Jess Diamond (00:01.484)
Welcome back to How to 20 something. And boy, boy, am I excited for you guys to listen to this episode because it’s all about the best social media tool to help you progress your career. I didn’t realize how powerful of a tool LinkedIn was until I took a little workshop on how to utilize it to your advantage. And I gained so much insight from that class that I approached Katie afterwards and asked if she could come on the show to break it all down for you guys.

Because if you’ve been listening for a while, then you would know one of the things I say a lot is if you want to get anywhere in life, you need to have the network and connections to help move you forward. We live in a who you know kind of world. And if you can’t build up your connections in person, then LinkedIn is your next best option. I mean, they also work side by side. But in order to use LinkedIn, you need to know how to use it for your benefits.

So today’s episode is all about why you should be as addicted to LinkedIn as you are to TikTok or Instagram, how to set up your account based on your goals and the best techniques and practices to using it. Before we dive into all of that and Katie’s knowledge and expertise, I’m going to introduce her to all of you. Katie McKeever is a national award-winning thought leader with over 20 years of experience in media.

She has managed social media teams and high profile campaigns for multi-million and multi-billion dollar organizations. Her expertise and track record of success in the industry has earned her features on major media outlets and the ability to interview high profile figures. She has trained hundreds of individuals in personal brand and social media strategy with clients praising the training as life-changing. In addition, Katie writes a weekly newsletter called Social Media News to Use.

which has been described as generally the best email out there. Hi, Katie, and welcome to How to 20 something.

Katie McKiever (02:02.245)
Thank you so much for having me. I’m excited to be here.

Jess Diamond (02:04.962)
Yeah, I’m excited for you to just share everything that I know I’ve learned and I know I’m going to learn more through our conversation. And I want to start with the most burning question that I want you to answer for my audience. And that is why LinkedIn? Or in other words, what is so significant about LinkedIn?

Katie McKiever (02:25.713)
Well, in that class, and I’m so glad we met, by the way, and you came to the LinkedIn class that I taught, and in that class, and where, like, I will yell from the rooftops about LinkedIn, and I know people roll their eyes, and they’re like, no, not LinkedIn. You know, I know there’s that sentiment for a lot of people when talking about LinkedIn, but LinkedIn, and this is what I say, like, think of it this way. It’s the only platform where people are going onto it with money,

business, transactions, making things happen in mind. Every other platform is, I mean, think about it. You mentioned when you’re introducing the episode, TikTok, Instagram, know, Facebook, X, Pinterest, YouTube. It’s a very passive, lean back. You wanna be entertained. You wanna quick scroll. You wanna, you know, kind of…

you know, have a moment of like wasting time or like in between things. So you’re just going to be kind of entertained and you might, you know, see some like education or you might get some kind of fulfilling something or content in, you know, in between there. But you’re just going for like, just entertain me. Like that’s your thought when you open up TikTok. That’s your brain when you open up Instagram. I just want to be, pass the time, be entertained. But I mean, there’s a mental hurdle

to get to LinkedIn of, I don’t think many people are going there to be entertained. I don’t think many people are going to passively scroll. Some do, I don’t wanna take that away from people. Some do, some do want to get a sense of like business news or what industry leaders are talking about or people are talking about on their home feed on LinkedIn. But I mean, you’re going there with a purpose. You’re opening the app on your phone or you’re…

typing in LinkedIn.com on your desktop, laptop, whatever, for a purpose. And so if that’s the case, you’ve already cut through so much noise and so much just randomness. randomness is good in a lot of instances. I love random discovery of a good TikTok or whatever. if you’re trying to change jobs, if you’re trying to get…

Katie McKiever (04:49.091)
a new job, if you’re trying to enter a new field or just look into network or grow your personal brand or sell something or whatever. Like so much has been cut off or you already cut through so much noise and so much distraction by going to LinkedIn directly and not trying to kind of fight an uphill battle on another platform if you were to have those same goals and use a different platform.

Yes, you can network on Instagram. Yes, you can find people in your industry. You can sell things. You can post about things and be known. You can do all this stuff. A lot of the stuff that I talk about is helping people with their personal brand and helping people become known as a leader in their space. And really, it’s from a place of wanting to give back and wanting to do good with these platforms. And you can do all of those things.

on any platform. can build an audience, you can become known, you can do everything like you can on any platform that you can do on LinkedIn, but you just cut through so much noise, so much quicker, and you’re in a business place. Like just immediately, just immediately. So I think that’s just the difference. And while it’s not the fun,

for everybody, it’s not the like, entertain me place. It is the make money, make moves, make business place.

Jess Diamond (06:28.054)
Yeah, when you told me that it really shifted the way I thought about LinkedIn, I didn’t really have too many thoughts about LinkedIn. I knew it was important. So I had a page, I have an account, I have it downloaded on my phone, I had all those things, but I wasn’t really using it. Sure, I would repost things if I was or I’d get tagged and things and I’m like, cool, I don’t know what this is for. But shifting that mindset of people are opening that app to make moves.

made the world of a difference. And it’s something that I’ve now taken and I help my clients understand the benefits of it. Even my college clients, one of my clients is a graphic design major. And I was like, you don’t have a set portfolio right now. Your LinkedIn is your virtual portfolio. You’re trying to get an internship. Post every project, every assignment, everything. And he is and he just like, he took that direction and went with it. And I was like,

my gosh, I wish I, I need to work my way up into taking that much direction with my LinkedIn because I know I am still hesitant, even though I know how important it is to use because of all that noise that you’re cutting through as you were just explaining. gets, it’s wild the way your mind will shift. I would say it’s the difference between going out to a bar on like a Friday night or whatever night of the week, going whatever night.

It does not matter going out to a bar and just socializing versus going to a networking event. You’re going into it with an entirely different mindset. And that’s the way to look at Instagram and Tik Tok and X and all of the other foo foo, turn your brain off mind numbing apps that I have. Don’t worry. I have those things and I do my mindless scrolling versus going on to LinkedIn and going on with that purpose.

Katie McKiever (08:16.933)
Brilliant brilliantly said about the bar and yeah, you can walk into a bar and you know find a client or you could you know, you could But it was gonna take a little while, you know, you’re not going in there for that purpose You’re not you know, you’re it would be by happenstance. You know you be a very long tail getting to it of You know finding that kind of just serendipitous

if you’re the graphic designer or you know, freelance job or whatever. But yeah, yeah, post your stuff on LinkedIn or you know, we can get into kind of what to do on LinkedIn. yeah, like, it is very much a a more mental hurdle kind of of, I’ve used the word hurdle a few times, but like a mental hurdle of,

feeling like it’s a different kind of crowd. You’re showing up in a different way on a platform with LinkedIn as opposed to what you’ve probably been used to showing up in other places. And so I get that, that’s different and that feels weird sometimes. It feels like really like a barrier. I mean, so many people are scared. I mean, just fearful or it’s just.

like, yeah, walking into a networking event is just a whole other thing. You got to be kind of on, quote unquote, or, and just like ready to kind of talk the talk and walk the walk. And it’s just a different setting in person with a networking event versus a bar going out and online and LinkedIn, which is online digital networking and a way to connect with people in a business setting. it is, it’s a,

different way of showing up, but it’s a powerful one.

Jess Diamond (10:12.564)
say on the receiving end of things, like let’s say, let’s go into the real life example is if you’re going to a bar, let’s say you want a job, you’re going into a bar and you’re like, yeah, I need a new job, all those things. And let’s just say you meet someone that is hiring. That’s not really the intent of being out right now. You’re not putting your best foot forward. You’re probably like wearing something that you’re just like, yeah, I’m having fun tonight. And the other person is also in that same mindset.

They’re not in the, yeah, I’m looking to hire someone right now. Let me, give me your resume right now. Like it’s just, it’s more of an inappropriate setting, but it’s not saying that it’s not possible. Like that can definitely happen and translate that into the online world. And it’s like, you want to be professional. You want to be appropriate and you want to ask for whatever you need help with in the right setting and at the right time. And LinkedIn allows you

to have that opportunity.

Katie McKiever (11:12.905)
Mm, yeah, so good. It is. It’s very true. Yeah, everybody is thinking the same way. Everybody is there for the same reason. So there’s no like, kind of having to like, figure out where everybody is. mean, everybody’s there to do the same thing. We’re all there. Yeah, I know.

Jess Diamond (11:32.78)
Yeah, no one’s getting caught off guard like, whoa, you want that for me or you want me to do what? No, it’s like, you know what you’re there for.

Katie McKiever (11:39.747)
Yeah, mean, yeah, it’s not, yeah, you’re there for business and professional reasons. And there are ways to kind of, there are best practices for how to use a platform or how to of communicate with people and connect with people in ways that are kind of LinkedIn specific. But yeah, for the vast majority of the space,

It’s a professional setting, business setting. Everybody’s there for, to like, yeah, to all do business, make business, career change, what have you. It’s not, you don’t have to cut through so much that you do on other places. But yeah, it’s, and I think just the evolution of LinkedIn is just really, there actually, there are two more things that I wanted to mention about like why LinkedIn.

because it’s no longer like just the resume holder that I think it was once was. Maybe not people listening to this, to your podcast here, but back in my day, first coming up as a career, new in your career, getting out of college or if you went to college, your resume just kind of lived on LinkedIn. It was just like the resume holder. And you kind of just uploaded it and just sat there and…

You would tweak it when you got a new job or whatever, but that was pretty much it. You would just log in, update, you know, that you got a new job and then log out. And I can’t tell you how many times I’ll talk to people and they just don’t even know they’re logged in anymore or, know, and that’s totally fine. But I mean, that’s still a lot of people just, you know, kind of set it, set it and forget it. But now it is very much a robust content platform.

I mean, it’s where people, and they’re even LinkedIn creators now. Like if you’re thinking about, you know, TikTok and Instagram space are creators and, you know, paid partnership programs on those platforms for these people who just make content. I mean, LinkedIn is going along kind of those lines of there are people that are posting content and just regularly updating things to keep LinkedIn active. And that’s what LinkedIn is.

Katie McKiever (14:04.205)
more and more going toward is being a hub for content, being a hub for news and industry, insight, just to keep people coming back. I mean, that’s why you have content on any social media platform is to keep people engaged, keep people coming back on, keep eyeballs and to keep interest. But there’s just, it’s, it’s not the place to just upload your LinkedIn or your resume onto LinkedIn and just

kind of check out. You can regularly work networks there. can regularly kind of work connections and you know, just do what you would do regularly with like getting business cards at a networking event. You would follow up with an email. You would, you know, meet somebody for coffee. All that kind of stuff can happen on this platform. So I just want to mention like how much of a content place it is now and that they have a whole

LinkedIn news section and a news editing team. So meaning they’re trying to be just the go-to source for business information so they can keep the high level executives coming back to their platforms because I will tell you this C-suite, know, CEO, COO, CMOs, like all the executive level of organizations feel comfortable, confident and safe on LinkedIn.

because just how they’ve built it and just how it all works. And it’s a place for, you know, business. So high level people feel okay being known and being seen there. And I’ve helped people, high level executives be present on LinkedIn and they see the power of it. And I mentioned that because if they keep coming back, that means their people are there too, their employees, their peers. So it’s just a place where

higher level business people are, know, yes, you can find kind of hunt and peck for people on Instagram by name or by like, you you might hear that somebody’s on Instagram, like some of these people, but they’re not going to be there representing themselves in the same way as they are on LinkedIn. And that’s just a big deal because you are one click away from almost any major decision maker at a business.

Katie McKiever (16:29.217)
on LinkedIn. I mean, you can get in front of key instrumental people that can change your career, you know, with like one connection, you know, I mean, like that’s how powerful this is. So LinkedIn has just done a really good job of making their platform feel safe and comfortable and continuing to promote high level people. And then also, I mean, if you can kind of connect the dots here, that also just means

There’s a higher caliber of, I mean, people on LinkedIn, like that’s obvious, but like the majority of users on LinkedIn proportionately, percentage wise, like there’s all kinds of like research studies out there that will tell you like the median income of people who are on various platforms. And always LinkedIn is higher than any other platform. So you just know you’re getting to a higher level potential customer, higher level potential

you know, job opportunity, you know, connection with somebody who’s, you know, might be, you know, elbows with some important people. Like, that’s the kind of thought for who is on LinkedIn. So that’s like, you know, between that, you know, just LinkedIn being a content hub and just attracting the right people and…

LinkedIn just being a place where people go to for business. And the third reason why LinkedIn is so, is just so powerful is.

And I lost it.

Katie McKiever (18:12.817)
Dang it.

it’s gonna be good too.

Katie McKiever (18:29.987)
Maybe we’ll just cut it there. man, what is it? Hold on.

Katie McKiever (18:39.373)
I think I wrapped it into the other one. Yeah, I think I put it into the other one. I don’t know if I’ve messed up your editing or where we can jump back in.

Jess Diamond (18:48.195)
Yeah, jump back in, finish the thought. Like if you wrapped it up as the other one, separate them. So say like the three.

Katie McKiever (18:55.312)
okay, yeah, Okay, hold on, me separate them. yeah.

Jess Diamond (19:01.122)
I think you start with one and go from there. You should be able to do that.

Katie McKiever (19:05.403)
Okay.

Katie McKiever (19:10.693)
So the first reason why LinkedIn is just so powerful and so different is, you we’ve already established that it’s the place for professional interactions. It’s the business place, the money mindset, transactions, people are there to make moves and to make things happen. So like that’s the first reason. Second reason is this is a content hub. This keeps major people coming back regularly, more regularly. It is a place for

people to continue updating. It’s just like a home feed on Facebook, home feed on X, home feed on TikTok. It’s a regular source of information and LinkedIn is being very strategic with building themselves as a content platform to keep people coming back to their platform and keeping higher level executives coming back to their platform. that, you know, everybody wants to be where the executives live or reside online. Everybody wants to be where…

You know, people are rubbing elbows with leaders and that’s what you can do essentially on LinkedIn. And the third reason is that you yourself can be proactive and be, can be one click away from any major decision maker almost at any organization. So all of these kinds of strategies combined are just a powerhouse of a platform all in, all with the thought of career, business and money and just

building yourself as a professional throughout your entire span of your career.

Jess Diamond (20:41.238)
Yeah, it’s, it’s so much more important than we give it credit for. And you mentioned a couple of things that you mentioned best practices, which I want you to dive into. And I also want you to talk about the different uses. So let’s start with uses. How can someone who has a nine to five say like you and I are both in Charlotte. So let’s say it’s a big finance district. You work at one of the banks, you have a nine to five.

Katie McKiever (20:46.225)
Mm.

Jess Diamond (21:07.018)
What are you using LinkedIn for? Like how can you make your presence known on this, like using this tool, this social media tool?

Katie McKiever (21:16.044)
Mm-hmm. Well, yeah, if you have a nine to five and you’re happy with that, but you want to continue. mean, everybody wants to progress in their career. And so if you’re, you know, a corporate woman, you know, corporate person, just, you know, good with being in corporate and want to continue your career, we want to continue progressing and, you know, being promoted or even, you know, going to another competitor or just like.

all kinds of things that can happen through your doing and taking action on LinkedIn. What you can do is one, I would just get really, really familiar with LinkedIn. So I would get on LinkedIn and just take several weeks, I mean one to two weeks and scroll through LinkedIn and just get familiar with how people speak on LinkedIn, how people post on LinkedIn, how the buttons work.

And we could talk about like tactical things on LinkedIn, but I really want you to familiarize yourself with the scroll and how it works because LinkedIn’s algorithm is different. The way it serves you up content, the way kind of people present themselves. So I just want you to follow people that you are familiar with in your industry, brands that you’re familiar with and just get really just.

submersed yourself into the LinkedIn platform. So that’s like number one, the first thing to do to familiarize yourself and to get comfortable with the platform because it is different. I mean people show up differently, they speak differently, they post differently, the way you connect and things, it’s very different. you’ve kind of, now you’ve kind of gotten a understanding of the platform and understanding of, you know, just how it all works.

So once you do that and you’re in your corporate space, you’re in your corporate job, you start, I want you to start connecting with people as all, everybody you’ve worked with, everybody you know, connect with them. And that means searching for their name on LinkedIn and hitting the connect button. That’s what I mean by connecting. And that just builds your network. Just like, you go and collect business cards or whatever people do, get email addresses.

Katie McKiever (23:38.533)
that’s building a network and you regularly go get coffee or lunch or if you’re strategic with that or not, you’re still kind of move around in that way. So do that on LinkedIn as well. Just supplement that effort that you do in person, go into a networking event and then just connect with everybody that you can think of that’s in your industry or you met one day. The one thing I would always say to do is if you ever go to networking events,

conferences if you get cards or if you’re you know people sometimes will just scan each other’s LinkedIn like QR codes on their phone or whatever you want to do Connect with everybody you met connect with all the speakers Connect just find them on LinkedIn and connect with them and that just while you’re like what’s the point of that it will all Make sense and it all kind of comes around just like it’s half of what you know your career progression is who you know

Five years down the road, I guarantee you, you’ll be like, oh yeah, I met that person at the conference and they work at this position or they work at this company now and I’m trying to get a job there, like that’s how this stuff works. And then you could message that person because you connected with them five years ago after you saw them at a conference randomly or just randomly met them. And then you’d be like, hey, you know, Sarah, I met you at so-and-so conference back in whatever year. I see you work at such and such…

company now, I just saw an opening that I’m really interested in and do you have a contact that I can message that’s on that team or the hiring manager? Like this stuff happens every single day on LinkedIn. that’s, I mean, and you have a direct in. So connect with as many people as you know, or that makes sense. So that’s step one. It’s just like widen your network on LinkedIn. Then what you could start doing,

is if you are bold enough to do this and you feel like you want to start getting into the posting content game, for lack of a better word, then absolutely, just like you were saying how you were telling, who was it, client, graphic design client, like absolutely show your work. mean, show what you do and what you know and what you’re an expert in and do that regularly. So tell people why what you do is…

Katie McKiever (26:03.217)
important to you or why this project is, mean, I could talk about like certain types of posts to do and kind of get more granular there, but I mean, that’s kind of the level of progression when you’re talking about somebody who might be in a position, not necessarily like needing a job right this moment, but you’re always open to opportunity or you’re in your position and you’re in a big bank and you know,

you always, you know, looking for more opportunity and like getting a promotion or whatnot. And I will tell you, there’s so many times that I’ve seen and heard from others I work with where they start posting. And I’ve done this myself where I’ve posted about something and then somebody I’m working with is like, Katie, I saw your posts. Or, know, if it’s somebody I’m working with, they’re like, you know, I got feedback from, you know, my colleagues that they saw my post and it is…

It’s like this moment of, well, first off, what goes on in your head? You’re like, that’s kind I’m a little bit embarrassed maybe. That’s totally normal. Like you get over that after a while. But the second thing that happens is like in their mind, you are like, you are like, you have just risen the bar for yourself. Like they look at you as somebody who is representing, as somebody who is like standing in their business and like is proud of what they do.

You can just position yourself in such a powerful way on LinkedIn to where even your own colleagues start looking at you like they might work with you every so often or regularly or whatnot, but as soon as you start posting and contextualizing things and talking about things in a way that really show what you’re all about, that you might not get the opportunity to do.

you know, regularly interfacing with these colleagues of yours, they just, people start looking at you differently and in a good way. people just start kind of just understanding the value that you bring to positions. I know it’s just this kind of funny thing. Like it’s truly your own media.

Katie McKiever (28:23.121)
Like you use these channels, mean, that’s the reason why we call them channels and platforms. I mean, it’s media. So, I mean, if you want to be known and if you want to be respected and looked at in a certain way, you can do that. And it’s all within like your fingertips, literally. That’s the power of this is that it’s just kind of having some strategy around it and some kind of direction and guidance. But like,

This is how, nobody knows what you know unless you tell them. Like nobody knows what you know. And if you are brilliant at your job, if you’re like the best like analyst, you’re like killing it with data, you’re like cybersecurity, whatever. if you just get, if you’re just like geek out on stuff, like please show that. Please, I mean.

appropriately and you got to understand like you can’t cross certain lines and maybe a professional I think you know we all understand that and you know companies will have social media policies and I we can get into all that conversation too but you can absolutely talk about certain things to an extent to a degree that make you the expert and make people look at you differently and in a really big way and I’m telling you opportunities come you do that you

you progress in your LinkedIn kind of knowledge and doing in that way from like getting familiar, then connecting with people and then posting and opportunities three months, six months. It’s like you will connect with people you never thought you would like have access to. will, know, people, colleagues, new opportunities will come into your inbox just randomly. I mean, that’s how this works and it happens every single day.

Jess Diamond (30:18.73)
I’m feeling inspired to post more. So thank you. I need to hear this. have so much that I want to say to everything you just said. And it’s really for those of you listening. mean, you’re listening to a growth minded podcast. So I know for a fact, you’re not planning on being in your exact position for the rest of your career, for the next 40 years of your life. You’re not going to do that. So know that networking never ends. There’s no

There’s no break. mean, yeah, you can take a timeout. I guess that would be the pause if you’re getting overwhelmed, but You should always be networking you should at no point should you ever have the thought of? I’ve met enough people. I’m done meeting people and connecting No, because you’re listening to this podcast. So I know that that’s not true for you This is your opportunity to go connect with as many people as you can and maintain those connections

So I love that Katie said that if you’re at any event, any conference, whatever it is, you meet people, you get their name, find them on LinkedIn and connect with them. And we’re gonna talk about like how we can set up your profile so that they can see who’s connected with them and actually wanna accept the connection. But we’re gonna get into that in a little bit. Cause the other part I wanna say is I’ve said it in other episodes and I just wanna remind you guys that I got my second job out of college through LinkedIn.

One of the senior designers at a firm in my area looked at my profile. I got a little notification saying so-and-so viewed your profile and I sent her a message and was like, hey, saw that you were looking at me. Are you hiring? And she said, we are. Send me your portfolio and your resume. And I did. And I started working there two weeks later. It is that easy. It’s as easy as Katie is saying. So use this information. As far as what to post, mean,

Katie’s given some insight on that. But anything if you’re at a networking event and you took a picture, post it that you were there. If you came across an article that’s relevant to your industry, or even an industry you want to get into, post it that you can post anything that is relevant to your career or to a career that you are looking to switch into. And it’s going to just help build up your profile so that when people go looking for you or looking for

Jess Diamond (32:39.47)
keywords as search engine optimization, you come up and they’re able to contact you and connect with you and get you to your next opportunity that maybe you’re not even looking for or you don’t even know what to look for, but they find you instead. Like what happened with me is I didn’t even know what to look for in my next job. She found me and I took that next step and reached back out to her.

Katie McKiever (33:03.659)
Amazing. That is like the most incredible story and that is truly how it happens. Like you woke up one morning not having any idea that you were going to get this little ping you know notification on your LinkedIn and you just followed you just followed the the folly of like huh what’s this all about happens all the time and if you hadn’t have been yeah knowing how to use LinkedIn or

active or like regularly checking it or anything, you would have no idea. Like two weeks later, boom, new job. Like what? That’s how it happens. And it’s amazing. Yeah, it happens all the time. The other thing about the networking and building your network on LinkedIn and just how like, why that’s, you know, just good practice, but

Why that’s strategic is because that just further amplifies the reach of your posts from then on out. So the more you connect with and build out your connections, the more opportunity that your content that you start putting out has to reach more people, more eyeballs. So that’s just the power of it. mean, just kind of like Instagram followers.

It’s a little bit different, but if you equate followers to connections on Instagram versus LinkedIn, the more followers you have, the better chance your content has to reach more people. Same thing on LinkedIn. So grow that network and then be posting at the same time. It doesn’t have to be a lot. I’m far from any kind of hustle culture or any thought of like, you gotta like…

you know, do so much from a posting standpoint. I do not subscribe to that thought at all, but just a regular kind of consistent cadence that you can maintain is everything. And you keep building. So it’s just like this snowball effect. Keep building the network, consistently post, boom. And you get notifications that people are checking you out and you go and message somebody, hey,

Katie McKiever (35:29.061)
what’s, you know, hi, how are you? Good to see you, you know, looking at my profile. Do you happen to have any opportunities? Like, and then you struck up a conversation with somebody who is potentially hiring you. Like, that’s such a path that happens all the time.

Jess Diamond (35:47.126)
Yeah, so let’s dive into how they can start setting up their profile or if they already have a profile, just what can they do to make sure their profile is optimized so that when they have these connections, the connections are able to be like, okay, this person does X, Y, Z, and this is a little bit about them and all of the little nitty gritty details that you led in this workshop and there was like six things. So you’re like, you need these six things in your profile. So please.

Explain those as best as you can, knowing that we don’t have a screen for you to share and be like, click here and go here. So give you the floor. What, how can someone optimize their profile?

Katie McKiever (36:24.229)
Mm-hmm.

Katie McKiever (36:28.623)
Yeah, just like you mentioned, know, search engine optimization or, you know, thinking of LinkedIn as a place for people to find you and discover you. So that’s kind of the foundation of building your profile in some ways. So think of your personal profile on LinkedIn as, you know, you wanting to look polished and professional and your first impression for anybody on LinkedIn.

So just like you would wear something nice to a networking event and, you know, look, you know, put together and, you know, have all your stuff, you know, like whatever, however you want to look for that professional in-person event, you want to look professional online as well. So this is how you would do that to make sure that you are like SEO optimized and just looking polished for that first-person impressions. So when somebody kind of come digitally, you know, shakes your hand.

They’re like, okay, you know, there’s nothing that’s like pushing, know, turning them away from you. So the first thing is obvious is your avatar, your headshot. Like you just want to make sure it’s something that’s has your face framed in it. And I mean, this is pretty obvious and most people have, you know, headshots at this point, but I, know, you could take your own, just make sure it’s well lit. And it’s just from your shoulders up. Like you don’t need anything super fancy.

but it’s polished, it’s well lit, and it’s just basically showing your face. So that’s number one, and just update that. Just make sure everything’s looking good there. Then, number two is your banner image. So there is a spot on the top of your profile where an image sits, and it’s horizontal, and it’s like a specific, there’s specific specs for it, and LinkedIn gives you those. But just put something in there, and LinkedIn,

gives you templates for that. like they have, you, any of these sections in your LinkedIn profile on your personal page, you will see a little pencil icon when you go in and you’re logged in as an admin on your page, which you will be. And anytime you see a pencil icon in a corner of a section of your profile, that’s how you can edit your profile. you select that pencil and LinkedIn makes it very seamless and very easy to walk through how to edit that section.

Katie McKiever (38:56.325)
So all these sections I’m talking about will just look for those pencil icons or very clear directions for how to edit that section. So in that banner image portion of your profile, you will see a pencil button. And then once you click that, LinkedIn has built-in banner image templates for your profiles. You can just select one of those. It’s already in there. Just make sure you have something there, and it’s professional and just represents what you want to represent. Then from there,

is right underneath your avatar or your headshot is your headline. Well, actually it’ll be your name, but that’s just something, you you set up your profile, your name and your name. There’s no really changing that. But right below your name is a line that’s called your headline. And you don’t see headline right there when you’re looking at somebody’s profile, but you’ll see a line of information or line of words right underneath somebody’s name. That’s essentially like,

who you are, what you do, how can you help me? That’s people’s mentality when they’re going to people’s profiles. So if I’m going to your profile, Jess, I’m like, okay, see your name, Jess, yep. And then right underneath that, you’re telling me, graphic designer, podcast, or whatever, you’re giving me your headline. You walk into a networking event, somebody shakes your hand, you say, hi, I’m Katie McKeever.

They’re like, okay, and then what do you do? And there you go, that’s your headline. well, I’m a social media consultant and I help women, know, whatever. That is your headline and you can edit that section. And I mentioned that headline section right underneath your name because it defaults to what you have as your current experience in LinkedIn. And what I mean by that is the place where you work, which is…

you know, your current, like in your resume, wherever you have your most current position, usually at the top of your experience section in your resume, same thing on LinkedIn. There’s an experience section. If you scroll down on your profile and whatever’s at the top of that experience section, which should be your current role, whatever that may be in your professional career, that is what defaults.

Katie McKiever (41:20.663)
in that headline section. So if you are business analyst at Wells Fargo, LinkedIn automatically puts that as your headline right underneath your name on your LinkedIn page. That might be fine. You might want to be known as business analyst at Wells Fargo, but know that you can edit that and you can take out some of that. You can take out all of it. You can edit it. You can add to it.

If you also are a speaker, if you also do all kinds of things, that’s where you can add those things. So I just like to mention the headline and that you can edit that. I mean, you will see people’s edited as well on LinkedIn when you’re browsing around. Another section is right next to your name, right under your profile picture or your avatar or your headshot.

is a little badge and it’s a verification badge and it looks like a check mark with like a shield around it. And if you go to my account or many, like if you think of anybody famous that’s on LinkedIn, if you go to their account, you will see a badge next to their name. And it’s this little silver check mark with a logo kind of around it or emblem. And that is LinkedIn’s verification system.

Basically, that means if you see that sign on somebody’s profile, LinkedIn saying this person is who they say they are. They have gone through our verification process and therefore we have deemed them that person. you can’t, LinkedIn is trying to get rid of people misrepresenting themselves or just doing shady business.

So I would encourage you, it’s a five minute or less process to get verified on LinkedIn. It is something that you proactively go through the process of. And that’s the reason why you’re doing it is because you want people to know that you are who you say you are and that LinkedIn has kind of verified you and it goes through the clear process just like you do when you…

Katie McKiever (43:45.361)
like in airports. So it’s very simple. You kind of upload a picture of your ID. Like LinkedIn walks you through it step by step. takes five minutes or you can actually get verified by through your business accounts email. So anyway, LinkedIn shows you how to do all that very simply. And the reason why I recommend this is because LinkedIn more and more is giving preferential treatment to profiles.

who are verified. You can get much more reach. LinkedIn will give you more inherent reach for your post if you are a verified account. So that’s one bonus, but I have seen more and more people going toward not being so trusting of accounts that don’t have the verification badge.

So, and I’m doing this myself now where I won’t as automatically connect, like accept a connection request. I’ll kind of look several times if, you know, kind of check things out. If somebody connects with me that doesn’t have a badge, just because they’re just, you know, just the way of the world and way of the internet, like, you know, there are people representing all kinds of things online. So you just want to make sure that you are working with people who

R &D who they say they are and that it’d be a good idea for you to have that badge as well. So that’s another thing to do to make sure you have that on there. I mean, even it goes as far as for companies that LinkedIn, you’re just gonna see the badge more and more on LinkedIn. So LinkedIn for companies has a verification badge. So you’ll see that on company pages as well. But even further than that,

for job postings and job listings, companies can now add a verification badge on individual job postings. So basically that’s telling you if you’re applying or looking for jobs and you see that badge on one job and not another, this is LinkedIn telling you, hey, the company that’s posting this job,

Katie McKiever (46:00.977)
This is verified job, this is a real job, it’s not a scam. It’s a real, on the up and up scenario. And you can trust it. just more and more, LinkedIn is rolling out verification capabilities. And I just think it’s an important thing for personal profiles even. So from there, we’ve gone through your profile picture, your banner image.

your headline right underneath your name and the verification badge. From there, I would make sure that your about section, which is pretty much right there at the top of your profile as well, has something. You don’t need your whole life story, but I would make sure you have a couple sentences, a paragraph, two paragraphs, whatever you feel good with, and put something in there, and that sells yourself.

So that’s what you’re doing. Like you’re selling what you know, who you are, what you’re all about to a business professional audience. So, I mean, write that through a professional lens and what you, you know, what you bring to the business world right now, or maybe aspirational, but, you know, what you represent in your professional career. Put that in the about section. You know, and that’s a place where you can brag, like put awards you’ve won.

Like this a place to kind of show off some because I mean, if recruiters are looking at you, like Jess, I don’t know what you had on your profile and that belt section that made somebody look at yours. You know, look at yours. I don’t know if you ever like asked or found that out, but.

Jess Diamond (47:39.502)
I have no idea. I never asked.

Katie McKiever (47:41.901)
Yeah, but I mean, who knows? Something brought them there and something kept them to where they were like, yeah, send your stuff. They weren’t turned away by what you had on there. It kept them engaged enough to let you submit your information, therefore you got the job. It worked.

Jess Diamond (48:05.57)
thing I do know is that helped me is with this particular job. So I’m not gonna say like, you didn’t go to college, it’s not gonna help you. But like, I went to the University of Florida, and this, the VP of the company was a Gator. So it was a very trusting like, I know, this program, I know this school, yes, we want we want you in, we want to see what you have to offer. And so that definitely was part of it as far as what

Katie McKiever (48:30.264)
Nailed it.

Jess Diamond (48:33.804)
brought her to even search my profile. I’m just gonna say if I could think of anything, it was probably that it said interior designer in Orlando, Florida. And maybe that’s what came up. I have no idea. Cause I know as you were saying of a lot of times, I guess you were saying like when you were experiencing LinkedIn at the start, it was more of a resume holder. That was kind of what I learned is that, yeah, you just put your experience on there and that’s it.

So learning all the ways that it has evolved since then, just, even over the last 10 years, is really putting into perspective of how you can use LinkedIn to attract the people you want to attract. And it also lets you do less work as a result. Like, yes, there’s work in setting up your profile and maintaining it and sending connections, but it allows you to be more findable for other people to reach out to you.

Katie McKiever (49:30.545)
proactive and I mean, have like, if you set yourself up and work this.

I never want to give it guarantees, like the opportunities and the, you’re just positioning yourself in such a best way to where you won’t have to kind of fight this uphill battle of needing to find a job or like needing to create something out of midair, you know, like if you just keep working this, opportunities come.

to you and it’s not this like, you know, I got let go or I wanna, you know, start something new or whatever. It’s just this like, I mean, it’s the theory of like action begets action. It’s just like you keep things in movement and things will just continue to be in movement for you. And I know that’s very like la la and.

but it’s very true. if you just continue to kind of put yourself out there and network and do things in a certain way, then it’s just, you don’t have as much of a struggle when things get tough. And so, And I wanted to touch on the Gators. How did you connect that? Did they tell you that or what?

Jess Diamond (51:05.516)
Yeah, I was told that I think during one of my interviews, I had two or three interviews with this firm and the VP was on the second one, I think. And he was like, I’m a Gator, like I’m familiar with the program.

Katie McKiever (51:19.203)
Yeah, that’s awesome. I mean, and I will say too, sometimes like those are dots you can connect in those opportunities from LinkedIn because you can then go like, you know, somebody reaches out to you, you’re looking for a position and then you can go to that company that’s hiring and look at everybody who, you know, who might be on that team or, know, who might like look at their profiles, where’d they go to school?

what are their interests, anything you can glean from their profile that, they went to that event, they posted about this event that you were at too. You can make so many connections or insights to bring up in an interview or to reach out to somebody, in an email and you’re like, yeah, well saw you went to such-and-such school. have…

you know, my really good friend went there too, blah, blah. You know, that’s how you start kind of making these connections for people or making these opportunities for people to like, you know, just even like shorten up the kind of like, I don’t know, like know, like and trust. Yeah, the connection. Yes. Yeah. That’s stringing together. Yeah. So true. Yeah, that’s awesome. Well, okay. So.

Jess Diamond (52:31.884)
Like this string of connection, like shorten that string.

Katie McKiever (52:43.173)
Okay, so we’ve updated our profile up into our about section. so you’re looking pretty good. And then, of course, you wanna make sure that you have updated your experience section. And so if you scroll down on any profile closer to the bottom, you will find the experience section. That’s where you list all the jobs you’ve had and all the years you were there, all this stuff. But just make sure that’s updated.

and that you don’t have to list every single thing. You can be selective about things you list there. can make them, you can kind of tailor it to what you want to represent now, but it needs to, you know, just paint yourself in the best light. But always be truthful, obviously. But yeah, just make sure you’re updated there and have all your experience that you want to show on LinkedIn.

because people will go and look at that as well. that’s like, those are the main sections. You just wanna make sure are super polished and super updated. So you’re looking good when people come and look at your profile. And then once that’s done, like I would say that’s the first thing you do. If you have not looked at your profile in a long time, or the first thing you do is remembering your password and logging on.

And then you’re going in and you’re updating, refreshing, editing your profile to make sure that you have, and don’t forget, like in the about section or that experience section, like keywords. If you want to be found for something or in that headline, if you want to be found or to come up when people search for certain things, that’s where you put in those keywords. And so,

That’s just, those are the ways to get started on LinkedIn and to update your personal profile. And then you can get going with connecting, because you just really want to do that before you start connecting with people and starting to post content. You just want to look as polished and ready to go as possible.

Jess Diamond (54:46.381)
Yeah.

Jess Diamond (54:52.768)
Yeah, we definitely did these in the reverse order. But like you’re listening to the full episode. So you’re gonna get all the information anyways. And I wanted you to be engaged with like why you should listen to why you should set up your profile so that you can reverse engineer into like, okay, so I can post content. Why? Because this is a powerhouse tool that I’m going to use to network and find my next opportunity and connect with people and do all the things so know that there was

a plan behind the reverse order of how I asked Katie these questions. But Katie, I have one final question for you before we wrap up this episode. And it’s more we’re talking about like all the things to do on LinkedIn. What are some common mistakes that you see people make either on LinkedIn with their profiles, just any malpractices, things that you want to put into like emphasis of, hey, audience listening,

Don’t do these things.

Katie McKiever (55:49.909)
Mm-hmm. Really, it’s, well, one, it’s just such a pet peeve and it’s such a turnoff. And I would hope nobody listening to this would do this, but it goes to be said, and please know, I mean, maybe it’s just good to hear that there are people out here that do this. So if you are on the receiving end, that, you you’re not just like annoyed and just like dump out of LinkedIn altogether. So.

there are bad actors out there. So there are people that will just try to direct message you or message you on LinkedIn and just sell you. And it’s just yucky. And yeah, what’d you say? The cold DMs and it’s just like, it comes out of nowhere or yeah, or you think somebody’s connecting.

Jess Diamond (56:29.282)
The cold DMs. The cold DMs.

Katie McKiever (56:43.077)
Be a genuine person on LinkedIn. mean, just be a real genuine person. mean, yes, we are here to make business. We’re here to make money, but like, we’re not here to pull the eyes, know, pull the wool over people’s eyes, just to be like, just slimy. So, you you’ll get a connect request and you’ll think, okay, you you’ve looked at their profile. You’ve, you know, you’ve kind of assessed if, you you want to, if you know them, maybe you do, maybe you don’t.

Do I want to be connected with this person? They look like they’re maybe in an adjacent industry or kind of similar field and you might be able to kind of learn from them or just be connected to them and that might be a good person to be connected with. Great. So you accept the connection. And then two hours later, you get a direct message on LinkedIn with an immediate cell. Like, hey, I’m…

So, know, I, you know, hey, Katie, I see you’re, you know, in social media consulting and we have the latest and greatest, you know, tool for, you know, creating video. And I’m like, come on. And no, like, fine. Like that might work. And you, you might get, like there are people that just like spit out hundreds of those, like all month long, you know, and they’re just like, that’s what they’re in it. They’re in it for like, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s.

what’s its quantity over quality and they’re just like, if I get one person from all these reach outs, then my quota is done fine. But just please be, and also like if you’re connecting with somebody and you’re seeing them as maybe somebody that you want to get to know or you want to kind of network with them to kind of maybe move into their industry or they work for a company that you’re interested in or what have you.

please just be careful about, or just be sensitive with asking to pick their brain or to just really kind of glean information from them without giving in return. I feel like, I realize when people are still getting their feet under them and career-wise and kind of coming up, you might not have much kind of leverage or…

Katie McKiever (59:06.193)
kind of prestige in return of, know, wanna network up. You wanna like find people to kind of grow into or like to grow to know. But just like strike up a relationship or ask questions via direct message or ask if you you could send something via email. Just be very sensitive of people’s time, especially if you just do not know them at all. Just know that that can turn off, you know, a lot of people.

If you’re just going in for like, hey, can we grab coffee? Like you, you you’re some executive in some big organization that I wanna, you know, get to know. It just doesn’t come across as like that you’re really thinking through the value of their time. So just be sensitive to that and know that, yes, absolutely. Please reach out to people you find.

you know, interesting and you can connect with them and follow their content and get to know them and, you know, ask them questions every once in a while, but be sensitive to just kind of coming right in hot with like, Hey, can we get lunch? And, you know, just chit chat because their time is probably really valuable. So that, yeah, just kind of the, the kind of coming on too strong in direct messages is probably

Probably the big giant yacht.

Jess Diamond (01:00:35.47)
I can agree with that. But thank you, Katie. This was, I knew this was going to be a good episode because I was eating up everything that you told me back in January when we first met. So I want to thank you for coming and being a guest on How to 20 something. Where can people find you if they want to connect with you or ask you questions or follow you to see your content?

Katie McKiever (01:00:57.169)
Yes, please. Well, I know you’re going to be getting on LinkedIn now. So definitely find me on LinkedIn, Katie McKeever, and it’s under my name. Reach out, connect, send me a message. I have my weekly newsletter. I put it on LinkedIn as well. So I think LinkedIn will actually automatically ask if you want to subscribe to that once you connect with me. So that will be kind of just built into that. But…

Also want to encourage you, I have on my website my framework for posting and becoming known. And this can work on LinkedIn or any platform, but I really tailor it toward LinkedIn. It’s called my 321 Go framework, which is how you can build your personal brand using social media and using a platform. So if you want to go to katimckeever.com backslash 321 Go, that’s where you can find that. And it’s a 20 page.

very detailed document that will be emailed to you and it walks you through it gives you examples. Like I want you all out here representing yourselves well and I’m excited to see you doing that because LinkedIn is absolutely a powerful tool.

Jess Diamond (01:02:08.61)
Yes. And all of that will be linked in the show notes for you guys to access right this instance. Otherwise, this does conclude another episode of how to 20 something. If you liked what you heard, if you learned something new, which I’m pretty sure you did. If you know someone who needs help with their LinkedIn, then please share this episode, post on social media, send it to a friend, tag me on LinkedIn tag Katie on LinkedIn, give me a five star rating but

Just help me help other 20 somethings out there so that we can all be successful. And as always, I can’t wait to be in your headphones again next week with another brand new episode.