​Russ Johns 0:03
Welcome to the #pirate broadcast, where we interview #interestingpeople doing #interestingthings where you can expand your connections, your community. #Kindnessiscool and #smilesarefree. Let's get this party started.

We are here and it's another beautiful day at the #piratebroadcast. I just want to welcome you if you're listening live or you're listening remotely, or you're listening tomorrow or another day, #interestingpeople doing #interestingthings, and we have none other than Jennifer. Jennifer is going to help us understand what it is to be a super connector and making connections on LinkedIn and doing a few things that will improve your efficiency. Jennifer, how are you today?

Jennifer Corcoran 0:57
I'm really good. Thanks for having me on the show. I love your intro music, Everything about it is great. I'm excited to be here.

Russ Johns 1:05
I'm equally excited. The beautiful thing about this in the pirates community overall is that there's been so many people that have actually made friends, friendship and develop relationships. For me, that's what it's all about, it's difficult in social media, when you have so many connections, my struggle personally, is that I have this little thing on my shoulder that says, I can't stay in contact with everyone all the time. It just so frustrating because we do have things that we have to be doing, in addition to social media. I know you're very efficient at it, and you've been doing LinkedIn and you're a super connector. What I want to talk about a little bit is, for those that don't know you share a little bit about who you are and how you evolve. To this point, and then well, I want to get into a little bit about the LinkedIn, the process and some of those things. Who is Jennifer Corcoran?

Jennifer Corcoran 2:11
I'm in probably, in relation to LinkedIn trainers. I'm a bit of an oddball, because I don't come from a marketing background or a digital marketing background. I studied English and French in university and kind of fell into temping and doing admin so I worked on a magazine back in Dublin as an editor's assistant. Then I moved to London and try to break into publishing but I couldn't. I rebranded myself as a personal assistant and executive assistant. It suited my personality because I like helping other people. It had nothing to do with my English or French degree. I ended up being a PA in London for about 15 years and that's when I first started using LinkedIn. In my day job so I was connecting with suppliers, like Hotels restaurants. It was really useful for me in my day to day job because I could always get a last minute table from my team or my boss, or I could get us in at a good hotel and I could negotiate discounts. Initially, I started to kind of contact or connect with my colleagues. First of all in London, I kind of started small. Then I thought, hey, why am I only focusing on London? I'll do the UK then it was like, well, let's bring in Europe, then it was Ireland. I gotta catch people, America. I just was like, well, let's just bring in the world because it really helped me.

For example, if I had to book a trip in Berlin, and I was struggling to find a hotel, maybe there was a festival on, I could reach out to my peer and like a PA over in Berlin and say, Hey, can you help me and that's how I used it really. There's a massive PA community, especially on LinkedIn, and they're all very supportive people because most PhDs are like green personality type, helping others. I used to for years like that. Mainly if I'm honest in the back end with messenger. Slowly but surely I started to dabble with groups, and then post a little bit on the home feed, do the odd blog, but mainly as an employee was messenger. Now as a business owner, and I'm a bit of an accidental business owner and my background few years ago, so I slipped a disc.

Russ Johns 4:25
Oh no!

Jennifer Corcoran 4:26
Yeah, so it's fine, because it's all good now, and it's actually this was the best thing that ever happened to me. I know that sounds crazy, but it made me stop like lockdown. I had to take time off. I had to basically lie down for 30 days after the opp just to keep the back straight. I was on my phone a lot. Prior to that I had been using LinkedIn my role. I'd studied social media as a hobby. I had like 15 qualifications in LinkedIn for business, Twitter for business, Facebook, Instagram, everything. WordPress SEO, I just really fell in love with communicating online which probably stems from majoring in English and French degree because I liked. While I was off with the back surgery, I just decided I wasn't that happy in my day to day role I was in financial services. If you know me, I'm not that type of person, I kind of got stuck in an industry that doesn't suit my values or who I am. I didn't know his team, but it just wasn't fulfilling me. I just thought I did, I'm going to get better. I'm going to quit my job. I had no plan, I'd love to say I had a plan. I was like, Oh, I'm going to become a social media trainer. It didn't happen like that I set up initially until I'm going to be a virtual assistant because that's the natural transition. I did that for a few months and thought, Well, I'm not really feeling this anymore.

Then I morphed into a social media manager. I was doing all the scheduling and everything on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, did that for a year or two, and then started to morph into like consulting. So thought, actually, I like to help people to learn how to do this rather than me doing it for them. They still haven't got a clue what to do you know what they're relying on me. I moved into consulting then into training. Then about a year and a half ago, I was just like, I want to do LinkedIn only. It's always been the one that was my passion. I think initially, I had imposter syndrome when I thought I can sell on my LinkedIn specialist, because I'm new to this, even though I've been using it for 15 years as an employee. It's been a journey.

Russ Johns 6:28
Yeah,

Jennifer Corcoran 6:28
I'm like I said, I'm a bit of an oddball. I don't have a marketing background. I'm not about the home feed. I'm more about coming at it from messenger and introductions and tagging people in so it's all about helping others. I'd love to say I'm brilliant on the home feed like you but that's not my specialty, and even with content creation, and I'd love to say I can create viral content I can so I'm more just about a one to one in the back. End.

Russ Johns 7:00
Love that because I think a lot of people fail to understand the power of the personal connection and the messaging and the direct messages are really are really incredibly powerful. You can build relationships and actually have conversations with the messages. Unfortunately, it has its dark side where you connect with somebody and the next second you get a message that says, hey, buy my stuff.

Jennifer Corcoran 7:32
Yeah.

Russ Johns 7:33
However, if you get past that, and you really actually understand the power and authority you can possess, when you're getting your messages in it does take time, it's relationship building. It's not Mass, accumulation of numbers. It's more about mass relationships and building the community, like you're saying in the PA community. It's All around the world, and people with similar interests and goals are all working together. That's the beauty of social media that I find so fascinating. What have you discovered along your journey that has surprised you about social media? In yourself? I mean, it sounds like it's been kind of like you've been finding this groove and getting more in tune with what it is, or anything that you've seen that has really sparked the light in you in terms of social media and making those connections because it seems like that's what really is the driver for you?

Jennifer Corcoran 8:43
Yeah. I think the main thing that surprised me was that I liked it and that I was good at it. Initially, I was I was afraid of it and I know a lot of people still are intimidated by LinkedIn. I remember being terrified to Twitter. I remember think, what are these tweets? There's so much pressure it's To be clever in like 180 characters and I just thought, oh my god, this is too much. I think the spark for me was doing the training to be honest because I just thought I need to get from my job and LinkedIn, I thought I really need to represent my staff well on the platform, but more so at the time, my boss, my team, I want to come across like competent and know what the hell I'm doing. I did a quick little course. I think once I understood the technicalities of the platform, the privacy, the settings, the back end, I was kind of like, Oh, this is how you use it. I kind of learned the theory first and then trying it out and messaging people and I think the first kind of sparked for me was when I got professional headshots. Then when I was reaching out to people immediately I can see the difference people were connecting with me so much quicker. The fact I'd kind of invested in myself and and that headshot by attracted people. So much quicker to my profile. When I was out people accepted me so quicker, so much quicker.

Then I just thought, wow, this is working. Especially in my old role with suppliers. I was connecting with really high level people like the manager of the Savoy. I went for a coffee with my brother at the time and the Savoy just on the weekend, and the manager of the sites of Savoy came back and beside me, I was like, Hi, Jennifer. I never met him. It was just from LinkedIn from me messaging and saying, Oh, can I book a private table for a coffee? I thought, wow, this is powerful. Then when I started to go networking in person, even though I'm chatty, overall chatty Irish people, when I go network, it was hard for me. I am an I am an introvert. I can be an ambivert sometimes, but I am an introvert. Having that presence in advance, having people connected with me, they've already seen my photo they've kind of bought into me, when I used to go into events, I was greeted with hi Jennifer from the organizers or people I've never met, but we connect on LinkedIn. I thought, This is perfect for me as an introvert, it's like a ping stone tool. It kind of took away the icky factor of networking and made it so much easier for me. I think the big thing was of the training, and then just the power of a good profile photo. I know it sounds a bit boring, but I just thought, wow, people are really treating me differently and so hot. It's not a nice thing to say. We do judge people by appearances, and I thought I probably looked more in the pipe. Then yeah, I've got things moving much quicker.

Russ Johns 11:41
I think to break it out a little bit more is really fascinating when you walk into a networking event or you walk into a space and somebody approaches you It says we're connected on LinkedIn. I know you from LinkedIn. Jennifer, it's fascinating because it's actually real. It removes the awkward pause and that quiet moment of like, I don't know, anybody in the room, how do I start a conversation and everything else. It's a great way to start a conversation and saying, Oh, well, fantastic. Well, thank you so much I wrote and then you can have a conversation, because you already have a common thread.

Jennifer Corcoran 12:27
Yeah.

Russ Johns 12:31
The other thing that you mentioned. I know that there's no profiles out there that really sparkle. You have a profile that is very appealing, it's very inviting. Having those elements in place are really making a difference in a lot of people. You just have to think about Okay, well, how do I want to attract people who do I Want to attract in? What's the message that I want to share? I've always struggled with that. Because I have so many different I'm always curious. It's like I have so many different interests. That's what the #piratebroadcast is all about. I get to talk to all kinds of people. It's like, okay, that's a just another element that we could talk about.

What are some of the things that you see changing? I know polls are coming up in LinkedIn.

Jennifer Corcoran 13:30
Yeah.

Russ Johns 13:31
LinkedIn live is still kind of a small piece of it, and it's becoming bigger, and they're gonna start stories from what I understand. What do you see on the roadmap? What do you see on the landscape for everything?

Jennifer Corcoran 13:47
I think like LinkedIn or pushing LinkedIn events as well, they're a relatively new feature and hopefully they will get better in the future and you can integrate your LinkedIn live like this with an event. I've tried a few now. I'm not sure whether everybody has the the ality it's a bit like LinkedIn live, not everybody will have ish. I've tested a few and I found that it works better with small events. If you were having like a small local event, maybe 2030 people, it's good because you can invite them in and then you can message them all individually. I've tried it for a large survey and it just didn't work because people didn't really know where to click to find it. They accepted it, but they didn't know what it accepted. I think they thought they'd like to company page. They didn't even know the rain event. I was posted on the feed of the event, but nobody was in there. They're working on it. Hopefully it's going to be a lot better.

I think when they can stream the LinkedIn live into that event. It will be a good feature. Stories like you said they will come out I have no idea. They're still in beta but a really interesting thing that's due to come out is it groups at the moment, if you're on the free version of LinkedIn, you can message 15 people a month for free, even if you're not connected, so you could be in a group with someone, and maybe there's somebody you really want to talk to, and you've sent them a connection request, and they've ignored you have a way to kind of get in touch with someone like that on the free version is to look at their groups. If you're in a shared group, you can go in and message them in there. LinkedIn, they're in beta, and apparently, they were supposed to be rolling out that you could message everyone in the same group as you whether you were connected or not. That would be really powerful and hopefully give a bit of a boost to groups because they have died a bit over the last few years. I have my own but it's good in one way as a host because they're low commitment because they've died.

I find really great people in groups and I've built my network. I half of my networks come from groups. I don't really care about the home feed in a group and I don't really care if people are dropping spam or links go in and look at the people. It's like you said about the networking. It's the common thread. If we vote belong to the Devon Chamber of Commerce or whatever

Russ Johns 16:10
Yeah

Jennifer Corcoran 16:11
Reach out and say, Hey, I could see we're both in the group, it'd be great to connect with you. Not a big long war and peace message, just a simple thing. Most people like SAP, so I think you could find really good people in groups. That's a new feature and stories. I don't know about them. To be honest. I think that'd be brilliant for people like you who love video, I think only will tell the kind of content that I think the good thing is that they'll be shorter because some people don't necessarily want to commit to a live for half an hour. I suppose the good thing is a minute or two. I think Only time will tell part of me is like why do you have to copy Facebook and Instagram?

Yeah

I think Yeah, only time will tell.

Russ Johns 16:59
Yeah. Well, a couple of things. I'm fascinated I'm kind of the same boat is I'm not really sure why they would want to copy Facebook and Instagram. It's you. LinkedIn, to me is a different platform. It's a different personality. It's a different audience, different conversation, I do think that there's a place for quick one minute videos like a tip or suggestion or recommendation, or an opportunity to have a conversation. It's really one of those things that you really have to think about what your messaging is, on stories. That'll develop and evolve. I did try I wanted to tell you, I did try, I created an event and stream live to the event. With stream yard, you can actually stream directly to the live and and Randall constant was testing it out. You can do it from your personal page or you can do it from your business. This page, or you can do it from the event so that it's going to take a little while to evolve and figure out, Okay, how to position that, where it works best.

I could see where if you're doing a tutorial, or you're doing a some small workshop of sorts, then you could actually do that. You could put that out there, and then note that in advance, so like I purposely do Monday through Friday, it's the same time in order to be consistent so people can find me, however, because I do so much every day. I do create content every day in the feed, that I think I get a different audience than what the algorithm. I would like to expand that. I think stories would be one way to expand that publishing is going to be groups are going to be another way and then all of a sudden stories will be another way to expand the the audience and the reach. It's just a matter of figuring out what works for you, how do you want to be working in LinkedIn, because I know some people that have really gone after big numbers, and I know the commitment and the time that it takes to put that, that effort into it. It's substantial. I mean, it's really substantial.

I want to give a shout out to some of the people. Eric Taylor, Jeff young. Thank you. Jeff said hello,

Jennifer Corcoran 19:34
Hello Jeff

Russ Johns 19:35
Hello to Russ and Jennifer. I put my hamburger down long enough to say hello. Namaste. Jeff. I do that in my group. Then Virginia. Good morning. How are you doing? David Munford. Yes, I know that there's so many people out here that are and Wendy. Wendy, how are you doing? Yeah, for sure. It's a matter of being able to really dial in not only what you enjoy, but what people enjoy having you share.

Jennifer Corcoran 20:19
Yeah.

Russ Johns 20:20
It's kind of a balance. I think really a lot of people, when they're growing and they're expanding, they're getting a numbers, because I have to tell you, after you get to a certain point, there's a lot of people that connect with you Just because you have a few people in your network. There's a benefit. However, it's still a challenge and it comes along with this challenge. How do you manage your connections over time? What are some tips?

Jennifer Corcoran 20:48
Yeah, cause like you said, it's hard because you want to have relationships with all of them. When you've got several thousand, it's quite hard. I suppose it's about being intentional and figuring out who are the ones you want to stay in touch with the most. I'd love to stay on regularly messaging them all. I'm not, I'm probably messaging the local people near where I live. Because it's a bit like managing your home feed, I know sounds terrible, but I've got a very curated home feed. Even though I've got six and a half thousand connections, I think now, I probably only follow 10,000. I've massively curated my home feed, so by unfollowing people, but we're still connected. I know there are good people in my network, but a lot of my network comes from my PA days. It doesn't necessarily relate to what I do now. That being said, there's still good connections and I know why reach out to them. Even if I don't speak to them for a year or two, and it would be fine because we've got that shared past.

Russ Johns 21:56
Yeah.

Jennifer Corcoran 21:56
It's about being intentional about you know who you are. Want to stay in touch with for me, it's probably just more local because I usually network a lot locally when I want to work a lot locally, especially when it comes to face to face workshops. I used to live in London and I moved to Devon last year. Before lockdown, I was still going back to London every so often. It's like four hour, four to five hour journey there and back. You'd stay over and I just thought, God, this is a lot of hassle. Wouldn't it be great if I could just have an hour journey and do that workshop in seven or not. I think it's just about being intentional about what your goals are, who are the ones you want to prioritize? I probably touch base with them all at different times.

Russ Johns 22:44
Yeah

Jennifer Corcoran 22:45
I recently added like 1000 to my network back in March. When all this crazy lockdown madness started. We have a local airline in the UK called fly B which collapsed and their headquarters are based in Exeter, which is about half an hour away from me by car. Initially when they collapsed I was in selfish mode because I lost three trips and I was like oh my god because I was meant to go to to Dublin to see my family my mother was meant to come over and then when I was meant to go to Manchester see my mother so initially was like, poor me. I'm really fed up the airlines gone bust and then I that weekend, I had a word of myself and say, copy onto yourself, they've all lost their jobs. I literally sat down one weekend and reached out to 1000 people on fly, he just found them all. message them all and said, Hey, I'm really sorry to hear what's happened. You want any free training on LinkedIn let me know so. That month it was all me messaging flight B star.I was quite interested in like a fifth of my network is in aviation now. I'm connected to pilots, engineers, cleaners, whoever was really interesting and great chatting to the mall. I noticed at that point in time, people were responding to messages way quicker than before. Because I reached out in good faith, the exact same message you've been made redundant, I'm happy to help you. Before there was always that bit of reservation, so I prefer maybe a 50/50 acceptance rate before and people would take it for what it is kindness are another, another 50 microlights to try and sell to me, which I wouldn't be.

I noticed when I was mailing all of them. They were all coming back to me. I was like, wow, this is really good time on LinkedIn to be messaging people, because people are finally accepting it for a conversation. I know you said they still are the spammy salespeople, you're always going to get them trying to do the sales straightaway. I really noticed like a strong and just really fast responses and good conversations and human conversations. So yeah, I'd love to say I've got you know a tip of how our segment and stay in touch, but I don't. That month was all aviation. This month I'm connecting to like I've been shortlisted for an award. I've connected with all the other finalists. Then I won an award years ago. This is a bit random. I saw that the 2020 ladies were announced, it's an award kind of showcasing women in the UK. I want it back in 2016. If I'm going to connect to all the 2020, ladies, and then I went a bit mad and said what I'm going to do 2017 2018 2019 because there's 100 winners every year, and I thought that's 400 strong women in my network. I'm connecting with them at the moment, but I'd love to say there is a rhyme or reason to it, but there isn't it's just kind of what's going on. Whether it's a local event, whether it's a London event, do lots of filtered searches, find a new era.

Russ Johns 25:54
You got an event coming up to a virtual event coming up and then Wendy says Congrats, Jennifer on first place on LinkedIn. rockstars

Jennifer Corcoran 26:04
Yeah, thank you because that's actually how I've met really Russ indirectly because Brenda who runs the LinkedIn rockstars like just suggested that we chat. I'm no longer number one. I wish it was right as I was an honor to get to I think I remember five. That's how I got to number one was reaching out to those flybys staff. So literally, I think it my percentage went up about 16%. Actually Jeff young who's on this call, we had a chat and he said, How did you do that? Was it a post or was a LinkedIn live because I didn't have a LinkedIn live with two other trainers, Jane Jackson and Shelly else Lego. I said, No, it was just hired great. Just email in 16 hours messaging people.

Russ Johns 26:46
Yeah, yeah.

Jennifer Corcoran 26:48
It took a bit work.

Russ Johns 26:49
We had a question by Gabriel, who's an amazing rock star. He wants to say figure out LinkedIn is still a challenge to learn and grow. What is your about opinion on pods.

Jennifer Corcoran 27:02
I hate the word pods. I think when you even hear the word pod, you think hockey, hockey hockey Boss, I think you're an employee, and you've got a good team, why not stick you all in a pod. You can share content to help promote your company. Likewise, if you're a small company, you just stick in all the associates together, or you're working on a project with someone and maybe partner up for an event, you could create a pod for that. I think if you've all got the same goal, and then it's why not? It's a good way of staying in touch. I think anyway, like you do get, I get people add me into random group messages, and you're like, why, why? What's going on? I don't like those type of ones. I think if you're all on the same page, whether you like you're all the same employees or you're partners or suppliers or there's a common goal, I think, why not? I think the word pod is just a bit hacky.

Russ Johns 28:01
Yeah, yeah. The other thing that I think is along the same lines and it can be good or, or it can be challenging is the idea of being tagged in a lot of posts. Sometimes I feel obligated to respond when I'm tagged in a certain way. Then sometimes it's, I get tagged by people I'm not really familiar with and I don't know why I mean, I'm not really sure what the connection is or why I was tagged. I do promote #kindnessiscool, and I do promote #smilesarefree.

Jennifer Corcoran 28:42
Yeah

Russ Johns 28:43
It's pretty universal. So I guess it's not a bad thing. It's not a bad thing. I take it as a compliment. However, sometimes I feel challenged by being able to respond and react and say thank you and show some appreciation because taking the time to tag somebody, it does take time. It's not necessarily something as simple as making a post or turning the camera on.

Jennifer Corcoran 29:09
Yeah,

Russ Johns 29:10
I just had to do that. What's next for Jennifer? What's your future as we're currently in this lockdown situation or kind of figuring out what's next? What are we going to evolve into and it's a moving target right now. I'm just kind of curious as to what you're seeing what you're looking for, what are you excited about? What can you share with us?

Jennifer Corcoran 29:38
I think for me, like personally, as a business owner, My main focus was helping other business owners. But having like, reached out to those flybys staff, it made me realize I can help professionals and I would actually like to help people face a redundancy. Just get to grips with LinkedIn and seeing what a good tool it can be. I'd like to do that. I'm doing loads of volunteering at the moment, just doing webinars for local networks and just trying to reach more people really. I've just launched a virtual summit, which is going to happen in two weeks. If anyone's listening here today, you fancy that it's going to be free. It's just two hours of learning. It's not too little break. It's digestible, hopefully, and I'm going to be touching a bit on help the home feed groups and messenger because I did a poll recently, you mentioned the poll feature. It was like 80% 86% of people kind of focus on the home feed.

I think your opposite and groups as a messenger, add 6% and lurk in the 6%, something like that. I thought, I just want to show people how I personally use a group, and then how I use messenger. I'm not saying it's the best way, but just so they're aware because even when it comes to messenger, so many people do No, like you sent me a lovely video message. People don't even know you can send a video message or audio message. I think people overthink what they're going to write. We're going to send a quick video or a quick audio message to saying, hey, it's far more personable. I've never heard anyone say, Oh, I didn't like that message. They're all like, Hey, this is great. You could do that. It starts that kind of a natural conversation.

Russ Johns 31:25
I have some Amazing reactions with my videos.

Jennifer Corcoran 31:28
You're doig great! seriously, really nice, because people don't take the time to do them either. So we think we get one. It's nice really helps you to stand out.

Russ Johns 31:38
Yeah. Yeah. For me, it's easy. It's simple and easy, but I'm excited about LinkedIn. I really appreciate you sharing some thoughts and ideas and in a little bit about Jennifer, and it's just really wonderful to make these connections and everything and thank you for being In a pirate now, thanks. You're now in a pirate community. For those that aren't familiar with the #Piratebroadcast, we do #interestingpeople doing #interestingthings we interview and we discover all kinds of information that you would never know before. Thank you so much for being here, Jennifer. So hopefully you'll have a busy week, productive week and we can stay in contact and everything else that goes along with that. Thank you so much for being here.

Jennifer Corcoran 32:30
Because this is my second LinkedIn live so I'm still like, I feel like LinkedIn live virgin. Getting into the swing so you're making me like your passion for video is making me get over myself.

Russ Johns 32:44
Well. I started #thepiratesyndicate. My goal and my intention is to help this year I want to help 100 businesses start creating their own broadcast their own shows. Putting it out there and practicing it

Jennifer Corcoran 33:03
Yeah

Russ Johns 33:04
Is the best way for me to learn how to produce the effort and the energy and everything that goes into it. It's really a process. It's not necessarily simple and it does take commitment. With anything else it's worth it when you get into it, because it produces results.

Jennifer Corcoran 33:26
Yeah,

Russ Johns 33:27
I can tell you the kind of conversations that I have, and the conversations that lead to friendships and business and all kinds of amazing conversations. just like this one.

Jennifer Corcoran 33:43
Thank you.

Russ Johns 33:44
Thank you so much. As you know, everyone, thank you so much for being here. I appreciate you all the gratitude in the world and thank you, #kindnessiscool and #smilesarefree and you #enjoytheday.

Jennifer Corcoran 34:01
Thank you.

Russ Johns 34:02
Thank you for joining the #piratebroadcast. If you found this content valuable, please like, comment and share it across your social media channels. I would love the opportunity to help others grow in their business. #Thepiratesyndicate is a platform where you show up we produce the show. It's that easy. If you want to be seen, be heard and be talked about. Join #thepiratesyndicate today.



Historically, pirate broadcasting is a term used for any type of broadcasting without a broadcast license. With the internet, creating your own way of connecting has evolved.  

Join the next Pirate on your favorite Social Channel