In this episode of Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan, Melanie Borden, Founder and CEO at The Borden Group, shares insights on optimizing your LinkedIn profile and personal brand. The conversation covers strategies for crafting an engaging "About" section, leveraging visuals like your profile picture and banner, and consistently sharing valuable content to position yourself as a thought leader.
Monahan and Borden also delve into utilizing AI tools for content creation, transcription, and automation to streamline workflows and maintain brand consistency. They discuss embracing negative feedback as a sign of increasing visibility and focusing on celebrating milestones alongside supportive communities.
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Heather Monahan and Melanie Borden highlight the importance of a current, high-quality profile photo that looks like you and makes a good first impression. Monahan recommends updating it every 6 months.
Your "About" section should tell your personal story, showcasing your expertise, achievements, and unique value proposition in the first person. Borden advises structuring it to inspire others and make clear who you work with and how you help.
Strategically use your banner to align with your current goals, like generating leads or promoting events. Borden suggests featuring client testimonials, your offerings, and a call-to-action while maintaining brand cohesion.
Consistently share valuable content demonstrating your expertise. Engage with your network through comments and conversations. Leverage testimonials to build trust.
Monahan and Borden built strong personal brands on LinkedIn, attracting opportunities. They recommend tactics like featuring testimonials, using QR codes linking to your profile, and leveraging exclusive content offers.
When working with companies, Monahan and Borden aligned employee personal brands with the marketing strategy, conducted LinkedIn training, and encouraged employees to share the company narrative, boosting visibility.
Leverage AI tools for transcription, personalized content generation, and maintaining brand voice consistency. Monahan used an AI to rewrite her "About" section impressively.
Implement workflows to systematize content creation and distribution using AI transcription and repurposing tools like Borden's. Utilize AI productivity tools to streamline administrative tasks.
Start small with AI integration into your workflows. Recognize AI's time-saving, cost-effective, and scalability benefits. Embrace the learning process.
Monahan and Borden view negative feedback as a sign of increasing visibility and impact. They suggest critics often reveal more about themselves than the person criticized.
Seek feedback from engaged supporters. Celebrate small wins and milestones. Surround yourself with a community that believes in and supports your vision.
1-Page Summary
Personal branding and business growth are increasingly tied to one's digital presence, and a well-crafted LinkedIn profile can be a crucial component. Experts Heather Monahan and Melanie Borden share insights on how to optimize your LinkedIn profile for maximum impact.
Updating and maintaining a current, professional profile picture is an essential step in personal branding on LinkedIn.
Melanie Borden recommends that your LinkedIn photo should be updated at least every six months and accurately portrays your current appearance. Heather Monahan advocates for a recent picture, ideally taken within the last year, to ensure it represents who you are now.
Monahan notes the significance of an authentic profile image, stressing that it doesn't have to be costly; a well-taken selfie can be effective. The image should convey your personality, feel authentic, and make a positive first impression to establish trust. Monahan also highlights the modern shift from business cards to LinkedIn profiles, pointing out that your LinkedIn profile is now what you share instead of a traditional card.
The "About" section of your LinkedIn profile is more than a traditional CV; it is an opportunity to tell your personal story and engage with your audience.
Borden insists that your LinkedIn story creates opportunities and reflects your journey and aspirations. Monahan acknowledges the need to showcase one's experience, specialties, audiences served, speaking style, and achievements in a way that is not watered down but instead inspires others and highlights individual actions.
Your "About" section should include your current role, specializations, the types of clients you serve, notable achievements, personal traits, and feedback from clients. It should clearly state who you work with, what you do, the results you achieve, and how you can be contacted.
Speaking in the first person is crucial. This approach personalizes the narrative, connecting directly with the reader as if in conversation.
Optimizing your LinkedIn profile for personal branding and business growth
Heather Monahan and Melanie Borden discuss how they use LinkedIn to establish thought leadership, build strong personal brands, and attract top talent, offering insights into effective strategies for leveraging the platform.
Monahan identifies herself as a thought leader and underscores the importance of a well-curated professional image. To establish thought leadership, she suggests sharing personal and professional experiences, insights, and expertise. Monahan and Borden highlight the benefits of engaging with one's network through responding to comments and initiating conversations. Moreover, they recommend leveraging testimonials and social proof to build trust and spotlight new opportunities on LinkedIn.
Monahan and Borden share their success in building strong personal brands on LinkedIn, which has enabled them to be regarded as thought leaders, thus attracting diverse opportunities. For instance, client testimonials featured on a LinkedIn banner can contribute to building trust and attracting opportunities by showcasing positive feedback. Monahan encourages the subscription to LinkedIn letters she and Borden write, further enticing her audience with valuable content and exclusive offers. Additionally, Monahan recommends using a QR code linking to one's LinkedIn profile as a modern marketing tool, reflecting on how she began marketing herself on the platform seven years ago.
The conversation shifts to the ways company culture and successful recruitment align with LinkedIn strategy. When Monahan and Borden worked with a tech company, they aligned the personal brands of thei ...
Strategically using LinkedIn to attract opportunities, clients, and employees
Personal branding and content creation are pivotal in today’s digital economy, and leveraging AI and automation offers transformative possibilities for efficiency and scale.
AI-powered tools can substantially enhance personal branding by creating high-quality, personalized content.
For instance, Borden utilizes AI transcription services such as Otter AI to turn audio recordings from calls into written transcripts. These can then be repurposed into various forms of content such as posts, blogs, newsletters, and eBooks.
Heather Monahan exemplifies this by using an AI chatbot, likely ChatGPT, to rewrite her LinkedIn "About" section. She was impressed with the AI's output, which was a marked improvement over the original.
Borden also suggests training AI models on client voices based on existing recordings, which helps in creating content that stays true to the client’s tone and voice, ensuring brand consistency.
Automating tedious tasks allows professionals to allocate time to more strategic endeavors.
Monahan emphasizes the importance of application, implying that automating or systematizing the content creation process is crucial. She suggests implementing workflows and processes for consistent content creation and distribution.
For example, the automated system Borden uses for recording calls and content generation streamlines the process of managing and distributing content.
Monahan also highlights using AI not just as a safety net but to enhance efficiency in tasks that would otherwise require manual effort. This suggests utilizing AI-powered productivity tools to streamline administrative tasks.
The automation afforded by AI also allowed Borden to ...
Leveraging AI and automation to streamline personal branding and content creation
Facing negative feedback is an inevitable part of putting oneself out in the public sphere. However, embracing criticism, focusing on the positive, and surrounding oneself with supportive people can transform such experiences into a valuable part of one's journey.
Heather Monahan views receiving negative feedback as a sign of reaching a wider audience beyond one’s inner circle. She encourages seeing it as a cause for celebration for expanding one's reach. Melanie Borden echoes this sentiment, suggesting that negative reactions often reflect the critic's personal issues rather than the targeted individual's actions.
Borden points out that those who leave negative feedback are typically not capable of doing what the person they criticize is doing. Heather Monahan agrees, suggesting that frustration or negative reactions from others often stem from their own desires or lackings.
Both Borden and Monahan suggest that negative feedback should be understood as a sign that you are visible and willing to take risks. They encourage seeing critical comments as a celebration rather than a setback.
Monahan implies that feedback from "haters" should be considered irrelevant, as these individuals are not in the arena taking risks and are likely not your target audience.
Monahan and Borden stress the importance of staying focused on one’s overarching goals and the positive support from people who are inspired by one's actions.
By focusing on the positive feedback and testimonials from engaged individuals, one can maintain mot ...
The importance of putting yourself out there and not being afraid of negative feedback
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