background. And this is a corporate account. Well, not the corporate but the Anna is fully employed by Nielsen.
So she is like she is a Florida branding advocate. She works with other companies. But she like this is her main presence donators to Global Head of employer branding, and Nielsen. So that’s why she has a good corporate background. And that’s her title. I love that she has hashtags for that you need to switch on creator mode. What I also really like is that she has LinkedIn link to her website on LinkedIn.
So that’s great. And also really important part of your LinkedIn profile is the featured section where you also see on us personal website. And that is the link to the external website. But it shows that on is one of the 30 visionary so that tells us that she has influenced so and also that like she speaks nicely here. So that’s a really great strong featured section. And and back to the back to the phone must have list.
So about section is the section where I would encourage you to talk depending on again, like I would have my bio there. And I would have a bit of also informal facts about me to just like start the conversation but a lot of media outlets, a lot of podcast hosts, they just take the my bio, from the about section because that’s like that’s that’s why I designed it to be if you’re selling services, you need to make your about section more about your target audience, describe their challenges, and then describe your services after that.
And in terms of experience, this is where a lot of a lot of people would experience and name of the company, what the company does, and that’s it. Or they describe what they actually were they what they were responsible for but they haven’t they they don’t highlight the results. So, experience section needs to have the name of the company, how long you work there for and key three, five results with measurable outcome.
And as short as possible. Recommendations is something also very important. Don’t expect people to spend a lot of time giving you recommendations. So if you want to ask someone to A recommendation for you design and a pre create recommendation and ask them whether they would be open to leaving that, whether they would want to tweak it or not. And then make it easy for people to recommend you and then skills.
If you don’t have any endorsed, then ask your colleagues ask your existing community to endorse you. And also you now can include up to five skills and about section. And that’s actually a very powerful function. Nice to have, if you have an extensive experience, if you have long about section, I do not recommend while having a lot of this on your profile, if you’re just starting out, but you had some volunteering experience, you had internships, you did projects, back from the university or college, you speak various languages.
So make your profile richer by well by adding those but if you already have three places to work, like you have something to sell, or you you like you work somewhere, and you can include it in the boat section, you add featured, I would not own a state use this. So another profile, I would recommend, just like to look at, it’s very nice. And so this is what we start with, we always see the like the top scroll, so very good profile picture, looking straight at the camera, very like a bit of a smile there. I like the background that stands out and it kind of like coincides with blinks here, and then also the bit of like orange here.
So any you really quickly understand what the profile is about. So increasing conversion rates. So it’s a conversion rate optimisation. And Lucia, the consultant, and then the brand’s she’s worked with, and no, no, no. So she very, this is what everyone would see when Lucia comments on the posts of others. That’s important. So first, like experimentation facilitator and enthusiasts, this is her main key like selling proposition, this is who she thinks she is.
And this is what she translates to the world. Then, really interesting that she she already puts experience in the title. So tested like 20 million users, that’s quite significant. And she also puts them when they experience culture awards, I would not like I would leave it out, like this is already like unimportant compare like to two of these ones, and train a jury keynote speaker is really good.
So I would Yeah, I would maybe leave out this and then have the three which have hashtags. And again, I can click on her on her website. So this is a good start. And also, so she she has the Creator mode switched on, because I can see the number of followers and I can see the hashtags. One thing that I see sometimes, and I’m very confused by is when a person is bilingual, or they know more than two languages, and they decide to cover all audiences and they they just use both languages on the page.
And the featured section has like something in English, something in Spanish, or something in French. And they have the posts that are also sometimes the Spanish sometimes in English sometimes in French. This is not does not work like one landing page for a while should be only one long one language because you’re working with one audience. So if imagine if you follow me and I write something in English, and then suddenly I write something in Spanish and you don’t know Spanish and our meaning is her but just for an example.
And then half of my content is irrelevant to you. So you end up like scrolling through my posts, or you end up not interacting with At, and also the algorithm see that whenever you see like my post and you just scroll away, so that ultimately won’t be showing less and less in your feed, and you will be less interested because you don’t know what to expect, like what to expect for me, whether you will be today, seeing the post, that would be useful.
And it would be in your language that you that you can understand, or you will not figure out like anything of what I have written. So ensure that you have one audience that understands this language that will or just use one language that you speak. It might be only French, it might be like, German, like if you choose to use probably not many of you speak German, I guess. But yeah, mostly English is the universe like English gives you the largest audience. And this is the language that I would recommend sticking to and not using any other.
So what stops us from actively engaging, so once, okay, we build the profile, it’s not enough like it’s, if you have ever built a landing page, or then or any piece of content, then you know that you need to promote this, or you need to go out there or if you’ve been like posted on social media, then you need people to come somehow to your profile. And then growing the audience means like interacting.
And it’s sometimes it’s very scary to go out there. And main blocker that I see like, that also is my issue. And that’s an imposter syndrome. And we often think that we don’t have enough experience, we don’t know enough. And there are a lot more people that are better skilled, they have more experience, they can write better than us. And ultimately, like you end up just thinking, for example, also, there are a lot of accounts that already are posting, then I will not bring anything new. So why should I be writing?
So that’s where like, I feel that like the resistance and a lot of people is not even start because they assume that everything’s already written, they can add any value. What ultimately is the case is that others know the same moaner information, then you do or sometimes, you know, actually more than others, but because they’re posting, you feel that they know more, because personal brand equals influence.
And then you already see someone that is influential, and you’re not so actually the only thing that differentiates you and someone with a lot of followers and a lot of engagement their posts that they were consistently posting, and they chose to be scared but act and then you right now are just in the starting point where you haven’t built this, but in terms of your opinions and what you know, like you can be like you can even no more than someone so exercise that will fix that not now, but I totally recommend doing that.
So for 30 minutes, go on LinkedIn scrolling through your feed and see what posts would like was resonate with you to the point where you would want to leave a meaningful comment not like great post or congratulations, something that you would that stops you and that makes you want to leave a comment and I would argue like that you will not have many of those because majority of content that you will see is some career achievement that has nothing to do with you.
And whoever else is reading that post is just something okay I took this position or change the company and any like the only thing that you can do is like post and then save congrats but there is no value in the centre action to be honest. And something like okay, I spoke yesterday I spoke at a conference about this topic, and not even a takeaway, or maybe a small takeaway that you have a bit of them like value from but certainly Most of this is just okay, I was somewhere I was with important people. And then here’s me on stage.
And that’s it. And educational post, I wrote the Excel cheat sheet, Chad tippity prompts, cheat sheet that you can, you can like, you can maybe save for later if that’s something exceptional, but that doesn’t really spark any interaction. So what you’re left with is maybe 10% of the posts that actually resonate with you, and then make you want to write something. But what this what this will push you to do is to expand your circle, because you want, you want to read more a great content in your feed.
And also, hopefully, you will feel and understand that there is room for your thoughts, opinions and experiences, and then there’s a lot more value that you can bring. So what to write about, and, and how I recommend to distribute. So there’s 50% of expertise, your career path, your input into the profession, that also ties in with, like, 30% current work. So some experiments, results, talking about the product that you’re creating anything about this product, I don’t know, even like how to sign up.
And success stories from your clients, or people that you’ve talked with some insights from the discovery calls, and then 10% of the site hustle, because people also want to know you apart, like from the main topic that you have. And then 10% personal life like lifestyle content can exist, I post my dog, I share things that I I want to do this year, and my beliefs, my opinions, regardless of what’s happening in the marketing and tech world. So, but don’t overdo it. And sometimes you can post a selfie, what you shouldn’t be doing this, like, if you are creating content, that your isn’t your expert topic, there shouldn’t be any selfie. Like when there’s like a percent of your content. So serious post plus the selfie sucks, like don’t do it.
So like selfies only can exist, like in your personal life, like lifestyle content, may be a side hustle, but that’s like, and don’t, don’t do it and 80% of your content that is professional content ideas, I think it’s worth just screenshotting what you see here, there are a lot of like, what expert posts is the posts on how to so that’s valuable content, where you walk people through and then after reading that, they will discover something they didn’t know yet.
So valuable resources that you found valuable and you share it any studies and your opinion studies. And also your opinion on trends and news made Can you can post professional jokes and memes well if you’re marketing you can post publish something in marketing and or you can reshare sometimes, but I would not encourage sharing too much. And opinion post that’s not like on trends and news.
But your opinion whether like gated content is great or gated content is not great. You’re well so it’s a it’s not that like regardless of like it’s about evergreen things in your niche as a result of your work predictions that would be very popular starting from November for like 2024 but you can do predictions for the for this year for second half the year. And you look professional habits like I do not wake up at 5am So I like I have never woke because I work with United States. I don’t want I live in Europe, I need to shoot my day.
So that would be like my post of unusual professional habit where everyone is having the stereotype that you need to be like a 5am club person act to succeed you don’t. So anything for professional journey, analysing and branding your niche so for example, like Again I will have marketing examples but if Barbie launch and and how they successfully utilise the Copart and CO marketing in there.
So that would be like analysis of how Barbie wants a successful movie. Anything that helps you on your journey books, podcasts, how you learn, who inspires you like, top five female leaders that helped me grow my career and maybe setting a challenge. So I will wake up at 5am. Like, for a week, like, let’s see what changes. And maybe also like, I used $1,000, on ads on this platform, here’s what I got. I wrote ads with creator, I wrote ads with the word copywriter, I will as much as your party, here is what works best clients’ stories, find feedback, this is very good. Like, if you have feedback, then don’t be shy to publish it. This is endorsement.
Like people see that, okay, they have clients, clients are happy, I might go and order services from them. If you are in an interview process, and there was like a gap for half a year in your career that everyone is asking about, then write a post about it. And lifestyle content, I had a post with dogs and leadership and what my dog taught me about leadership. So it’s actually my, like, professional topic, because I need 30 people. So I then, but that’s like, still my life. And people see our eye cleaned in, in another area.
And so success formula, my problem solution and results. That is if you write about your clients, so they had a problem, it’s not you, you are here, they had a problem. They were like finding a solution, then your product, you are the helper. And then because you came in, they had x result. Writing Tips, I know that we are a bit over time, so I will try to speed things up. So formula for any post that I like to do this is this is a bit of like, maybe difficult to process at first.
But so formulas N equals what happened, what I feel what I think about it, what happens next. So yesterday, I published the post about Elon Musk, and how I actually think that all people that say that Twitter will be dead, like in six months are wrong. So what happened, there is negative feedback, or there’s negative like comments about X, Twitter and Elon Musk, what I feel about it, like I feel and what I think about it also is I shared that we will, there was a bit of like a hyper hypocrisy and that I see because everyone thinks everyone’s tears make mistakes, they courage to break things.
And then there’s a lot like this narrative of okay, like, don’t be don’t be afraid just go for it go for your success. And at the same time, people criticise a lot when they don’t disagree with the person or they don’t want them to succeed. So that’s what I kind of put there. So I think that those people like have no clue. And what I feel that it’s like it’s not right to, to like label and share negative opinions because they don’t control what happens next only even controls what happens next. So and then actually, what I then what what happens next, I’m excited to see him like break things, test and so on.
So it’s it’s this formula, we’re more like an opinion post but it can be applied to anything. And most of the most of the posts they have like what happens, like what happened, what happens next? And without feelings and think in thoughts. This is just empty content. So my post yesterday, it got like 30 Plus comments, because people could resonate a lot more with your thoughts and feelings and that makes li makes Is any content personal right away so that we all recovered. And also title, the title and hook in the title is super important.
So I actually don’t personally enjoy it that much. And it’s the sad truth because sometimes I don’t like posting this, like click Beatty things. Yesterday, I, for example, wrote like negative comments about X, Twitter and musk, and most of them wrong. And here’s why. And this is more like, this is a hook most of them around. And here’s why people continue reading further. So the goal of title hook is to ensure that people just stop scrolling and read your content that we covered already.
So this is most important make people stop scrolling and read this few seconds to take the screenshot because we skip that, but I think you have the recording. So you can check that further. So how often to post, I know that it’s, it’s, it can sound overwhelming, I post four times a week, like three minimum. But start with one like, it doesn’t matter. If you don’t have the audience. It matters a lot more than you go and comment on the posts of others, and then create your own content because you don’t like pick no, nobody will see your content because you don’t have the audience.
So go and engage. And don’t be so focused on creating a lot of content because like it well, you can can help those in drafts. And one post will be definitely enough within the week. Just a bit of water. If you have any any big announcements, I would recommend going with posts that has a big probability to get more engagement. So this one, this is one of my most successful posts. And after that, I published my workshop on personal branding announcement. So that post pushed my announcement as well. content calendar, choose hashtags that you work with, label the days.
And then this is what I have, like for this week, for example, like I still need, I still need to work for example, in this, maybe I just skip it, because I need to write this and I’m already in this week. And this is like where you put the status. So I just have something as easy as like Word doc, you don’t have to have a fancy calendar. And growing your network, I’m finishing already with my content. So you the more you engage, the more you’re out there, the faster your network grows, because also, posting a comment is a lot easier in posting the whole post.
So I strongly recommend going in doing this. What posts to comment on. So of course, choose a topic that you like and within the topics that are your expert topics. And and choose people with a decent following, but do not go with like to the top voices. And if you aim to, like, well comment, like if you like a certain creator, then sign up like for the like notifications on the new posts, because they all stay like for an hour max after publishing. So you would then go and be one of the first ones to comment.
But I would not recommend aiming for like big profiles at first, you just need to get in the habit of commenting so you don’t need so if, if the post has like 20 likes and five comments, that’s great. That’s a great post that you can go and comment on. So one important thing is to also engage with the comments that you have under your posts and see if the author engages with the comments that others post because if you leave a comment, but you know that the author hasn’t interacted with all the previous comments that other people left.
Why bother? Like, there is no engagement that you will get from it. So don’t meaning like, Thank you useful resource and like thank you for sharing, knowing don’t do this like, and it’s okay to disagree. But do not criticise, like that’s not gonna go well. And also, comments that are too short, don’t really play well, unless it’s a joke work well. And there is, yeah, like some you’ve heard somewhere that this might be the case. But then someone actually asked to approve and you haven’t, don’t have it, don’t do it. Want to comment on your honest opinion, adding value, so you agree with the author, you want to add something on top of that, that’s great.
Your opinion doesn’t have to be like original, there’s a lot of like, oh, most of the things have been said already. But they haven’t been set in your tone of voice in your style, with your point of view. So if you struggle to frame things, then maybe go to church or PC for inspiration, do not post content from Judge btw, without editing this, because I see those comments. I never interact with them. And I remember those people, and I don’t have my respect. So I know what they’ve done. Like they copy pasted my content, did a simple prompt that doesn’t make Chad to PT work well. And then they just change it. Petit doesn’t give opinion it rewrites my content. And that’s what I see in common.
And that that is really bad. So don’t do it. Ever, please. So always your point of view, this is what actually would like this, what personal branding means, like personal brand is your brand. It’s not just a party. It’s your opinion, your tone of voice, your values, and something that you can bring to the world. AI has just been like generic information. And it’s, it shouldn’t be like a part of your routine. Just like copy pasting stuff. So summarising longer posts. If you have a post on the same topic, then you can actually add up to summarise it into paragraphs.
And then you have your opinion but in a compressed way that you can copy paste and send um yeah, juge use memes that are relevant jokes quotes that would also like amplify or contribute to the ghost of the author. And also my successful comments, I you see that my comment got like 21 engagements. So I turned it into post, you see that the comment is shorter, my post is longer. And actually it was also really, really engaging.
And wrapping up my results for a year when I really started being intentional. So 10,000 followers, almost 3 million post impressions. And we also launched employee advocacy, and now I teach like others on how to be visible. And I launched the personal branding course that is just my passion project. And I have a lot of incoming PR opportunities weekly, that benefits SEMrush. And remember that, yeah, this is just why they purchase they work so well because I posted a lot and I experimented a lot and I don’t see those as mistakes.
I see those as experiments. I always share my opinion, emotions, values. If I have results, I share numbers. I sometimes publish memes, humour, but once a quarter I share my challenges and experiments that I do with my like lifestyle. And also I open up and they share something that doesn’t work. And again, my i Even if my opinion might be controversial, I still be sharing that. And this is my journey.
Your journey will be different. You will not start from like 18,000 followers that were just sitting there for me that I generated During my 10 and a half years, you might be might say start with zero, you also might run your own business and then you don’t have like a company’s brand like to amplify yours, that’s all fine. Your point B is very different from your point A, also an N, your point and your point be where you want to end are different from mine and from anyone else. So don’t compare. Also, if they see I, well, I see a lot of people got not 10k, within a year, they got 20 were more.
And they publish different types of content that I would never want to publish. And I honestly like I, I know I have my journey. I never measure success. Like, ultimately in number of followers. I normally those followers that came this year, they are from brand they are from wider marketing, I had a lot of SEOs. But I changed that to founders to CMOS to CEO. So I was very intentional with the audience, they also wanted to grow.
And so I am super happy where I am, your, your goal might be like 20k, and then you would not be happy with 10. But ultimately, that’s not the audience and not the virality of the post that matters. It’s the ultimate goals. If you want to get clients if you get five clients, but only 1000 Extra photos, that would be a success for you. So don’t be overly focused on also the like vanity metrics. And always know that it’s your journey, your audience and your voice. Thank you very much was my last slide.
Chima Mmeje 56:53
That was amazing. I took like two good screenshot, I’m going to already select to like create content just based on what you shared. So thank you so much for that, Olga. I am yeah, just give me one second. All right. So let me look at the questions that we have here.
Okay, if I if I if I don’t pronounce your name correctly, please forgive me Adila is saying his asking? How can you build a personal brand that is relevant to your target audience? And not just to people who walk in the same industry? As you? I’m not sure I understand the question. Do you understand the question? Or?
Olga Andrienko 57:39
I can’t find this
Chima Mmeje 57:41
how do you build a personal brand relevance to your target audience?
Olga Andrienko 57:47
And well, you talk about the challenges of their audience. So do you know your target audience, so that would be the most important thing, I guess, if you know, your target audience, then write down their key challenges, and write how to content with more suggestions on how to solve those challenges. So that’s how you create content that people will find relevant. Again?
Chima Mmeje 58:20
How do you use your personal brand on LinkedIn to get clients? So how do you create creating maybe creating content or like positioning or LinkedIn to attract the right clients? I guess that’s the question.
Olga Andrienko 58:34
Again, you will buy if you already have clients then without even naming someone, but you can just create your share their success story. And so you need more expert content than anything else. So if you if you’re in copywriting, and content writing business, then you need to talk about how to create great content, what titles to choose, how long the content should be, so you need to show that you’re very knowledgeable.
But most of the most of all, you need to engage. So if you again know that, for example, the the person that orders content and has ordered content from you previously, is marketing journalist from working full time in a company, then you would find I don’t like 2030 profiles of those people, though also are very active and then you start interacting with them and with their content and also choose those who also mentioned content writing and in their topics.
So you also ensure that you have good connection through and again and not only on your per page, but engage with the, their posts. And after you build connection with like 30 potential customers, then you go and take another 30. And you just gradually widen your influence.
And then whenever those people working full time and organisations and content department would be in need for content, they will think of a person who is very responsive. And who also creates content on how to write great copy. So that would be you. And that’s, that’s the workflow I guess.
Chima Mmeje 1:00:39
Okay. Next question. I like this question a lot is coming from our admin at thr FCDC Jadesola. She’s asking, Do you have any advice for folks who face shyness and anxiety when it comes to sharing online? Because sometimes pushing the Post button is the hardest parts?
I think that’s a very good one. It’s something that a lot of people can relate to people who have to face anxiety with like sharing anything online.
Olga Andrienko 1:01:09
Yeah, well, that’s a bit of impostor syndrome that I shared. So a lot of people are scared, and, uh, you you just need like to, I guess, still love. So you can ask someone so you can create a good post your if you’re happy with the content, then maybe you grant access grant access to your, to your profile to your friend, they publish the post for you.
And then you just can’t undo it. I just, well, that’s already out there. Because that person has zero emotions about hitting the Post button when it comes to your content. So you can ask someone for help, even if it’s just the publish button, but you’re happy with what you’ve written. If you’re unsure about the content that you have, then I would recommend starting with comments.
Comment doesn’t have like, that big of a pressure, that’s just like adding value to something that other person wrote. So also, then you will see if people like your comment, then it kind of reinforces like your belief in yourself and your comment, so you can transform and expand that comment to okay
Chima Mmeje 1:02:39
Iheoma is saying, Thanks, Olga. For this training, you’re a good teacher, please. What do you mean by writing other posts, does it mean should copy the whole post and then write it or edit it?
Olga Andrienko 1:02:51
So I would say there is a post that I really liked from the CMO of Pepsi, and the post was about that your job, you make your job, your job doesn’t make you so like, I love that message.
And it wasn’t initially mine. And what I I took that message and some of the ideas that he had. And I transformed it into my post with my opinions and my point of view at it, but it wasn’t inspired with someone else.
Chima Mmeje 1:03:40
Okay, so basically, you can use someone’s posts to do like a POV. Yes, yeah. Yeah. Okay. This is a very sensitive question from Roshni. She’s saying, I want to say something really bold.
I want to do a post on psychology and connected with religion. But I’m afraid to do it. I’m not bringing down anyone I’m making an observation. How do I get the courage to post such opinions on LinkedIn, there is a massive marketing lesson in the post.
Olga Andrienko 1:04:11
Rodney, if you have the, if you have the close community, or if you have like three friends that you can test this post with, this would be a great option. But I would I agree that it might not be the like, it’s a very risky topic. Because psychology and religion and marketing. So it’s, this post might be really good and powerful.
But because you’re combining a lot of topics together, it might be too complex and no, like a lot. Not a lot of people will engage with it. So what you will conclude is that they haven’t engaged because of religion. Just any psychology topic. But the truth would be that they have, they would not engage with it just because it’s too complex to understand.
So explain the idea to people that you have in your inner circle, if they understand it, and if you can put it in writing and send it to them not by explaining the words because it’s different, then, like, proceed further. But I would say it’s just like too many very complex, like entities. So I would just not recommend going there unless you have a strong following that is already, like ready for such kind of content.
Chima Mmeje 1:05:45
Yeah, I would agree. It’s all gone. This anything that involves religion, I will always say, like, only plant a shadow on a platform like LinkedIn. I tried, then I tried to stay away from talking about religion on LinkedIn, because it’s the one thing that can, yeah, that can cause nuclear war.
So I would advise you to, like, avoid using religion in any context on LinkedIn. Alright, last question that we’re going to take in your experience, Olga, what content Have you found works really well, on LinkedIn? I know you’ve had a slide on contents, oh, my god, which one do you think has worked best for you?
Olga Andrienko 1:06:22
What worked best for me might not have worked for someone else. So if you want more shares, and not that many comments, but you want us to amplify the some other posts, or you just want to like grow locally, that would be infographics, some reports, or means. And like your industry related jokes that you find.
So that would be something that would be like, easily reshard by others, you will not get a lot of engagement apart from that. So just likes and shares. If you want to get meaningful connections with people, then you need to find the you need to search for a trending topic, as I did yesterday with gators, Twitter, becoming ex so that’s a trending topic, and I shared my thoughts on it and feelings. And that would be the best content to get a lot of opinions of others and then to connect on a deeper meaningful way. So just depends on what you like what you would even you defined by what works.
Chima Mmeje 1:07:45
Olga thank you so much for this very, very, very impactful session and to everyone who stayed on to the end.
Olga Andrienko 1:07:52
Thank you very much for invitation.
