The opportunities to build a personal brand and business are endless, but it can feel so disheartening when your online posts generate little or no impact on social networking platforms.
How can we increase engagement and build meaningful relationships online?
I am beyond thrilled to have had the opportunity to welcome Joshua B Lee, also known as the Dopamine Dealer of LinkedIn, to our podcast, Interviews With Experts.
Joshua, CEO of StandOut Authority, is an expert in the latest tools and strategies that will help you harness the power of LinkedIn, build authentic connections, and get more clients.
The wisdom he shared will blow your mind.
In this article we’re going to explore three of the ways you can transform your online communication and get the results your business deserves.
- Humanise
- Maximise LinkedIn
- Stop trying to beat the algorithm
Over the past 20 years Joshua has built his career in online marketing including working alongside major clients such as MySpace, and Google. I was fascinated to hear more about how StandOut Authority, which he co-owns with his wife Rachel, came into being.
Joshua: “I had reached a point in my career running multiple companies that were earning up to eight figures, but I was 45 pounds overweight. My relationships were monetary. I had no vision. I was contemplating my own life.
My office became not only a sanctuary where I shut the doors, but a coffin where I contemplated if my family would be better off in this world with the money that I would leave them, rather than me actually being there. As entrepreneurs we tend to isolate ourselves. I knew I had to change everything, step up and share my story. This is where my reset began. I walked away from everything.
At 36 years old I sold or closed my companies, got divorced, and moved back in with my parents with a little under $1,000 to my name. I knew I could always make more money but I couldn’t make more time.”
I felt quite emotional hearing Joshua’s story. He has this natural ability to create immediate rapport and draw people in. He was successful at what he did, but not in a way that he found fulfilling. He’d discovered exactly what he needed to change.
Joshua: “I controlled over half a billion dollars in advertising, but I didn’t know if I had helped anyone. I started to question how to bring the human factor back in, and that’s where StandOut Authority was born seven years ago and in particular, using the power of LinkedIn.
People think of it as a platform to connect business to business or business to client, when in essence it needs to be used for the human-to-human connection.”
Learning to use LinkedIn or social media in this way is a new concept to many people, and one that doesn’t always come naturally, Joshua explained it in a really powerful yet simple way.
Humanise
Joshua: “It’s the same thing that my mother taught me about how to treat human beings as a kid. I’m just doing it online. That’s how you truly engage with someone, how you get these dopamine hits. When we go through engagement marketing it always starts with appreciation. There’s not enough appreciation for the little things. Post Covid we need to appreciate things like our children being able to go to school, not just going to the next room to learn.
We need more appreciation online too; take two seconds to reach out and say thank you when you read great content. Connect person to person rather than just sending a request to connect online. My mother always taught me to give someone a compliment no matter how you meet them. From that compliment you can move onto a question. People love to answer and talk about themselves. Nobody likes cold calls or emails. Ask people where they’re at and provide value that will help them. Influencer engagement marketing is truly just being human online.”
There are so many stereotypes and confusion around what being an influencer really means. It’s almost become a dirty word. From what Joshua has said it sounds like everyone with a thought to share has the potential to influence if they do it in the right way. I’m curious as to why he thinks so much of what we see online isn’t like this.
Influence
Joshua: “Every business is run by another human being but most marketers have forgotten that. People buy from people. They connect with other human beings so that’s where the influencer can share parts of their life to find commonality with a fellow human. Then that person is in a position to listen and learn about the service that you offer. They have to be able to find that commonality and that’s where the influencer part comes in, finding a way to use that in a positive way to build relationships.”
It’s fascinating to view influencer marketing in this way and understand that you don’t need to be a celebrity or have a large following to create impact.
Ripple effect
Joshua: “Each of your actions creates a ripple. If you’re online you are influencing others even if it’s just one person seeing what you share. I teach people how to relate and build relationships that go beyond a simple connection that might not lead anywhere. Building relationships and advocates for your business is powerful and this is why you can see so many leaps and bounds on LinkedIn.”
I was interested in why Joshua considered LinkedIn to be such an incredible platform for gaining influence and building up a profile. People often use it to showcase their career history rather than to build meaningful connections.
Maximise LinkedIn
Joshua: “LinkedIn has about 760 million members. It’s not as big as Facebook but it’s getting there. It’s a search engine just like Pinterest and YouTube. When you’re posting articles on LinkedIn they get indexed on Google. You’re getting the SEO factor across the board. You can post an article on LinkedIn and it will be more visible on Google than on your own blog. They’re just about to start indexing your posts so your videos, content posts, everything will show up on Google. Think about the power of that!
If you’re not posting and sharing you are missing out. The more you can be on a platform that indexes on Google the more visible and better off you’re going to be in this world.”
Joshua has a wealth of LinkedIn knowledge and experience to offer. He also runs an online masterclass that helps you build a great profile, engage with and leverage the platform so that you can educate, inspire and draw in the right audience.
Managing your personal brand online can feel daunting; it’s easy to go into autopilot when posting online and across platforms. People talk about beating the algorithm. I wanted to find out what Joshua thought about that.
Joshua: “We don’t worry about algorithms. We only worry about one that matters most, and that’s the human algorithm; that one doesn’t change; it just evolves slowly over time. You don’t have to worry about anything other than connecting, relating and building relationships.”
I loved everything that Joshua shared and it was inspiring to hear more from him about the power of LinkedIn to build an engaged audience through human-to-human connection.
At Write Business Results we help you focus on building a strong personal brand that attracts the right audience for you. If you’d love to find out more about how we can support you contact me at info@writebusinessresults.com
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