Mastering LinkedIn: Transforming Personal Branding with AI and Video Insights

LinkedIn expert Wally McCarthy joins us to provide insights into the ever-evolving landscape of social media and brand building. Discover how LinkedIn has transformed from a static platform to a dynamic space powered by AI and video, creating unique opportunities for personal and business growth. 

We challenge the notion that it's too late to start building your brand on social media. Wally and I share proactive strategies for navigating LinkedIn, emphasizing the critical importance of authentic interactions over impersonal cold pitches.

Learn how fostering genuine relationships with influential figures can enhance your professional presence and prepare you for future career transitions.

Building a personal brand on LinkedIn is essential in today’s digital landscape, where consumers control the narrative. Wally McCarthy shares strategies on optimising profiles, creating authentic content, and establishing meaningful connections for professional success.

• Transition from traditional media control to consumer-driven narratives
• Importance of being proactive in building a personal brand
• Strategies for engaging influential figures on LinkedIn
• Finding your authentic voice to create resonant content
• Focus on meaningful engagement over chasing virality
• The necessity of profile optimisation for visibility
• Using multimedia effectively to enhance engagement
• Navigating the risks of AI-generated content for authenticity
• Emphasis on the lasting value of genuine networking

Your network is your net worth, so control your own message and maximise your opportunities.

Tune in as we explore the essence of finding your true voice on LinkedIn by focusing on passion, expertise, and knowledge. Rather than chasing fleeting viral moments, we stress the value of consistent, meaningful interactions that build a robust network. 

Your LinkedIn profile is your digital handshake, and we explore how to optimize it for success by crafting compelling headlines and engaging content. 

With tips on using diverse content types like videos, carousels, and text posts, learn to maintain audience interest and showcase your expertise effectively. Let us guide you in transforming LinkedIn into a powerful tool for insights, networking, and opening doors to new opportunities.

Links to get to Wally:

LinkedIn: Wally McCarthy 📢 | LinkedIn

Website www.wallymccarthy.org 

LinkedIn Profile Checklist https://wally-mccarthy-linkedin-strategist.kit.com/188141400b

Chapters

• 0:00 Social Media and Brand Building
• 5:19 Finding Your Authentic Voice on LinkedIn
• 10:13 Maximizing Your LinkedIn Profile for Success

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Five years ago, companies owned the media. If you wanted to get a product to market, you broadcast using traditional TV, newspaper and press releases. You told customers what you wanted them to hear. Then the social media revolution happened and companies lost control of the message. Now companies must compete for a share of voice very much controlled by consumers. Welcome to AI Unscripted, where I talk to the creme de la creme of the world's best business and technology professionals. Today I've Wally McCarthy, a LinkedIn expert who I've known for more than five years. Welcome, wally. For those who don't know who you are, would you mind giving them a brief introduction to you, sir?

Speaker 2: 0:38

Certainly can Great to join the podcast Ciarán. I'm a LinkedIn consultant. I help my clients achieve success on the LinkedIn platform so that they can seize the opportunities that come with using LinkedIn. So a lot of my clients are unaware of profile optimization, content strategies and the features that are available within LinkedIn available within LinkedIn and we work together in covering all those areas so that they can really get the opportunities and grow their business or find jobs on the LinkedIn platform.

Speaker 1: 1:11

Wow. Well, after today, they will know that little bit more. So let's not waste any time, wally. Let's dive into a hot, hot topic. Let's talk about LinkedIn, social media and consumers owning the media, or people like ourselves, brands owning our own message. So what's happened to make social media such a massive part of our business and professional life?

Speaker 2: 1:33

Well, I suppose, first off, it's really changed the way we communicate and connect with people on a global scale. Obviously, when social media first came on board, it was all about just the feed and we would scroll content, give up various updates, but now people have realized that they can actually get opportunities, grow a professional service or an offering on there, and you've seen the way social media platforms have changed new features and and namely, linkedin over the last year, even embracing AI, embracing video. So it is really the place to be if you want to get more out of your business, get more of your personal brand and be proactive.

Speaker 2: 2:16

really, so is it too late to build a brand or a company profile or strategy on social media, because a lot of water has gone under the bridge over the last five years yeah, look, it's a common question and I think a lot of people that maybe even just scrolling content on on social media are like, oh, I'm a bit too late to the party here to to grow a personal brand. You're actually not. So stop looking in and enjoying the building of a personal brand, creating content, start engaging in content. It's getting over that overwhelming feeling and being proactive rather than reactive. Because what happens with a lot of people? Unfortunately, they may be going through a career transition If they don't have a strong personal brand. They're starting from scratch. If you do have a personal brand and you're just tipping away at it, if anything happens in the background, you're prepared, and that's the most important thing that you should be doing in life is be prepared for the unknown.

Speaker 1: 3:21

So, if you're building this brand by starting to put out content, obviously you want to follow good people, you want to see best practices and you want to connect with other people as well, potentially to ask for some advice, be it career or technical or LinkedIn. So how do you go about approaching someone influential on LinkedIn without coming across as transactional or unprofessional or unapproachable, whilst trying to maintain or build your own strong, polished brand on LinkedIn?

Speaker 2: 3:51

yeah, good point there on, uh, coming across kind of in a pushy manner. It's it's something that's kind of really happening on LinkedIn and it's it's coming across from other people embracing LinkedIn from other platforms where there is no building of a relationship. It's very much a cold pitch. So what I mean by that is, in your messaging you'll receive a message from someone and saying that they have this fantastic product that they can change your life overnight, and here is the link. So initially you're like, okay, you might get the first one, you'd be, yeah, that sounds interesting, but when it happens on a continuous basis, it's just spam, right.

Speaker 2: 4:35

So the approach that you should be taking is building relationships, and I know, if you followed me on LinkedIn, I mentioned it a lot about building relationships on the platform, and what I mean by that is engaging in people's content. Identify people within your industry that you're interested in and you'd like them to be a part of your network, so you'd engage in their content by commenting or liking what they're sharing and from there it will trigger a reaction with the creator and you're building a rapport and from there you can send out a personalized connection request and once that connection is accepted, um, you can start to get involved in further messaging and then have a call etc. But for anyone watching or listening to the today's session, do not just cold pitch in in messages on any social platform.

Speaker 1: 5:29

It's, it's a fail straight away I suppose that is it, isn't it? It's a little bit about giving value before you get value, and then, as you mentioned yourself, wally, what you do on one social platform doesn't necessarily directly transfer on to another. Probably is a little bit of watching and learning, as you know, what you might call etiquette or or good behaviors. But in amongst all that then, yeah, how can someone find their authentic voice when creating linkedin content?

Speaker 2: 5:59

um, I think again, it's finding your niche right. So what? What really is your niche? Again, it's finding your niche right. So what? What really is your niche? It's it's based on your expertise, your knowledge, what you're actually passionate about, and it's very clear when someone is passionate about it. I'm I'm very passionate about not only LinkedIn, but helping people get more out of social media so that they can get opportunities, and that comes across in your content. Uh're not following anybody. You're following your desire, your passion, um, and your willingness to help people. So I think that that's the real key starting point. Don't don't try and find something, a topic that you're you know you're going to be not that passionate about, you don't have a long-term view on. So, no matter what it is, follow your passion, and you know you can diversify as you go um. But the most important thing is your starting point is to identify your niche and go from there and I love what you're saying there wally as well.

Speaker 1: 6:55

You know it's your niche, it's your passion, it's where you know to win on social media at the best of times and particularly linkedin, it is that consistency element and building that brand and image and reputation over time. Yeah, but is there a secret to writing posts that go viral on LinkedIn or get huge engagement? You know, is it a specific visual or is it a multimedia content or what is it that gets you huge engagement and huge virality?

Speaker 2: 7:25

Everyone loves that word viral, right, they love to. I want to go viral tomorrow while I am in my first post. I want to go viral. You actually don't want to go viral, and I'll tell you why you don't want to go viral is because people are going to support your content on that one day. They're going to see it and they say, oh, I like that, I'm going to click like or I might leave a comment probably not right, um? And what you want to do on these platforms is build that connection or that network where they come back every day and they're aware of our offering, um, and when they're having conversations with people, they know that, uh, kieran would be able to help me with ai, wally will be able to help me with linkedin.

Speaker 2: 8:07

You just don't want one person to click like on a one day viral post. What you want to do is you want to structure your content to have an opening hook, and that opening hook is to capture attention. It's not a clickbait, because what will happen there is people will click, see more and they'll go into the body of the post and there's nothing there. It doesn't relate back to the hook and you've sold them a dud right. So you want.

Speaker 2: 8:35

You want to get them engaged with the hook, then go into the body of the post and it adds further value, whether it's a list, tips, uh, your own personal experience, your own stories, and then at the very end and a lot of people forget this is to put a call to action and it's not to necessarily sell your services. It's to even just pose a question that will generate a level of engagement in the comments, because that's where where all the action happens on a piece of content is in the comments and from there the creator themselves can learn about future problems that individuals may be having and then address that in the content or go into the, the messaging feature, and and start building those relationships you know. So viral is great, it's a lovely word to have and and good luck to everyone that's actually trying to chase it, but you're not really going to build that network or get that that, those offerings that you want.

Speaker 1: 9:30

I suppose someone once said, didn't they your network is your net worth. So the more valuable your network, the more potential and we have to be careful here the more potential you have to gain, but the more potential you have to give as well. And that's the one thing I think about LinkedIn. It's not broadcast, it's about engagement and growing a wider group. But you mentioned earlier on molly. You know that linkedin is there. You know that for me it's. You know publishing content, you know getting access to the best ai and data analytics and leadership thinking in the world and and I've been offered lots of different job opportunities on linkedin and obviously people are going to come for different reasons. But how should businesses and business professionals start to leverage LinkedIn for those career transitions or industry changes or opportunities to grow themselves or their business?

Speaker 2: 10:26

It all starts with your profile, right. Linkedin is is so different to any of the other social media platforms from a profile perspective. If you look at the likes of X, instagram, their profile you've got like four or five lines to sell yourself right Outside of looking at your content. Linkedin is completely different. You have your background, your headline, your about section, your experiences, your recommendations for that social proof. So you need to optimize your LinkedIn profile. It takes time, it doesn't happen overnight, and what I say to people is don't be overwhelmed by it.

Speaker 2: 11:05

There's a number of sections in there, but if you focus in on the key sections your LinkedInin headline, where you share your value proposition, because that's what you're going to be found on, right. So when someone searches for someone within ai, you're going to appear karen, right. So they're going to see your headline, say, oh, I like that one, I'm going to click on the profile. If it isn't, if it just says founder, you don't know straight away what's the founder done. You know what are they focusing in on. So they're going to click on your profile once the headline is clear with that value proposition and there's some keywords, and then the experience when they go into your profile is they'll see your background.

Speaker 2: 11:50

Don't use the LinkedIn default, optimize it. And then the next stage is they'll do a quick scroll and they'll go to the about section, and in recent months, the about section has been pushed up higher onto your LinkedIn profile. So it's really important that this is where the action happens. This is when the individual has a read of what you are about. You are selling yourself. It's not a data dump, should I say, of your CV. It's your story, it's your offering and it's your call to action again at the very end. And that's when the person will decide yeah, I want to know more about this person and they might have a quick scroll of your content. And then they'll go yeah, I'm going to connect with him or I'll follow him. So that that's the approach.

Speaker 1: 12:37

That's where you should be starting is on your, your linkedin profile and and that just to be clear for folks listening that isn't uh what we call set and forget. You know, do it once, then come back in 2029.

Speaker 2: 12:49

That's a continual update and, uh, nurturing for one of the better phrase of of your brand and your personality and your likes, because those things change over time I, I look, I review, I review mine at least once a week, even you know, just to, to have a look at, obviously, how the content has been, how, how everything looks. Um, has my headline really captured attention? Because you get analytics on on linkedin on um on a weekly basis and one of those analytics is how you've been found. So if you've been found because you're you're um an ai expert, for my side, that's not what I want to be found for. So I need to have a look at my profile and say where did that actually come? How have I been found under that? And then look at your profile and update and keep keep improving it, you know. So, yeah, definitely, it's not uh, it's not um ever finished.

Speaker 1: 13:42

It evolves with your career and your expertise if we're putting content out there to get found and we're adding it to our profile to create, you know, a mini website for one of a better phrase, or mini branding website. Are there specific types of visuals or multimedia or content that perform best? And by perform best I don't just mean hook someone in. Yeah, keep them engaged and willing to engage with you.

Speaker 2: 14:09

Yeah, a selfie.

Speaker 2: 14:12

No in all seriousness, though, the selfies are quite popular on LinkedIn and they get a lot of engagement for some reason, as opposed to someone that might spend a few hours doing some really good piece of content if you just throw a selfie, and sometimes that works. But I think if you really want to sell your expertise, it's about creating a text and image. Post Um, so you'd have a good um hook and then the image would capture attention when someone is scrolling. So you have to understand that when it's the scroll right, that's what will stop. So if you have a good scroll or a good image, it'll prevent the, it'll stop the scroll. Keep the branding what your branding is, so it triggers in the individual's mind. When they see it they'll be like oh, that's blue, that's Wally McCarthy there, you know. So that works.

Speaker 2: 15:05

Other things that I've seen in recent times is the carousels. So they're really good, really informative. Keep them to a certain size. Don't provide 20 slides with the carousels. Tell it like a story. Grab the person's attention so that they keep scrolling across the carousel. Obviously, linkedin are embracing video. Last year they rolled out their new video feature, and I only read yesterday, as we record this, that they are contemplating putting in an offer for TikTok. So obviously LinkedIn, the major owner there is Microsoft, and that's another thing that is so great about LinkedIn is it's got a strong backing there with Microsoft. But from a content, stick with using carousels text and image posts. That will stop the scroll. Canva is a great application that you can use to create those visuals as well, and the free version will do.

Speaker 1: 16:06

Yeah, I know I pay for the full version. I suppose Benzo often use the darn thing.

Speaker 2: 16:13

But I suppose as well.

Speaker 1: 16:14

it's worth saying to folks listening in as well. It's not just about producing a selfie with a face like this you couldn't do it too often but it's carousels, it's images, it's text, it's a variety of content that keeps your audience stimulated and evidences your interest and expertise in an area as well. And what's your perspective on ai written posts? Are they a risk to authenticity? Do they replace on linkedin? Because linkedin all of a sudden is a bit of what I describe as a hybrid monster, tells you not to do it, but it's actually using ai itself yeah, um, I'm not a fan, to be honest.

Speaker 2: 16:53

Um, I think it's too generic at this stage. Um, and again, it kind of goes back to your the one of the earlier questions here about following your passion. You know, so if you, if you're passionate about a topic, you don't actually need to really use AI content. Ai is great for the likes of brainstorming for content ideas and then running with the content idea yourself and creating a piece of content. You know, if you're creating an image, you don't need AI to do that. You know you can. You can just put a good bit of text together.

Speaker 2: 17:32

I think the AI content that I'm seeing is not of a strong quality, obviously, and I'm seeing really mixed pieces of content from the perspective that people aren't actually reviewing the content that the output is getting. So, for example, obviously, obviously, a lot of the AI content is in American English, so other individuals are using AI in the content. They're not American, so it's quite clear that the AI has been used. So, again, use AI to brainstorm content ideas and you can run with it based on your passion. Then you know and follow those tips that we already covered about the hook and et cetera.

Speaker 1: 18:16

It's interesting, isn't it? Because sometimes I actually and I do use AI, you know to check spelling, whatever else, I might mix the odd time between English and US spellings, only because my audience appears to be evenly split across big globals. I did hear once I'll not use his name, but he did turn up at a LinkedIn event for content creators, particularly when they're rolling out you know, the expert badge, for want of a better phrase and LinkedIn said if you use AI content and you do a copy paste, they look at the characters in the background and they may actually punish you for using LinkedIn content as well, or AI content. Whether that's true or not, who knows? But again, if you love your topic, you tend to be very serious about it. When you're very serious about in the nicest gorgeous sense, you tend to fun writing about it.

Speaker 2: 19:00

So you may as well write in your own authentic voice, as opposed to just crafting a prompt that you hope will turn you into a viral monster on LinkedIn and that's an interesting point you raised there about linkedin and kind of gatekeeping the, the ai content, right, because on those, uh, community top voices, um, they were very popular with the, the collaborative articles, you, you provide excellent input and then you get um, your, your badge, should I say. But but LinkedIn actually stopped doing that the badge aspect in December of last year because of that, because all the content was they identified it was AI and it was adding zero value, even though they have still kept the collaborative article feature, which I think is really good anyway for visibility, you know, but again, it's the content that's in there. Some of it mightn't be that good, uh, but it is good for you from a visibility perspective. That's what linkedin's all about.

Speaker 1: 19:58

Yeah, it was interesting that because, uh, at one stage I was seven times top voice. It was exhausting trying to keep up with everyone competing and the questions looked ai generated. But you know it. I think all these features get put out and it's key that you know for linkedin, never mind any platform, the experiment, they try things. The worst thing would be not innovating but what I? Where do you think linkedin will play in the future of professional networking and professional branding?

Speaker 2: 20:28

yeah, so obviously, linkedin, linkedin, um. It's around 22 years now. Uh, founded in, went live in uh 2003 and it's only really just nearly even getting started. To be honest, right, I, I honestly do think that that a lot more creators are migrating across to LinkedIn because other platforms. There's a lot of change happening there and they, they, they want to diversify. Even in the last month or so, there was a the, the TikTok creators were getting very anxious about where they were going to go. You know Um. So I think LinkedIn it's got over 1 billion users. It's the only professional platform out there. You've got access to every type of individual there, great client base to build up, and I think LinkedIn will only go strength to strength and, as I mentioned as well, it's got that great backer in Microsoft, so it's stable in the background as well.

Speaker 1: 21:29

Yeah, which is kind of what you want, and it's interesting when you're mentioning people moving across platforms, because you do see the odd rant saying look, is this a personal network or a professional network? And it it's still more professional than personal. But I do think you should bring your personality to it. And talking about personalities, wally. If people want to find out a little bit more about you, how do they go about that?

Speaker 2: 21:51

yeah, so obviously, on linkedin, I share daily, uh, linkedin content about profile optimization strategies, on how you can get the most out of linkedin, and then every friday, I'll share a video about the latest updates that are taking place on the platform so that you're you're up to speed on what, what you need to know so that you can get the most out of linkedin. So that's, that's one um one place. So, if you're not following me, click on the the follow button on linkedin, and the other one is I have a website and it's wallymccarthyorg, and there I sharea number of resources as well that you can. You can get I've a linkedin blueprint that will really get you up to speed on linkedin and from there then you you can get. I have a LinkedIn blueprint that will really get you up to speed on LinkedIn and from there then you can gather more insights on my daily LinkedIn content.

Speaker 1: 22:38

Fantastic and rather good they are too. I'm an avid follower and thank you for taking the time, wally, to talk, and what we'll do is I'll put in the comments below all of the links so that anyone can connect or gain hold of some amazing material. Look, thank you, wally, today for for all that insight. I think everybody should have a personal brand. It's the thing that I've learned most in my last 30 years is not to give away your brand willingly or or too freely. You know you need to have your reputation. Your unranked reputation matters so much. Now everybody can control their own message. I think they should do that.

Speaker 1: 23:14

I think you need to be part of a bigger community because, as I said earlier on, your network is your net worth. This is a fantastic platform that opens up so much opportunity, not just to career transition and get jobs, of course, but connecting with fellow experts, finding your own niche, having that amazing community, get your thinking challenged, open up your mind to lots of different things. It's a huge source of value and I wish everybody every success on it. Wally, thank you for today and audience. Thank you for listening in. Until next time we talk about AI, automation, cloud, personal branding or any other business topic. I'll see you in the non-too-distant future. Thank you so much indeed.