#119 - LinkedIn Growth Strategy for Entrepreneurs: Comment Currency with Wendy Shore

If you've been telling yourself "I should really get on LinkedIn" for the past few years --> this episode is your sign to actually do it. 

I sat down with Wendy Shore, LinkedIn Top Voice, business growth strategist, and author of the new book Comment Currency, for a deep-dive conversation on how solopreneurs and creative entrepreneurs can use LinkedIn strategically to grow their businesses and build real authority.

Wendy shares why LinkedIn has become more important than ever in the age of AI search, how the platform's algorithm actually works (including their new context-reading AI called Brew 360), and her signature strategy of using thoughtful comments as currency to build visibility and relationships.

In this episode:

• Why LinkedIn isn't just for corporate professionals — and who's missing out by avoiding it
• The most important profile elements and how to optimize them
• The "Comment Currency" strategy and why 15 minutes a day can change your business
• How to build relationships and network without the dreaded "pitch slap"
• Content strategy, posting frequency, and what's actually working right now
• How to use LinkedIn newsletters and other features to grow your email list
• The biggest mistakes people make (hint: it's the AI-generated sameness)
• Building a leadership voice — even if you're still learning

Connect with Wendy: wendyshore.co

Get your copy of Wendy's best-selling book here:

Comment Currency: How to Use Comments to Build Authority, Visibility, and Opportunity on LinkedIn

 

Mindset to Market is a Luminous Creative Production. If you'd like to learn more about our business coaching program and group coaching container, please visit us online at DeborahcSmith.com.

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Transcript

 Let me ask you this. How many times have you said I should really start using LinkedIn, or, I know I need to be posting more on LinkedIn for my business. I keep hearing it's so great for business growth, but then you open the app, you scroll for like 30 seconds, and then you just close it again. Or you think, that's not really my vibe. I don't know if my people are there. I'm not even sure what to say. Everybody looks so polished. Well, what if I told you that LinkedIn is one of the most underutilized platforms for solopreneurs right now? And that showing up there doesn't have to feel stiff corporate or completely out of alignment. And I'll be the first to admit that I was approaching LinkedIn as if it was just a place to post my resume and really just for corporate people and that I didn't totally fit in there. But my guest today has completely flipped that script for me. Her name is Wendy Shore. She's a LinkedIn Top Voice and the author of a brand new book called Comment Currency. Which is all about how to use the strategy of connecting with people authentically on LinkedIn to grow your business. So listen, you guys, I grilled Wendy on every single thing that I could think of, every feature, every strategy, and she was so generous. So if you've been thinking about getting more active on LinkedIn, this is the episode for you. And if you're already using it. You're still gonna learn something new because Wendy is truly an expert. So enjoy my conversation with Wendy Shore. Hey there. Welcome to the Mindset to Market Podcast, your go-to space for practical tools and solutions to the everyday challenges of being a creative and soulful entrepreneur living in a material world. I'm your host Deborah Smith, a holistic business coach and marketing strategist with 17 years of experience. I help my clients bust through mindset blocks and learn daily marketing practices that balance personal wellness with financial growth and impact. I'm here to offer you support with creativity, mindset, practical how-tos, and getting into imperfect messy actions so you can experience daily breakthroughs as you grow. If you're a purpose-driven entrepreneur building an online business, you're in the right place. Let's dive in. All right everyone. I'm excited about today's conversation. My guest today is Wendy Shore. She's a business growth strategist and a LinkedIn top Voice who helps entrepreneurs build authority and create real business growth on this platform. So Wendy has over 30 years of experience launching and expanding ventures. And so today we're gonna dive into specifically LinkedIn. How it actually works, who it's really for, and how you can start using this platform more strategically to grow your business. So Wendy, thank you so much for joining me. Welcome to the show. Oh, thank, I'm so thrilled to be here. Thank you so much. Yay. Okay, so I'm coming outta the gates with a myth busting question, and this is coming from my own personal, uh, sort of mythology. Um, I think a lot of people, my former self included, think that LinkedIn is. Only for corporate professionals who are wearing business suits and work for big companies, big agencies. So is that a myth? And who should actually be using LinkedIn today for their business? Um, it is a big myth and anybody who's a business should really be on LinkedIn. We used to say LinkedIn is like where your resume goes to die, right? Um, yeah, exactly. But the platform is really a community building, social business networking platform. That's what it is. Okay. Okay. Say more about that. Well, I'll tell you that when I got on LinkedIn, I was surprised. Right, because like I just said, you always thought, I thought like you, it was just this platform where people in suits, corporate executives just would go to connect, right? Yeah. They were looking for their next job and during the pandemic, I was on an app called Clubhouse. I'm not sure if you're familiar with it. I remember Clubhouse. Yes. It had a moment in the sun. It did. And for those people who might be listening who don't know what it is, it was a social audio app, a. Large virtual event with hundreds of audio rooms going on at the same time. Yeah. They were talking everything from business, social media, politics, how to raise Phish, how to speak this language, how to pitch. I mean, everything was going on. So when I was on Clubhouse, and like you said, it had its moment and it definitely, as the world opened up, the conversations on Clubhouse faded, people kept saying, get on LinkedIn, get on LinkedIn. Finally I did. And I was like, I think I just found home. And that's really how I felt. Um, as a business owner, as a business person. And I've been my own boss and entrepreneur for over 30 years, and a solopreneur for about five. Okay. So this is actually really good to hear. You're now known as a LinkedIn growth strategist and a Top Voice, so I would love to hear when you realized it was more than just. That resume platform, kind of what was your next move? So I guess I went from sharing advice on Clubhouse to sharing advice on LinkedIn. Um, LinkedIn was writing where Clubhouse was, you know. With your voice. Yeah. But at the time that I got on LinkedIn, they had audio rooms. They don't have them anymore. But you were able to open up rooms. So I, I used to do that and I met a lot of people, but more than that, I would start hosting, um, just thoughts. I had different business advice. Back then, it was very advice, I would say. Um, and what I mean by that was I wasn't necessarily adding my personal perspective in at the time. I was just giving advice from all the things I learned. Yeah, nonetheless, I guess it caught the eye of LinkedIn editors because I found out afterwards that they're the ones who choose top voices, so, oh, they look at the billion people on the platform, and so I must have caught somebody's eye, which to me is like such an honor. I just feel so grateful for it, and it just fueled me to wanna help more people. Well, it seems like. All platforms, algorithms are designed in some way, shape, or form to keep users using that platform. So if somebody naturally creates community, naturally creates like a gathering space for people to learn. If you are just sharing advice, it makes perfect sense that they would honor and respect that and say, oh, this is the type of person who's automatically keeping, you know, helping people learn more about this platform, stay on this platform. So that actually makes a lot of sense. Did you receive some type of, like a notification, like you're a top voice? I did. Um, and interesting. I received the notification, but I, at that point in time, my mom had been in the hospital and I was going back and forth to the hospital every day and I didn't see it. Oh. And I was part of this group, and I would literally catch it, like I would join the group. In the car on the way to the hospital. And somebody said to me, congratulations on being a top voice. And I go, what? And they're like, you're a top voice. And I go, I am. And they're like, wait, wait, let me check your profile. I'm like, yes, you have the badge. And I was like, that's a nice surprise. It was. It was, yeah. It was surreal. Yeah. No, it's nice to be recognized for your work and, and especially by the people who you know, are these sort of like. Invisible tech gurus in the, you know, floating in outer space someplace like seemingly not really accessible to get recognized by the platform itself is, is definitely an honor it. So I wanna just go back to when you asked me, should solopreneurs small business owners be LinkedIn? Yeah. And I think I wanna take the conversation in a slightly different direction that than you probably had anticipated, because the world is changing because of ai, right? Yes. So first of all, LinkedIn spends a lot of money on SEO. Right. And so if you were to take out your phone right now and look up yourself, and if you've been on LinkedIn at all, it's likely that in the top three things that come up from you is gonna be about your LinkedIn profile. Interesting. So also what's happening is when everybody discovered chat, GPT, you know, it launched in 22 and people were starting to get on it, but now. It's kind of leveled the playing field in that people can create content like this, you know? Mm-hmm. But it's all the same. Yeah. The cat's outta the bag. It's not a secret anymore that you can create actual content at lightning speed, but it's like, what's the point if it's not connected? Right. It's all like muck, right. It's all about, yeah. And so that's where we were talk when I said. I only shared advice, well, now I'm sharing advice from a personal perspective, showing this is what I went through. Mm-hmm. But also, search is changing, right? So you need to be out there sharing your advice, sharing your perspective, sharing, sharing, sharing in a way that doesn't sound like everybody else. So that when people are searching for what it is that you offer, and chances are they're going to be in either Google AI or they're going to be in Chachi pt, or they're gonna be in Perplexity, or they're gonna be in Claude, or any one of the numerous ones that will come out after this, you need for yourself to come up, right? Because it's no longer the same kind of search. That it was just Google and, you know, top three and, and you can, um, advertise and I know that chat, GPT is doing advertising for not paying people, but you're paying, you're not getting ads at least right now. So it's more important to get on LinkedIn and start sharing your knowledge. Besides the fact that you can grow your business, you can get customers there, you can meet collaborators there, there's so much that is available to you if you just take the time to learn the platform a little bit and use it strategically. But it's more important than ever I think. Yeah. That's actually, that's a good segue to my next question, which is really about the platform basics. So. For someone who hasn't really used LinkedIn beyond setting up a profile like 20 years ago. Like I basically set my, as soon as it became a thing, I was like, gotta get on there. You know, I'm a business owner, set up my profile and update it, you know, every couple of years to make sure I wasn't using it right. I was just, it was literally like a business card on that platform. But I would love to ask you if you can just keep us up to speed on how the platform actually works today. Like what are the key features that people should know about? Well, first, let's talk about the profile That is very important still. Yeah. Because when people land, they're gonna see your profile, right? It's the first impression. It is. And so you're, you know, you first you have the real estate under your name, which is the characters of, you know, what you do, who you help. Right. And a lot of people waste it with. Former account executive for IBM. More of a resume bullet than like something active. Yes. So who you help, what you do, why you're different. That's really what that headline should be. And then, okay, so that's your bio. Yep. And that then there's an about section too. And you're about section also should not read like a CSV, but it should or, or a resume. But it should read like, you know. Like you're talking to your ideal client and telling them why they should choose you, and then you kind of go into all the experience you have. Then the other part is your banner, right? You have this banner behind you, and people use either no banner or they use the banners that are supplied by LinkedIn, but that is your walking billboard. Yeah. It's really, you're right, right. What do you do? So that, I think that the profile is very important. You see me over here, feverously taking notes. Right. I love it. I mean, I'm recording so I can just re-watch this, but No, it's really good because you're right, like it is really about, I mean, first impressions absolutely matter. Absolutely, yes. You know, it really, I mean, of course we're all living in this crazy world. We can give each other a little bit of grace, but like the way we come across in the first impression does actually stick with people what they looked like, what they sounded like, how they presented themselves. I think it matters just as much now as it ever did. So here's the other thing. When people first get on, there's something about posting on LinkedIn that for some reason, just like the imposter system sets in, I and I, I don't know what it is, and I'm talking people with, you know, tons of experience, super, super successful, and they go to post on LinkedIn and they're like, eh, what if I sound silly? Or what if. You know, what if, what if, um, so one of the things that I recommend, and I'll do a shameless plug right here 'cause I have a book coming out. Ooh, yeah. Plug away. It's called Comment Currency and it's how to use the comment section on LinkedIn. To grow your business. And I think that when you're great first starting, not only should it be part of what you do every single day, but when you're first starting, it's easier to get involved in conversations that are already happening rather than start Oh yeah, right. So find a post that you like and don't waste time going like great post. Like, that's great, but that's gonna get lost in the feed. Give your perspective on it, or if you really liked it, why did you like it? Right? Yeah. What was it about it that resonated with you? And then what happens is people see that because when you are on somebody else's post, you're exposing yourself to all of their followers and all the people who are responding to the post. So then you get noticed. Um, a lot of times people will try and sell you stuff. Yeah. They'll connect with you. They'll give you the pitch slap. Right? Like connect with me. And by the way, I'm gonna sell you this. I have not heard that term before, but I'm absolutely borrowing it from you. That's so good. I I get that like 9,000 times a day, so I need that word. Yep. That's amazing. Um, but you're building relationship currency by commenting and participating in other people's PLA posts, et cetera. Exactly. So we've got your basic profile, your bio section, which we've just learned how to optimize and use every bit of real estate. Thank you very much. Then you've got posting, which is like your general feed, like a newsfeed, that's like a scrolling newsfeed and that seems to be weighted. Kind of in order of timeliness, like it's like what's the most recent posts that are coming out, but also, is it true that those posts bubble up more? If there's a lot of commenting and a lot, like I've noticed there's some people who are very active that I'm seeing in my feed all the time. Yes, and, and here's another thing, so. LinkedIn just changed the algorithm or the algorithms. There was a lot of algorithms, yeah. But they have a new thing that came out, I think at the end of 24. Um, maybe in 25. They didn't tell you exactly when it, it launched, but it's called, um, brew 360 and it's AI driven. But the interesting thing is it reads context. Oh, because AI can, right? So the other thing you wanna do is you wanna make sure that your profile and your, your conversations or your posts are connected. Like, you don't wanna say, I am a, a ghost writer for medical executives. And talk about pottery all the time, right? Right. You talk about pottery, if it's your, you know, something you enjoy, but you wanna talk about why medical executives may need a ghost writer and what the importance of showing up on LinkedIn for medical executives. And, you know, you wanna make sure that you're content that you're putting out there and the post you're putting out, that there's a, a relationship and that you're not talking about things that are completely unrelated all the time. Or else LinkedIn's gonna look at it and not push that out there, or not show people who should see your content. Your content, because it doesn't mean anything to them. Right. Oh, that's so interesting. I mean, just in general, in terms of like marketing yourself as a business, it makes logical sense that you would post about things that are in your zone of genius, in your area of expertise. The thing that you are an expert for. Or, uh, about, but this is what you're saying is it goes even one level deeper is that the algorithm is reading for context and won't disseminate that information if it's not cohesive and actually making sense. Right. Right. It does. We are living in wild times. That is like, that's crazy. Mm-hmm. Yeah. But it's also super useful. Thank you for sharing that. And so there's other things that are other features of the basic platform, right? Like there's, you can, I mean, you can search for a job. There's a whole job. Oh yeah, application piece. There's an event feature, right? You can have events. There's like so many things that you can do that are not just this basic bio and or discussion. So you could do LinkedIn lives, right? They took the audio rooms away, but a LinkedIn live, um, it's using a third party streaming service. Um, I think there is a way to connect it with Zoom. I haven't figured that out, but Restream Stream Yard, um, possibly Riverside, but LinkedIn actually has a list of. Who you can use and, and who they interact with. Um, they're very particular, and let me just go back and say this 'cause we were talking about AI and while it's in my head I wanna say this. Yeah. They, even though their algorithm is AI driven, they are very. You using AI for things like commenting. So they don't want you using a bot to comment. They don't want you using a bot to send messages. They don't. So, and if they find that you're doing that, they will shut down your account. That's so interesting. I, I don't, I also don't want you doing that personally. I think that's just the weirdest thing. It's so, I think it's very easy to detect if something was written by an AI at this point. Right. We see some repeating patterns in how AI writes, and so when I get an email that's like clearly been just like kicked outta somebody's AI and they didn't bother to even update it or whatever, I just unsubscribe. I'm like, you know what? This person isn't even there anymore. So I appreciate that they're scanning for that because they're making, people are getting lazy, right? Like we will always take the easiest way out. It's just human nature. Yeah. And so if it's not that important to you, then you're gonna be like, okay, I wanna get it out. I have to get a newsletter out. I'm just gonna use a I to write it. Yeah. But yet, no, they do. If you write an article using AI and you post that, that doesn't get you flagged or shut down, however. I think that in that case, you're gonna lose authority by people reading it. And like you just said, I knew this a, this email was written by ai. If you're gonna go, I know this article was a hundred percent written by ai, it sounds like the article I read last week. Yeah. That somebody else the same subject. Then you start to lose credibility. And you know, today we talk about being in a trust recession. And so you want to make sure that everything you're doing is aligned with your values, aligned with what you're doing. If you talk about using AI to write content, and then you're using ai, AI to write content, great, right? You wanna be in alignment with what you're saying because you know, there's so many choices, there's so many people trying to do it. There's so much hustle. So why are you different? What makes you better? What values will you not compromise on? And that's amazing advice for everyone listening, just for any platform that you're on, like LinkedIn or not, the authenticity piece is, is, is shockingly simple, is be your actual self, everybody else, and stay true to your values and be consistent about that, you know? Right. So funny. So well, okay, so you talked, you started dipping into this a little bit, but let's talk about content in terms of what actually. Is working. So I, I find that a lot of solopreneurs in general struggle with what to post on LinkedIn. And I, I will admit that when I started ramping up my activity using LinkedIn more often, I struggled at first with how different it seems than. For example, Instagram or Threads, which are very laid back, whereas I find LinkedIn to be a little more sophisticated. People are presenting the leadership side of their personality. But I would love to hear your POV on content strategy, just in general. Like what is the, what's the way to post there and how often should somebody realistically be posting on LinkedIn? So content strategy, well, first of all, you wanna speak to either your ideal client or your peers, right? So that's, that's gonna be your target audience, depending on the content. Um, but. The content itself, you have to think to yourself for the moment, what purpose am I trying to serve with this? Right? So if you, for example, are in the middle of a launch of a new product, a new course, a new whatever, then obviously a lot of your content should be around that. And I'm not talking necessarily sales content, but content that speaks in your customer's voice, speaking to the pain point of. What it is that you're selling because that's where you wanna lead them. Um, and you might be posting a little bit more if you have a launch than if not in general. So what is your purpose? What are you trying to achieve with the post? So these are the things that we have people think about. And then the, as far as how often, as often as you can remain consistent. And I will say this, there's a couple of things. One. I think three times a week is a good start, right? If and if you can only be consistent two times a week, just be consistent two times a week. But it's like going to the gym. If you go and you go one week, you're there every single day and then you disappear for a month and come back, you're gonna get no, no, you know, value from that. The other thing is LinkedIn is one of those platforms that you don't need a lot of followers. To be able to make sales, to reach your customer, to, to get that connection because the algorithm is set up to reward different things than follow account and or, you know? Yes. Right. So that's so interesting. I mean, I know people with hundred, like a hundred thousand followers who aren't making sales. And then I remember I started working with somebody who had 3000 followers and she got one post. And from that one post, right, she got like four dms. And from those four dms, she had three sales calls, right. And there you go. Yeah. Because it was a very specific post for a specific audience. With a specific message. Yeah. And the other thing that I think people get discouraged at that you have to realize is if you look at who's commenting, a lot of times it, it is your peers that are commenting on the post. Where your ideal client may not wanna admit that they have the problem, right? And so they're watching, and they're watching and they're watching. And when they're ready, they may message you. And I've had people reach out to me that I've never liked to comment, that's never commented on a post, but they obviously had been watching because. They knew what I talked about. Yeah. And they knew that. No, that's a really, really good point. I've actually, we talk about this a lot inside my coaching community. It's like people are watching how you move. They're watching to see if you're consistent. You throw something out there and say you're gonna host a thing. Well, nobody signs up after the first 24 hours. Are you gonna continue posting and showing up and reinforcing that you're serious about your event? You gotta stay in it all the way to the end and show them, because people often wait till the very last minute to make a decision, a buying decision. Yes. And so. People if you don't stay, you know, sort of consistent and visible around the thing that you're saying that you're an expert at or the thing that you're doing and you just decide, you know what, this isn't working. I'm just out, I'm not gonna do this anymore. People all, not only will they not buy that particular thing this time, but they're also gonna think that you're not someone who's trustworthy or reliable because you weren't consistent about it. So, but you're right. People are watching how you move and it's really a good point too, that people may not want. To admit that they're struggling with the thing that you are speaking to, especially in this leadership environment. Right? Right. But they'll reach out. And then here's the other thing. You know, I talked about commenting and commenting, um, is where people may see you first. Also what'll happen is LinkedIn has like a little banner that says like, oh, uh, Wendy commented on Deborah's, so you're connected to me. Right? I have a first connection. And nobody, they don't know you, but they'll say, Wendy commented on Deborah's post, and you're gonna go, oh, and maybe you see the first few lines of the post. And you go, oh, that looks like a good post. So now you click on it. Now you're looking. Right. And now you're looking at the comments in there because LinkedIn readers tend to like look at the comments. Yeah. Now you see somebody else, and I've seen this happen, where they'll see a comment. Now they go over to that person's profile, right? They're like, oh, this is the person I need to help me. But then what happens is now they go through and they read all of the posts. Right. So that's why you want posts there too. Yeah. Because that's where you're going to highlight your expertise. Right? The comment got the attention. But your, your feed and your posts that are gonna sit there forever, people are gonna look at them and go, yes, yes. This is the person I need. This is more like a body of her work, kind of like this is a, a summary of a variety of different things this person talks about. That's really, really, really helpful. Right. It's so funny you say that because I noticed LinkedIn also, at least in my, you know, when I look in my feed, I'll see this post of yours got. You know, X number of comments and one new follow, like it tells you. S where you're achieving goals, basically, which I'm very motivated by that. So it's like, oh, I got one new, you know, one person checked out my profile from that comment, okay, this is actually working. So LinkedIn just doubled down on what I was saying, what I wrote this book about. And the timing couldn't have been better because it only came out with that like a couple of months. Where you can see how many people are looking at your comment, how many people are responding to your comment. I'm like, I love this. This is great. Because I think that you should spend 15 minutes a day, right? At least I, I think you should do it every day. 'cause 15 minutes is what, nothing, right? Yeah. Just commenting on people's posts, finding posts, um, how to com and, and in the book I do break down how to comment. Basically you wanna find the right people and you wanna make sure you're following them and that you're commenting on them. And those same people could be your ideal client or it could be other people who share your ideal client, right? So you wanna find the people who are like service adjacent, that you're ideal client's gonna be in their feed, and that's, and expose yourself to them as well. That's a really smart strategy. What about the networking piece of this? There's a, I think there's a fine art to networking. It's showing up confidently and knowing, you know, the key things that you want to share with a group of people in a short amount of time. Having your little bio and, you know, quick pitch, ready to go when you're doing like a networking group call or something like that. But there's a finesse to networking without being salesy. Right? And so I'm curious, LinkedIn is supposed to be about networking, but a lot of people feel awkward reaching out to total strangers. And so, and I do feel like you, what was the phrase that you said earlier? The pitch slap? Yes. I've gotten so many direct cold messages on LinkedIn that it was, I, I'm surprised honestly. Um, so what's the right way to start conversations and build relationships on LinkedIn without it feeling spammy? Don't have sales in mind, have relationship building in mind. Okay. Such a good answer. And because when you connect with somebody, they may not be be your ideal client, but they may know people who are. So if you go there with the service mentality, like, who can I introduce you to? Right? Hmm. Usually it's reciprocated. And even if it's not, you're still doing good and you're spreading positive, you know, vibes in the world. It comes back to you. That's an amazing answer. Thank you so much for that. I love that. I hope everyone wrote that down because that's the right approach for sales every single day for no matter where you are. How can you be of service? How can you be generous with what you, you know, are bringing to the table that's gonna translate into people recommending you, people remembering you. So it was such good advice. And it goes back to what we were talking about earlier, the people who are gatekeeping, right? They're not gonna be recommended soon because the AI can't read what they're putting out there. They're not putting it out there. So, you know, it just, just be generous and the reason people are gonna hire you is not. What you know right now 'cause what you know is becoming a commodity, right? It's, it's just knowledge is commoditized. Yeah. So it's really you and your experiences and how you can help them over, you know, the potholes with the least amount of problems because. You've been through it, right? Can you have the experience to get them through it? So it's no longer just, you know, how do I do this? Because AI could tell you how to do it. Mm-hmm. Right? Um, ai AI is gonna tell me, how do I take A-G-P-T-I built and now rebuild it in claw as a skill and rebuild it in in Gemini as a gem? I don't even have to learn it, right? It, it's gonna tell me how to do it. So the information is out there for everybody. So what makes you, you. Why are you different? Why should I work with you? Why should I choose you? And if you're gatekeeping, you're not gonna get recommended. It's gonna be that simple. I love this because we talk about this a lot in sort of like in. Creating marketing operations that are gonna be sustainable and kind of evergreen. My big thing is like infuse as much personal story into your story bank, like into this like, you know, cash of interesting factoids that you can weave in because people remember those little detailed, like your cat's name or your favorite vegetable. That's the weird little nuance things that connect us to one another and, and cause us to remember each other. Like if you, if I share a, I mean, not that I hear you saying streamline your content to be strategically in your zone of expertise, but you can weave in some of these little personal factoids. A hundred percent. A hundred percent. That's good. That's good. It's good. We just did so, um. Somebody who I met on LinkedIn and I created a community called the Content Circle, and we help people create content on LinkedIn and our post prompt last week was. 10 fun facts about yourself that people may not know. I mean, it's simple, but it gets people connected with you, right? Oh, I didn't know you did that. I didn't know you did that. And so there's nothing wrong with showing your personality, but you don't want every post just to be a personal post. A personal post. And you'll find that your personal posts probably do better than your business posts because they're more approachable, right? Yeah. They're easy to approach and they're easy for people to comment on. So. Um, but yeah, show your personality. Absolutely. And what about, I'm curious, so do you use the event feature in any capacity or how does the event feature even work? Um, so you can have a newsletter, you can have a group. I'm just curious about all those sort of extra features. So, okay. Groups are not like Facebook groups. They don't have the same. You know, reach. So they're there. And I know people have groups and I know people who use them to keep a community connected. So they have this sort of off LinkedIn community, but they still connect on LinkedIn and things are posted in the group. Um, newsletters are incredible. You know, we talked about the AI and picking up information and posting in long form newsletters on LinkedIn. Um. Not only that, but LinkedIn newsletters are, no, your followers are notified when you release a newsletter. Would you say A lot of my clients write a weekly email to their list, right? So we wanna have proprietary, you know, access to connect to people. So they're sending out a weekly newsletter that's like information based, but there's also some other aspects to it. Would you say that could be duplicated and added into like an, is it, it's different than an email newsletter, but it's more, is it more like a Reddit or a subreddit or that type of information based, blog based post? So I, yes and no. Both. Um, I know people who effectively will talk about. What's coming out in their newsletter. So they put it in a newsletter. They give enough information that it's worthwhile. So let's say you have five things, five recommendations to grow your business on LinkedIn, right? And so then on the newsletter, on the LinkedIn newsletter, maybe I give you the top one, right? Or the top two. Got it. And for three more tips, subscribe to my newsletter. And people can successfully get people to subscribe to their personal list. And now they have their email and now you know, they're living in your own ecosystem instead of LinkedIn's ecosystem. So yeah, that's, um, I know somebody else who, oh, she has an incredible newsletter and she'll. Put a little teaser as a post. She doesn't do the newsletter, but she'll talk about, if you wanna know the answer to this, it's coming outta my newsletter tomorrow. And she gets a lot of, um, newsletter subscribers by doing a post teaser. I love that. That's a really good strategy because we do eventually want people, we wanna have people's email addresses so that when we're having launch of a product or a sale or if there's something special happening, we can directly. Inbox message people. But it seems like, I noticed the newsletter feature this week when I was checking out the platform and I started thinking, how could this be strategic for people building a list off offline, like off of, you know, platforms. That's, but the other thing to keep in mind is when you put a, a LinkedIn newsletter out. That's one of those things that the AI bots can crawl and read and attribute to you as an expert in that. So it's good to have it to put the information out there, you know? But what you don't wanna do is, I think, necessarily is have it where. It goes to LinkedIn and then to your newsletter because it doesn't give people on LinkedIn a reason to subscribe to your newsletter, right? But you could do it opposite, put it in your newsletter, and then it can come out on LinkedIn a few days later, and you could tell people, if you want an ear earlier, access to this information, subscribe to my newsletter. There you go. Yeah. Yeah. So there's, so basically what I'm hearing is use it strategically. Yes. Yes. Yeah. Everything else, right? Like everything else, like everything else. Mm-hmm. So smart. So I think I hear all the time, all the time, all the time. LinkedIn is for business growth, LinkedIn is for business growth. Like everyone. And again, like my older sister who is the vice president of a well-known public relations firm, Boston, uh, she's always like, I can't believe you're not using this platform. And so I'd love to just chat for a minute about what that looks like. What is, when you think of business growth, is it just collecting more people who know about you? What is the sort of the, the big takeaway in terms of business growth? Well, I think it's actually getting like real revenue. You're, you're, you're converting content into clients. Yeah. You know, so that's what I mean by business growth. But there's, there's a lot of things. It is more exposure, right? Mm-hmm. It is meeting the right people, you know? What do you wanna do? Do you want to, like, I just, we met at Pod Fest, I was speaking at Pod Fest. Do I wanna speak from more stages? Well, if I put that out there on LinkedIn, there's somebody who's gonna be running an event who's gonna say, Hey. I want this person there. Right? So I've seen that happen. Um, I have seen where people have done launches of a community and they got a lot of people because they had talked about it on LinkedIn and it just hit the right people. Business growth to me is, is revenue, right? Yeah. So it's turning whatever into revenue, but it's, there's steps in between. Yeah. And for some people they may not be ready to promote a product. So they are out there building their community and building their audience before launching. Right. And building credibility. A hundred percent. I mean, I had some friends that I was chatting with about, uh, an opportunity to speak at an event this summer and somebody referenced, basically somebody referred me to the host and was like, you should talk to Deborah. She would be great. They went directly to my LinkedIn profile. Thank God it was updated because I went to your talk and that's literally the truth. During your event at Pod Fest, I was sitting in there updating my profile, listening to you guys give tips. I'm like, I gotta do this right now. And, and, and since then I've been like going through and saying like, wow, that is old news. I gotta get rid of that. I gotta update that. I need a new picture. You know, so I started working on it. Um, and I'm glad I did because that person reached out to me and asked me to apply to speak. And so I'm gonna be speaking at this event over the summer as absolutely as a result of the fact that I presented as legit, right? Because my LinkedIn profile was, was up to date. They didn't go to my website, she went to my LinkedIn profile. She didn't go to my Instagram because Instagram doesn't have that same credibility. Yeah. Mm-hmm. And so that's such a, that's really is true what you say. And it's interesting, it's like credibility. You know, authority, like you said, this sort of leadership piece. We talked about strategy already with content, but, and I know that you have a book coming out, which I would love to hear more about, but if you have like a POV on forming that leadership voice, is it just sharing something that you feel truly confident about or how would you approach presenting like a leader and having that sort of authority? Well, I think it depends. One, if you actually do have the experience and knowledge, then yes, um, share it and you build credibility. Now you just have to build online credibility. But for people who are just starting out or don't have like all that under their belt, build in public, you know, share. What's going right? What's going wrong? You know, I'm gonna try this, I'm learning this. Like for me now, I'm incorporating AI a lot and I'm learning about ai and I think that one of the most important things is, and I've been talking about it a lot, is going to be how do you show up in AI search as opposed to just, you know, how do you get people to your website? I mean, those days are, are changing. There's this shift and I've been watching it. Yeah. And so, um. You have to show up more, you have to be out there more. LinkedIn is a great place to be. So everything that I've kind of been doing and saying I think has become more important. Um, so for me, using some of the AI tools, like just incorporating them into my business to streamline them as well. I'm gonna start sharing that, right? I started by. Using the LLMs to write content or help me write content, not to write it for me, but using it as a tool, using it to ideate. I've been doing that since 2022. Um, using the AI to create images. I've been doing that for a really long time. Using the AI now to, I'm trying to learn these agents. Mm-hmm. How do you work them autonomously? Once I do that, I wanna share it with people. Right. Yeah. I'm not gonna share now because I don't really. No, a hundred percent, but I'm getting there. Right? How to build cha GPTs or gems or, you know, we were talking about earlier, um, skills. There's so much and it's all happening so fast and I love this ai, so I wanna share it with people. I'm not an AI expert, but I'm learning. And so if I learn and then I share. Right. Then you start to create a different path, right. Of leadership. Yeah. That's so, such, such good advice. And I just wanna, this relates a lot to what we talk about, um, inside my coaching group and on this podcast about. Transparency in the public space, it, it really does relieve a lot of the stress and the pressure when you just say, Hey, this is the first time I ever tried this, like, watch me work. Right? Right. Exactly. It really, not only do people admire your bravery, but also they, they're, see, you're getting visibility. You're getting seen, you're being seen as it is leadership quality. To go first or to admit, I don't actually know how to do this yet, but I'm learning and I'll tell you what I learned as I do it. If I fail, you'll see me fail. Exactly. Here we go. Right. I think that is a really extreme leadership, uh, quality that is sort of underplayed because like we always think about leadership as, you know, sort of being that person who's accrued the knowledge, accrued the experience, and then says, okay, I'm gonna go first and show you guys all how to do this. I'm gonna guide you. You know, I'm gonna be brave and say out loud the thing that we're all thinking, whatever. But there's a, you can also be a leader by saying, yeah, I don't know this yet, but I'm willing to try it and I'm gonna show you what happened so you can learn with me. That's leadership. So I love that by doing, you know, the fact that you were sitting there and making the changes in the audience, like you're like, oh, I need to do this, and you just did it To me. That shows leadership's qualities, leadership skills, because you're like, okay, I need to get it done. I'm doing it. Yeah. You know? Yeah. And then I actually, so talk, and I saw your, uh, your particular session on the calendar. I'm like, I have to be in that room because I, I can't hear another person tell me I should be on LinkedIn, which I'm on there, but I'm not using it. So I went to see, you know, what can I learn from these folks? And then I heard you were doing a chat, a chat afterwards. I'm like, I gotta go meet them and shake their hands. Now I have to consume the full content of this. And I'm so glad that I did because. It's, first of all, I was wrong to go back to the top of the podcast. I, you know, that myth of this not being a place for. You know, creatives, like I've always seen myself more on the creative side of business. As a founder, I've launched several businesses. I live in that sort of ideation realm. I, I also help my clients with a lot of the technical structured stuff, and I have a background in marketing, but I love the artsy side of it all, the creative side of it all. And so I've just kind of put myself in this bucket as not corporate and. You know, not somebody with a big agency. And so for, for those reasons alone, I counted myself off of that platform and, and that was, that was actually wrong. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yep. So good to, to chat about this. I would love to hear about your book. What's the name, when is it coming out? Tell me everything. So, um, well, it was supposed to be out, but I don't know if I told you, I just did a TEDx. No. Tell us about the TEDx too. I just, I, I just did this Sunday. I, I love it. It was on International Women's Day, so I don't know when it's gonna make it to the TEDx site. Hopefully they say about eight weeks. So hopefully I will be out there soon. But yep, I just did a TEDx, my first one. Congratulations. Thank you. It was quite an experience. So the book got a little bit, uh, delayed, but it will be out in April and Good. Called Comment Currency Comments Currency. It's, it's basically the strategy that you spoke about earlier about using comments as your growth. Yes. Yep. That's really exciting. How, why the reasoning behind it, why it works, how it works. Um, couple little tips and tricks. What to do, what not to do. Yep. I've been working it, working for, um, a while actually. And it's finally, you know, like everything else, life gets in the way and you put off to the side and you have work and you have clients and you're like, I wanna get this finished. So finally it's done. It's being, uh, sort of laid out and type set, and I'm really excited to launch it and help more people. Right. Yes. This is really exciting. I'm so happy for you that you've got this TEDx that just happened and then you've got a book coming out right behind it. So you were the fire horse baby. Oh my God. Right? I am feeling that fire horse. Let's, let's go. Keep it coming. So is there a mistake that you see people making on LinkedIn that, that you've seen, you know, a pattern that is repeated or just a mistake that people frequently make? Um. Well, recently I just see a lot of people using the same AI generated content and they sound like everybody else. Um, I see people who like, look like they just graduated high school trying to advise C-suite executives how to, you know, how to become the next like C-Suite executive. It's be yourself, number one, right? Yeah. Trust is the strategy. Be yourself. Number two, it's okay to use ai. I told you I use it, but use it with the human still in the loop, right? Yeah. Human judgment, human experiences. AI can write it for you. AI can do it for you, but it's not gonna live your experience. It doesn't understand nuances, at least not yet. So. You want to be the person in charge of the content, and AI should only be a tool. And when I say that, ideate with it come, I don't know what to talk about. You know, you know me, come up with a, a subject for me. Yeah. Gimme three to five ideas about how I and angles on this content or this topic that I'm interested in. Exactly. And then other times I'll, maybe I'll start talking to it. I wanna start do a particular post on a, on a topic. I like to talk to text 'cause I'm a horrible typist, so I will just. Just talk, right. And talk how it comes outta my mouth. And then I say, okay, you know what? Put that together for me in a post. But it's all my ideas that are there. Yeah. So things I see as a mistake, don't sound like everybody else. Use your own thoughts, your own ideas, right? I think that topics themselves. Sort of just regenerate, right? I mean, there's no new ideas, there's just regenerated ideas. But approach it from your angle. Why are you the person to talk about this particular thing, right? Yeah. Don't do it because five other people are doing it and you have zero experience, but AI wrote it for you, so you're gonna pretend you have experience. Like really be real, like we were just talking about earlier. Be real. Build in public. You know, trust is the strategy. Yeah. Be real and be yourself. Yeah. It's so good. It's, it's really the wisest advice just about, you know, with any, with any marketing strategy. Like if you're coming from real lived experience and you're sharing real, authentic, truthful knowledge and experience, really can't go wrong. Um, and, and I love this just being reinforced by a platform that has such deep reach and the ability to connect you with so many people. And you know it's okay to say, this is what I heard the other day. Right? So then you're not saying, I live this experience, you're saying, oh my God, I thought this was such a fabulous idea. I read this, or I heard this and I wanted to share it. Right? And so now you're sharing knowledge, right? But you're not saying it's necessarily mine. You're being truthful. And people still appreciate that, right. One of the other things you could do is share posts. Like if you see a post that somebody did, there's a little like share button, right? You share it, you repost it, and you can repost it with your own. Thoughts. So with your thoughts. Yeah. Right. And so depending on the reason for the repost, just hit repost if you want it to get more reach for whatever reason or if you wanna add your thoughts to it, you know. But that does two things. One is it also helps the person who's post you reposted. Right. And that gets you noticed. Yeah. The other thing is you're sharing with your audience and they might appreciate it if it's something that your audience, you know, would find useful or be or benefit. Yeah. And just to, to qualify that, do you think it's, I mean, obviously we're gonna do this with our peers, like I've been reposting content from people who I know, clients of mine, people who I've actually worked with. But is it, is it a whole separate strategy to go ahead and repost someone who you don't even know, like a total stranger? As long as you think it's a good post quality post and you're comfortable, then yeah, why not? Yeah. That's such, that's so good. Mm-hmm. So in my prep for this conversation, I of course stalked you online and you've got so many amazing offerings on your website, the LinkedIn accelerator, you've got a bunch of resources. So what's the best place for us to find you? Is it LinkedIn? Absolutely connect with me on LinkedIn, but I'm also@wendyshore.co. And the LinkedIn accelerator, what's, tell us a little bit about that. So the LinkedIn Accelerator is a program that I offer a couple of times a year, and it's really kind of getting your kickstart. So it's going through your profile, making sure your profile's set up, going through your about section, going through all the different things that you can do on LinkedIn to grow your business. And then we'll do it right. So we'll actually take the time, you know, with the post strategy. And what I do is it's a group program. But I meet with everybody separately so that we can really define your strategy and make sure that your goals are in aligned with what you're gonna be doing. Yeah, that's so helpful. I find that to be so necessary. Right now, I feel like that's the commodity, right? Like you said, all the information is out there, but FaceTime with an actual expert who's gonna say, let me get my eyes on your thing and give you. Actual constructive feedback and guidance. That's gold. And what I find, you know, and this is sort of like a little inside peek, what I find is a lot of times when people first come, they're spending all this time posting and they're doing all the things, but it's not working. And sometimes it's actually a tweak in their business. Because they have 97 offerings and they're talking about 97 different things to 97 different audiences. And so nothing is resonating with anybody. So sometimes it's really looking to see what are you offering, what's working, what's not working? Okay. This is the best. Path for you. Let's work on that on LinkedIn and grow this part of your business. Right. And we'll worry about the other later, but right now let's just concentrate on this because again, when you talk to everybody, you talk to nobody. Yeah. That is really true. Mm-hmm. Such good advice. Thank you so much for sharing all your insider knowledge about LinkedIn today. I am very excited to, to, to take some of my notes and start to go kind of. Work on my own little strategy and just be more active there. I do have one more question for you before we go, which is what's something that you are looking forward to right now? What is something I'm looking forward to? Well, I am looking forward to my book launch. Um, this is very exciting for me and I am traveling out to California in May, so I'm looking forward to that. I have a lot of things to look forward to actually. Um, yay. Awesome. So really, really great. Wendy, thank you so much for your time today. Thank you for all these juicy insider nuggets. Um, I'm really excited to share this all with my audience and. Do you have any last thing that you wanna share with us before we go? I am so thrilled that I got to meet you at POD and I think you're amazing. And I am grateful for this association. Oh, that's wonderful. Thank you so much. Oh my goodness. And all the listeners you guys know, um, it's always just. An honor for me to have you on this journey. So thank you for spending this time with Wendy and I we're both grateful that you're on the journey with us, and so you have got so many exciting things that you can now do with your LinkedIn profile, ways to optimize it, and little ideas of how to strengthen your strategy there. So go forth and connect authentically with people. And until we meet again, may you be vibrant.