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Welcome to Jon Michail’s Personal Branding Masterclass. Jon is the founder and CEO of Image Group International, an award-winning image consulting and personal branding pioneer established in 1989. This podcast will bring you old-school wisdom, inspiring ideas, strategies, and hacks for the new tech world. Here, you will learn everything about personal branding: the system, the techniques, and the right mindset to have a successful personal brand, image, and reputation.

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Hello, everybody, and welcome back. Thank you for joining me tonight. In this episode, I'm going to share with you how to leverage LinkedIn to its fullest potential. Before we start, I'm going to share some stats that demonstrate the power of LinkedIn and why it's essential for personal branding and professional growth. LinkedIn global reach has over 774 million users in more than 200 countries and territories. And it might even be even more so because I did this a few months ago. So this immense global reach means you can connect with professionals from virtually any industry and location in the world, expanding your network and opportunities on an unprecedented scale. The other stat I'd like to share with you is that the professional engagement is 40% on LinkedIn, meaning users access the platform daily. That's just extraordinary, who would like 40% of the customers engaged in on a daily basis. So the high engagement levels indicate the LinkedIn of course is a vibrant, and active community and regular participation significantly boost your visibility and influence among your peers and industry leaders. And, you know, I'm a walking billboard of that. And of course, we do that daily as well. One final stat I want to share with you is that on a b2b marketing perspective, LinkedIn is a powerhouse 94% of b2b marketeers use LinkedIn for content marketing and generates 80% of b2b leads on social media. So LinkedIn is definitely a dominant platform for b2b marketing, because he leverages content marketing tools, automatic tools, as well that you can effectively reach decision makers and generate high quality leads for your business, where in the past, it was a lot lot harder before a system like LinkedIn. Now, I also want to share about this other aspect because many people have viewed LinkedIn as merely an online resume or a place to make professional connections, and then obviously do nothing with it. However, LinkedIn is a powerful platform that extends far beyond just the profile. Because it's a dynamic tool for building your personal brand, showcasing you're, obviously your expertise and thought leadership, and engaging with the global, professional community. So let's start off with some tips on how to basically enhance your profile. And first of all, your profile is the foundation, your LinkedIn profile is the foundation of your personal brand. In the digital world. If you notice, you only have to type in your name on Google. And the first thing that will come up is LinkedIn with your name. So Google and LinkedIn virtually work hand in hand. That's why LinkedIn profile is essential, especially for personal branding. It's more than just listing job titles and responsibilities. Think of it as your digital introduction, again, so if it's boring, and if you go online, do your own research, you'll see a lot of profiles are certainly boring, you don't want to be doing that you want to create some life into your profile. So next time, you do look at that, also consider your headline. So look at your headline, is it compelling is a reflective of your professional identity and aspirations. So instead of just listening to job title, highlight what makes you unique, you know, what makes you different. And your summary is also your chance, your opportunity to tell your story, conveying your passions, your key achievements, and the value you bring. And when I say by you bring also your results. It's a perfect opportunity, because people will check it out. And of course make decisions then, you know, should I continue the connection with you, that would lead to a business lead, or a sale, you know, depending if you're in the b2b space. And if you do that effectively, you'll see definitely that working for you now. The next one is content creation. We've spoken a lot about content creation in a lot of our past episodes.

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So the only thing I'm going to say it about content creation Shin is this, LinkedIn users are 60% more likely to engage with a post, if it also includes visuals that go. So enhancing your posts with images, videos, and infographics can significantly increase engagement. So sharing insightful, visually appealing content, not just word will position you as a thought leader in your field, but also, not from the perspective of a paper that's 10,000 words and no one reads, but also from the perspective of gates engaging enough in a little bit of colour, that gets people to at least engage the next step. So the quality of the content bow has to be good, because if it's not, it's not smart to be posting their LinkedIn, and, of course, to demonstrate your expertise, and of course, thought leadership. And that can include articles, inserts, updates, and so on. But the next one is engagement. And I've also spoken about engagement in the past as well in different mediums. But in LinkedIn, it's crucial, because it's also part of your social proof. So if there's no engagement, what it indicates is people are not interested. Now, that's not always true. That is a perception. But the reality is perceptions virtually are everything, and people will make the decisions based on that. So what I would say is you got to if you're doing quality, you want to get this big engagement to start. But over time, I can promise you, it will increase and over time will increase dramatically. If you do it. Well. It's not enough to just post content, though, you also need to interact with the network, communicate with them comment and others posts, you know, join relevant groups and of course, participate in discussions. So that means you gotta put effort into this, you can't just it's not a standalone set and forget type of situation, you definitely have to put effort because this is about building relationships. And that means if you want your relationships to grow, then you've got to put some energy into it. The relationship aspects of this, though, also will increase your visibility on the platform. And if you're too busy to do it yourself, of course, what I'd say is hire us to do it for you. Another thing to remember is this, three people hired through LinkedIn every minute, never really grasped that statistic in your mind, three people every minute. So LinkedIn is a powerful tool for career advancement. And of course, a lot of people have discovered that it's funny, even three, five years ago, I used to tell a lot of clients and and didn't believe me, and then would come back. And of course, say, you know, remember what you said to me, God, we've got to get this LinkedIn thing happening. So regularly updating your profile, using that as a networking tool, engaging with content can open doors to new job opportunities, career opportunities, and of course, business opportunities. Because remember, LinkedIn is extensive, rich, high engagement, powerful b2b marketing capabilities, eligibility to facilitate Korea and business advancement makes it an indispensable platform for professionals and business owners in the digital space. And this is very important, because obviously, everything has become digital today. So building a strong connected network is essential. So here's a tip on how to do that on LinkedIn. Now, you can utilise some of these powerful tools, and then use them as part of your LinkedIn, what I would call network and one of them is the LinkedIn publishing. Another one is the LinkedIn learning. And the other one is the LinkedIn groups. So if you use these effectively, you can get followers. And of course, from that perspective, you can also get them potentially to become clients down the track these tips, what I would say to you is treat LinkedIn as an opportunity to build relationships here. And the tip is always to basically treated like I would say, a personal relationships one on one in the physical world. If you're serious about building relationships long term, what happens with LinkedIn though, that's the biggest tip I can give you trade the relationships that connections will respect

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What happens on LinkedIn though, is you got sharks coming in daily, trying to sell you something and they all the stuff around pretending to be your best friend, rah rah rah having an A save you, your business, your career, etc. And what happens is, of course, when you don't buy into that story after the first direct or second or third direct message, you never hear from them again. So I think that's one of the negatives of LinkedIn, you got a lot of shocks on it. But at the same time, there are a lot of series thought leaders on there as well. I'd say most and of course, that's what we promote. So make the most of these resources that I've shared and of course, remember tip to be the Get authentic in the relationship building. By understanding and leveraging LinkedIn, you can definitely enhance your personal brand. Connect with thought leaders in all types of industries. And of course, achieve your professional goals. The good thing about connecting on LinkedIn is this, you can connect without any gatekeepers. And if anyone remembers the past, where you had gatekeepers, was virtually impossible at times to actually get through to the people that matter the decision makers with LinkedIn, you can do that. Such a wrap up. LinkedIn is much more than just a profile. It's a platform for building your personal brand, engaging with the professional community and showcasing your expertise, and of course, for leadership by optimising your profile, creating valuable content, engaging with your network and leveraging LinkedIn tools, you can significantly enhance your personal brand, career and business prospects before we finish. I'd love to connect with you on social media. You can find me on Twitter/X  as Jon_Michail, my LinkedIn is Jon Michail. And you can find his image Group International on Facebook. So folks, that's all I have for you today. If you've enjoyed our chat, please rate us on Apple podcasts and subscribe for more valuable content. If you require the personalised help including the homeless to build and elevate your LinkedIn profile contact Patricia. Her email is patricia.bosa@imagegroup.com.au. I want to thank you for tuning in today. Until next time, cheerio

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Jon Michail’s Personal Branding Masterclass Podcast is sponsored by Image Group International, a global team of practical, digitally savvy personal brand and image strategists based in Australia, committed to maximizing your impact, influence, and authority in the business world. To learn more and apply for personal coaching, seminars, and group workshops, please visit imagegroup.com.au or call 1800 631 311.