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Introduction: [00:00:00] Welcome to the #PirateBroadcast™, where we interview #interestingpeople doing #interestingthings. Where you can expand your connections, your community, #kindnessiscool and #smilesarefree. Let’s get this party started.

Russ Johns: [00:00:28] And we're back and another show of the #PirateBroadcast™ and I just want to...it's Friday here right now on this show at this point in time. And thank you so much for being here, Victor. You're a pirate already. Welcome back to another episode.

Victor Huiting: [00:00:47] Yeah, I'm a lucky, I'm a lucky man. It's the second time I attend your show so thanks for the invitation. Thanks for having me. And yeah. Let's have some fun.

Russ Johns: [00:00:57] Yeah, no kidding. You mentioned the  first time we actually met. Was it back in 2019? So yeah.

Victor Huiting: [00:01:07] Yeah December 7on the 2019, when yeah, that's already more than over a year ago. Time flies.

Russ Johns: [00:01:15] Time Flies. Yeah. So now you're still training. You're still doing well. You're teaching people about LinkedIn and we actually have an offer for the pirates that show up in the #PirateBroadcast™ today. They can actually connect with Victor. Yeah, and reach out to him and tell him you're a pirate and you wanted to download, what are they going to download Victor?

Victor Huiting: [00:01:42] They get a copy for free of my LinkedIn profile checklist. If people are watching now or on another moment, and if you are interested by improving your profile, just to give other people the best impression and show the best of you, you can grab a free copy of my updated ebook, LinkedIn profile checklist and write in the comments, pirates, then they know that they've seen or listened to your show. But I have a PR company, PR checklist as well. So if you have more interest in the LinkedIn company page checklists, you can ask that as well. So I have a few giveaways.

Russ Johns: [00:02:25] Fantastic. I just wanted to let people know that Victor is here to add value. One of the things that we love to do on the #PirateBroadcast™ is share a little value, a little kindness, a few smiles here and there and make sure that you have a phenomenal day. Victor. I want to talk a little bit about LinkedIn and the company pages, cause there's a couple of different philosophies flying around and. I have a couple of different company pages because I have a couple of different companies. And so the idea is to get people to follow that page. So when you publish something out from that page, they get to see it. So what's the current status of the company page and what's your take on it and give us an overview of what that looks like for people that don't really have a good understanding of what it is.

Victor Huiting: [00:03:27] Yeah, I think they're, I have to check, but I think there are around 60 million company pages, which actually are usually called pages on LinkedIn. And I would recommend every entrepreneur, even if you're a small entrepreneur to sign up and, make a nice one. You can do it within half an hour. You can do it for free, of course. And there are some advantages, but also disadvantages for company pages. The disadvantages is that usually it takes some time to grow, to get some followers. It's more easy to do it as a person to connect with people. So take your time for that. And sometimes the feasibility of content is a little bit lower than on personal pages, but if you do it right, so a personal page and a company page, it can really thrift together. Perhaps as an entrepreneur, you'll think that some kind of information is more suitable to present as a company, instead of a person, that can be a personal choice. And the current status is that LinkedIn did really a good job, especially last year by adding new futures. And the nicest one actually for me is that you can invite people to follow your company page. So promotion in the past was very difficult to attract new followers. You can write it in your newsletter or on your website or ask for people, but it's a bit, not really proactive, but if you have a company page, and you've got some connections, you can just invite them to follow your page. You can do it with a maximum of 100 a month. So you can not just invite your whole network, just in one click. That's technically not possible, but if you do it every month, 100 and 80%, accept then you're, for example, then your company page can grow fairly fast. And even if you have a big network, you can also use filters to search for country, job or company that you can really invite the right followers. Unfortunately you cannot add a message by inviting them and really enthusiastic when you connect on LinkedIn, just to add a personal message just to engage with people more easy and it gets more accepted easier. So I hope really that LinkedIn will add that feature that you can just add some texts with the company invites, that's not possible. You can just send an invite.

Russ Johns: [00:05:59] It would be nice to even if you had a company standard intro saying, hey, this is what we're about. This is why we're here. Love to have you follow our page.

Victor Huiting: [00:06:13] I hope that option will roll out soon. I don't know if LinkedIn will do that, but that really makes it personal also. People better use your experience because they are used it on their personal page. What I do now, I just invite some people and after they accept, I just send them a personal message. So that's of course possible  just by saying thank you by accepting my company page invites and I hope my content is valuable for you, and I hope that you engage. And of course, when you have ideas for topics, just let me know and have a nice day something, a message like that.

Just keep it concise and clear personal. So, inviting people to follow your page is really a nice one. That's the first one. And second one is that you can view your followers. That wasn't possible in the past, but now you can see exactly about who is following your company page. And of course you can engage with them. And of course, if you're not connected with them and they're following your page, of course you can connect with them. If you see some interesting points on the profile or an interesting job, or area where they're living or other touch points.

Russ Johns: [00:07:33] It's almost like you've seen on your profile where you can actually see who's visited your profile.

Victor Huiting: [00:07:40] Yeah.

Russ Johns: [00:07:41] If they're following you on your page, then it's nice to be able to do that. Hey, I want it give a shout out to some of the people Michael Baker's in the house today. Pirates a great day. Darleen from YouTube. Good morning pirate family. Hiett, Sheila Chamberlains in the house. Fantastic. Thank you so much for being here from Facebook. The interaction promotes building of relationships says Michael Baker. I want to ask everyone, is there a question you have regarding LinkedIn that we want to talk about or we want to bring up? And Michael Baker says common interests, unity and Sheila says, thanks. You're welcome. I love that you're here. Thank you Sheila, for being here. Is there a question that you have Victor that comes up over and over. Is there a theme in that question from a LinkedIn trainer?

Victor Huiting: [00:08:48] Yeah. I'm a LinkedIn specialist. I improve profiles and I provide training sometimes offline, but usually online these days through video, which saves me a lot of traveling time. So it has really benefits. And of course, I get a lot of questions also from our website and LinkedIn of course. Sure. There are a lot of technical questions, reports, questions, for example, do I need a premium account? Yes or no? It's really a common question. And what type of premium and how much does it cost and what are the benefits? So I get a lot of questions about premium like sales navigator or other packages.

Russ Johns: [00:09:25] There is a difference between premium and sales navigator.

Victor Huiting: [00:09:32] Yeah, actually you have premium is actually the name of their page subscription model of LinkedIn. So when you say that, when you see the yellow Gold LinkedIn logo on somebody's profile, then they are paid customer of LinkedIn. And yeah, it really depends if you need that. Yes or no. And sales navigator is one of the premium types. So we have business, plus you have career and you have sales navigator and some more sales navigators, one of the most popular ones, which suits both for prospecting and lead generation. So a lot of sales professionals use stats and commercial entrepreneurs.

Russ Johns: [00:10:14] That's my favorite. I don't have a premium account, but I have sales navigator.

Victor Huiting: [00:10:22] Oh yeah. Yeah. And do you use it every day or where do you use it for?

Russ Johns: [00:10:27] Yeah, I use it all  the time. I use it because I have clients that need to connect with certain people. And it's an interesting model because one of the services that I've had over the years is I'm a connector. I have lots of connections and I love the idea of being able to do introductions. So some of the part of my business has been providing introductions and starting conversations between people and business owners and helping them help helping them along the journey of getting comfortable with reaching out, having that conversation and engaging with people on LinkedIn. And other platforms as well.

Victor Huiting: [00:11:14] Okay. That's very nice. Yeah. Yeah. I also get questions about how many times a week do you have to publish on LinkedIn? What are the best days and times also got some questions about that. And what type of content does work best at the moment? How do I apply for LinkedIn live, which is still not rolled out. We're still waiting.

Russ Johns: [00:11:38] What's the quickest way I can get linkedIn live?

Victor Huiting: [00:11:41] Yeah, you can apply for, but you have to be lucky. You can apply, but it doesn't mean that you will get it. So it's still a surprise. Yeah, yeah. Still a few people have access to LinkedIn live, which is really interesting to engage with other people just on that fairly interactive way. Yeah, I get the questions about sales navigator, about the value of a complete and compelling profile. What are the pros? What are the cons, questions about security. How do I secure my profile better? What is correct? Restrictions of a strong password or extra verification methods, all kinds of things.

Russ Johns: [00:12:27] What about advertising? Let's talk about advertising.

Victor Huiting: [00:12:31] Okay. Yeah. A question from Sheila. Yeah, you can advertise on LinkedIn with actually different goals. For example brand awareness. That could be a goal especially if you just want people get to know you better, want to recognize your brand or your logo. Don't expect, my experience, don't expect any really specific results like leads from that, but it's the first touch point of a customer journey. So it's really fashionable on, especially a longterm and most clients of mine are hiring me to advertise on LinkedIn, just pay cost per click, you can do it on Google, Facebook and LinkedIn as well, cost per click. And you can just target very specifically on area postal code, gender, education level, all kinds of stuff. So pro of advertising is really that you can target with a laser focus, especially if we focused on the niche markets You can set up just a fast amount money, you can pay per click or per day or per week or in total. And you have a dashboard when you can collect those data. And yeah, it can add value, depending on your budget, of course, but also on your goal. So if it's needed, it's really hard to say yes or no. It really depends. Of course you can always try it with a low budget just to experience.

Russ Johns: [00:14:11] The thing that I think about advertising and marketing in general is make sure that you have a goal in mind, make sure that you have a metric that you can actually look at and reflect on and say, okay, what is actually taking place? Because if you can reach out and know exactly okay, if out of a hundred people, if I spend this much to reach out and connect with them, and my return on this investment is X, Y, and Z. Then I know how much I need to spend in order to get the return. And as long as you can duplicate that and scale it and grow it, then you can measure it and make progress. And it's really great to be able to do that.

Victor Huiting: [00:15:02] Yeah. Especially if LinkedIn advertising is interesting. If you focus on the B2B marketer, of course, make sure that your goals are clear and that your customer, that you know their wishes . Do some investigation first before you start or have a look about how competitors are doing that, do they really advertise on LinkedIn? Sometimes you can check that. Yeah. Do your homework first? Yeah. Yeah.

Russ Johns: [00:15:34] So how did you,Victor, and I know that we talked about this a little bit, but it's been a while. What presented, what possessed you and what triggered you to become a LinkedIn trainer?

Victor Huiting: [00:15:49] For me personally, because I think it's the best platform there is. I like LinkedIn the most. If you compare it to other social media, I'm really a specialist. I'm not doing anything with Facebook or Instagram. And it's the way about how people communicate about that. It's usually B2B focused. It's dynamic. It's really, changing a lot. Yeah.

Russ Johns: [00:16:18] You just found your groove and you kept going.

Victor Huiting: [00:16:24] Yeah. And I really have really a nicer time new people find me through a website. And of course these times, which we are challenging now. It can be tough for some people. But for me, I'm the lucky ones who have now the benefits of that, because it's really hard to network personally. There are no compass or core courses you can face it. So sales people and sales people, usually don't like to cold call. There are some exceptions, but that's really tough. So how do you generate leads? And LinkedIn is one of the places how you can get in touch with your network, grow your network and generate leads. So that's one of the most common questions.

Russ Johns: [00:17:11] That's almost the exclusive funnel that I've had for growing the #PirateBroadcast™, 354 episodes later.

Victor Huiting: [00:17:20] Wow. Amazing.

Russ Johns: [00:17:21] And it's still growing.

Victor Huiting: [00:17:23] Yeah. Yeah,.

Russ Johns: [00:17:25] And it's showing up. I want to ask Michael Baker says something here. I liked LinkedIn for making connections with others on professional level to work with and collaborate on future endeavors, network connections. I use LinkedIn the most, a savior, Michael. I'm a huge advocate of LinkedIn. I'm a huge fan of LinkedIn and I've been on LinkedIn since 2005. And then do advertising and content for Facebook and Instagram. Do advertising. I'm not sure what you're are you saying. Is that what you do, Michael or I'm not sure what...

Victor Huiting: [00:18:09] Is that one of your activities, Michael, or do we have a question about advertising or perhaps you, can you clarify a little bit? Yeah. He'll be in touch.

Russ Johns: [00:18:21] Yeah. Yeah. But the really the interesting thing that I love is the amount of, you're in the Netherlands, I'm in Arizona, it's different time zones, different countries, different parts of the world we're here. This is amazing. People don't realize how incredible it is. Just a decade ago, this was not happening. This was not possible in this kind of way. And we're changing. Life is changed forever. The content creation process and the connection and the ability and opportunity to make friends all over the world. I have friends all over the world now and it just seems normal. Yeah. And I think it's incredible. And it's the value that we can bring to the table and the things that we can do with it. One of the things that I always kind of reflect on because it's funny when my business grows the opportunity for me to spend as much time as I want to interacting on LinkedIn reduces, and, I have been very fortunate that in 2020 because of my connections and because of the circumstances, my business has actually grown. So I had to really focus my attention on when I'm on LinkedIn and I don't get to spend as much time on LinkedIn and I know that I could see the cause and effect, cause you can see your statistics drop and there's actual a reality with how much I invest in the time in the platform and how much interaction and comments and conversations take place. And you can look at those analytics and it fascinates me to say, that's interesting. I would think that with the amount of content that I put out there and the amount of effort that I put into delivering content to LinkedIn, it wouldn't be such a drastic drop. However, I can see it immediately.

Victor Huiting: [00:20:39] Yeah. You can measure everything and yeah. True. And yeah, that's really a nice one. Then you can tweak on the important things. Yeah, that's right. All right. Are there some more questions which we can look at here? Okay.

Russ Johns: [00:21:00] Oh, Michael Baker. That's what I was saying. That's right. Okay.  All right. Good, Michael. Yeah. Perfect. Perfect. Cool. Yeah. Building blocks  advertising. Sheila, I see a lot of comments out here. Community service. I see a lot of companies is community service a way and a methodology that we can actually increase some visibility company page?

Victor Huiting: [00:21:32] I would say yes. Yeah. As community service as well. Just make yourself feasible, make it personal. Yeah, why not? Yeah. Yeah. I think perhaps that's, that's an advice. If you are a company page owner and you were watching now is make your company page also personal, that's one of the common mistakes I see on company pages, that's usually focused on products and services. I can understand it if you have a business, you have to sell your tickets or whatever, or your products, whatever you're doing, that's really it. Yeah. Normal, I think. But people do business with people they know and trust, so make it personal. So if you're doing something voluntary or if you have something to celebrate or something else, make it a bit personal. Or when you have a new coworker in your team, ask him or her about approximately a month or two months to write a blog post or to interview them on video. How do I experience it by working for the company? What are they challenging. What would I like just to make it a little bit personal? It's employer branding as well. So don't only focus on your products and services, but make it personal show your people give staff members a place to to shine more or all the partners outside of the company which you collaborate with, which is also fine. People like that attention. That would really be, and that's fine for a company pages and engagement is usually higher when you make it personal and just keep it simple. Don't make it too difficult.

Russ Johns: [00:23:24] And really the ultimate rule is just add value.

Victor Huiting: [00:23:29] Yeah, true.

Russ Johns: [00:23:31] Anything that you can do to add value to the community is really the rule of thumb that I go by.

And it's just one of those things. It's hey, if you can, if somebody is interested in what you're doing and they're going to gravitate on the subject and show up just to add value and it really works. The thing that's fascinating with me is I've published a lot of articles over the years. And it seems like sometimes they go into fashion and sometimes they come out of fashion and it doesn't, I really haven't unlocked the secret sauce to actually publishing an article and then resharing it. I know that the SEO in there is good. And when articles show up in Google or something like that on a certain subject, a lot of times LinkedIn is at the top of the list.  If you type somebody's name a lot of times, their LinkedIn profiles, that the top of the list.

Victor Huiting: [00:24:31] Yep.

Russ Johns: [00:24:31] And is there anything that we could do with articles or anything that you've noticed recently in articles that when you're publishind, that are unique or  what type of content seems to be resonating with a lot of people recently?

Victor Huiting: [00:24:48] Yeah. Interesting question. Yeah, it's really a benefit if you publish in long form article, it's really attached to your profile. So it really makes you more, especially when you do it a few times to make you more an authority or an expert it's helps with SEO and your findability in Google as well, which is true. But you can also publish it on your website. Usually you can tweak there a little bit more if it's SEO about the picture and the text. For example, WordPress or another website, you'll have a show. LinkedIn is a little bit limited in that. But on the other hand, it's gained some, it can gain some traffic from your LinkedIn article to your websites as well for your services, for example. So that's interesting. And I am one of the lucky ones who have access through LinkedIn newsletter, which is quite a new service.  I just got suddenly access. I've now published a few articles and people can subscribe on that LinkedIn newsletter, which is very interesting. So they get notified on their mobile. They get an email when I publish, so they don't have to go to my website, sign in with a name, confirm it. And so that makes it much easier. But it's not common for every user. So what you have with LinkedIn life? I have it with newsletters. I don't know any of the plans, but that's really a benefit of articles that you can make a combination with newsletters sometimes when you're lucky then.

Russ Johns: [00:26:23] Is that something that you had to apply for?

Victor Huiting: [00:26:27] I would just got a notification system. Yeah. So LinkedIn is a surprising company with all their features and new things, I think they're still experimenting with that. And I see some other LinkedIn trainers in the Netherlands, but also outside of the country who have access, which is interesting for me. So people get notified on their mobile and get an email. When I publish an article, for example, when I copy an article from our website to LinkedIn people get notified. So it would really  leverage LinkedIn on a interesting way. So yeah, when you would like to write or create content, of course, when you can make sure posts in your feed, but also once in a while, publish a link from article. Yeah. Yeah.

Russ Johns: [00:27:17] I was just thinking about this and if you're doing newsletters on LinkedIn, it reminds me of I'm wondering if you don't have newsletters, but you can publish and you have a blog post. Would it make sense to be able to take your blog post and republish it on the publishing platform  or would it show up as duplicate content? As far as Google goes?

Victor Huiting: [00:27:47] Yeah, it's duplicates. Of course, when you copy it, but of course you can tweak your blog post also a little bit then or change some sentences. Yeah, you can always do that, but also I have to remember that not everybody fits it, your websites and when you are connected with them on LinkedIn, there's a chance that you can see your long form article or on the other hand, when you connect with somebody, you can send the link to the article. If you think it's valuable for them. So that makes it easy. People will stay into LinkedIn. And when you meet new people, then you can say, okay, I have published some articles. Are you open to receive that about subject X or I and then you can send it, so it makes it more engaging and interesting.

Russ Johns: [00:28:34] It'd be an interesting experiment because I got into LinkedIn live way back in the day when it was 10 tips, 10 days while I was doing it, before that I was doing my two minute tips in 10 minutes or less, and I would just record it. And when video first came out on LinkedIn, I would record it on my phone, but then when I would upload it with going upside down, it was like, it was a mess. I I kept trying. And what just dawned on me is that I should be publishing an article after the, like a recap, a weekly recap of all of the episodes of the week. And then a little summary of what the episode was about and then a link to my the post on my website. I may have to try that.

Victor Huiting: [00:29:34] Yeah. Why not?

Russ Johns: [00:29:36] Yeah. Well it's time is what it is. It's the time it takes to do it. That's right.

Victor Huiting: [00:29:42] Yeah, yeah.

Russ Johns: [00:29:45] Experiment to see what changes it generates. Because of the visibility on the publishing platform. I, these are the experiments that we have to test out. Yeah.

Victor Huiting: [00:30:00] Yeah. Why not give it a try and look if it's works for you.

Russ Johns: [00:30:05] Of course. It's so funny. I just love the platform. Angie says love you. Angie thank you so much. Have an amazing Friday, everyone. I'm going to look at it in the future together as a unit. Thank you so much everyone for being here. Angie says good morning, Russ, hello pirates. I just really enjoy LinkedIn. I enjoy the community. I enjoy people getting involved and engaged in everything that we're doing here. And it's really nice to be able to communicate and connect with people like yourself. How do other people connect with you? Just go to LinkedIn is probably a good spot to start, yeah.

Victor Huiting: [00:30:50] Yeah, you can search on my name. Victor Huiting. There's only one on the planet with that name, so that makes it easy. And I'm always open to connect. So send me connect with the personal notes, especially with the text pirates or that you have seen this show and then you can get a LinkedIn profile checklist or company checklist for free. So that's really a nice giveaway there just recently updated because LinkedIn is changing so fast. Yeah. And I have a Dutch and an English version, so to make it easy. So a nice one. Yeah. And I have it on my website as well, but this is, I think that's the shortest way to contact me. And also, when people have questions about LinkedIn or, you know, they can always contact me through LinkedIn my websites  of course. And then I'm always yeah, willing to help. That would be an advice. Just to improve the profile for example, and make it compelling, write a good headline, publish a professional picture, designed a banner, or writes a about text or contact me when you need any help. It's my professional service. I think everyone should yeah. Gets the most out of LinkedIn depending on your wishes for marketing or sales goals. Make LinkedIn work for you. So that you get measurable with that. I always encourage people to don't leave it unattended usually.

Russ Johns: [00:32:29] Yeah. Make it work for you. Thank you so much, Victor. I know that it's a, it's been a fabulous time and great to see you again and hang out and learn a little bit more about LinkedIn and catch up on all the details that are taking place on the LinkedIn platform. As always everyone, we are streaming on LinkedIn live. YouTube. Go over on LinkedIn, go over on YouTube, follow and share the comments, the conversation, and also subscribe to YouTube channel. I'm building out that this year and want to expand that, and sharing this content to those that need to see it. If you found it valuable, please go ahead and share this content. Make a comment. And also on Facebook, Twitter. And Twitch even I'm over on Twitch, Victor.

Victor Huiting: [00:33:19] Okay, cool.

Russ Johns: [00:33:21] As always every single day we're here because #kindnessiscool, #smilesarefree and you #enjoyyourday.

Victor Huiting: [00:33:33] Thanks for having me.

Thanks for sharing my knowledge and I'd like to get in touch with people. Really #enjoyyourday, connect with me and yeah. Good luck with your with the broadcast. Amazing.

Russ Johns: [00:33:47] Thank you. Take care. Okay.

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