Today, I am joined by Simi Awokoya, a career and personal brand coach.
Simi primarily uses LinkedIn for marketing her business and she shares the strategies and best practices she uses for marketing with LinkedIn.
Hear the advice Simi has for creating the most effective content on LinkedIn and how powerful LinkedIn can be for building community.
Learn more about Simi by connecting with her on LinkedIn and follow her @coachsimi on Instagram.
Join My Upcoming Webinar: Increase Your Sales & Audience By 25% Using Profitable Content, happening Tuesday, June 4, 2024 at 5pm Pacific Time. Click here to sign up for free.
Transcript:
Cat: [00:00:00] Y’all, doors are opening to Show Up Real on June 4th, and I want to make sure you have all the details you need before you join. If this is the year you want to grow your online community with content, keep listening. If you aren’t aware, my program Show Up Real is designed to help you create a mother effing movement. Not just grow an online audience and create content. If you want to increase your sales and build an audience that actually wants what you are selling, it’s going to take more than wannabe perfect Canva aesthetic marketing. Truth is, great marketing is easier than perfect marketing, and you don’t need all the bells and whistles to create a movement online and get eyes on your business. [00:01:00] Doors to Show Up Real open June 4th, and there is going to be a special 48-hour bonus that you will not want to miss out on. When you join Show Up Real from June 4th to June 6th, you will gain access to my 90-minute private training I’m calling Money Over Metrics. I’m going to teach you how to think about social media metrics, which metrics matter and which don’t. Plus, you will design your own metrics map to help you analyze your own content without judgment and the need to show up perfectly. If this is the year you are serious about growing your community and growing your business, join Show Up Real. Get ready, mark your calendars. There will be this 48-hour bonus, and I don’t want you to miss out.
Cat: Lastly, if you have not signed up for my training that I’m hosting on June 4th, I’m going to teach you how to grow your online [00:02:00] community and grow your sales with content. I’m going to teach you my four-step process to creating revenue-generating content that is real, that is you, that is unique, and that stands out and will not keep you shadow banned. So make sure to sign up for free. I hope to see you there.
Cat: My name is Catalina Del Carmen, and I am a wife, mother of two, daughter of immigrants, and rule-breaking business coach for women of color coaches, creatives, and service professionals. I spent years trying to figure out the online business game, creating fashion blogs, YouTube [00:03:00] channels, Instagram pages, email lists—all of the things—with little or nothing to show for it. Now I run a growing multiple six-figure coaching business, keeping things radically simple so I can spend more time with my babies than my business. Inside my programs, Show Up Real and Show Up and Lead Mastermind, I teach my clients how to build an online community using authentic, revenue-generating content that doesn’t require them to be everywhere. Whether it’s your first four figures in business or six figures in my mastermind, less is more when you are committed to growing your impact and revenue at the same time. In this show, I tell the whole mother effing truth about what it takes to build and scale an online business. I don’t gatekeep. I don’t tell you half the truth. I keep it real and I will challenge you to do it as well. Welcome to Show Up Real podcast. [00:04:00]
Cat: What is up, y’all? Welcome back to Show Up Real podcast. I hope you’re doing so, so well. I’m doing well. I am knee-deep in creating new curriculum for Show Up Real, and I’m so excited to see what this program turns into. I am pouring so, so much into it. And I’m just learning so much about myself, about business, about just overall growth. It’s almost like I can literally see my business scaling, and I kind of know exactly what my business needs right now. And just having that sort of clarity and understanding makes me so focused and proud of myself. It’s a good thing. It’s like a healthy, [00:05:00] healthy busy, but also heavy on the rest too. Heavy on the family time and heavy on work. So it’s just like a very full life right now. And on top of that, I’m really experimenting with a lot of new hobbies. Um, I recently bought a sketchbook and a little wooden mannequin so I could trace, um, like a human body because I want to start creating fashion designs. When I was little, I used to draw a whole bunch of clothes and recently I just decided, you know what? I’m going to take a course on fashion design and I’ll start with sketching. I just want to make that a hobby. It’s something that I enjoyed so much when I was little. So I’m trying to make time for hobbies. I’ve literally only tried it once, so we’ll see. We’ll see where it goes, but yeah, this is a good little chapter of life. That being said, I just want to take a moment to talk about what is happening in the world right now. There is a genocide happening in Gaza, and the week that this episode is coming out, [00:07:00] they bombed Rafah, which is this very small area filled with tents and people, Palestinians. And this area specifically, Israel, who is bombing them, told them it was a safe zone. There were children there, families. I just want to recognize the pain that a lot of people are feeling right now, the anger, and all of the emotions. I want to hold space for it because that shit affects us. Whether we like it or not, it affects us. And I just want to bring that up. If I’m going to be a hundred with you, if I’m going to really show up real, then I’m going to tell you the real stuff. That happening in the world is just, it’s obviously hard to witness, but my heart—I’m an empath—my heart is just like, there’s so much of me that’s just angry that I can’t do something. So yeah, I just want to create space for that. So let’s get [00:08:00] into today’s episode.
Cat: I am so, so excited. Today I have one of my clients from Inside Show Up Real, and she’s sharing all things LinkedIn. Y’all, I do not know LinkedIn very well, but look, here’s the deal. I don’t understand LinkedIn well, but I’m very good at social media and tech. I worked in tech for years. I’ve been on social media since the very, very, very beginning on so many platforms, and I just understand algorithms, right? I think a lot of that has to do with tech and understanding computers and systems and just having a good understanding of engineering and software because I worked at so many software companies. But LinkedIn is a platform that I used a lot when I was in my career, but I have not really used it too much for my business. I would say maybe 5% of my marketing happens on LinkedIn. So it’s a very small little sliver, but I know it’s a powerful tool and it’s one that many people use. I have tons of clients who are successful using LinkedIn as their main marketing channel. So I wanted to have Simi on so she can give us her expertise. So let me give you a little bio. Simi Awokoya is a career and personal brand coach for women of color in corporate and entrepreneurship. She’s helped hundreds of women use their personal brand and experiences to change careers and attract income-generating opportunities like speaking gigs, brand collabs, and book coaching [00:10:00] services. Using LinkedIn, her work has been featured in Forbes 30 Under 30, Financial Times, and received a national award from the British Prime Minister for her services in women’s careers and businesses. She is incredible. On today’s episode, she’s going to give us the lowdown on everything LinkedIn. I asked her some really good questions. I was like, why does this happen on LinkedIn? How should we utilize this? What’s the best strategy for that? So she answered everything. And I think for me specifically, she really helped me think about LinkedIn differently, how to utilize it, what the algorithm actually likes, and how to use LinkedIn in your marketing channels. So I’m so excited for this episode. You are going to love it. If you use LinkedIn or want to use LinkedIn in the next 12 months, listen to this episode and take notes. Alright, y’all, let’s get started. Welcome, Simi, to Show Up Real podcast! How are you? I’m so excited to have you on. You know I’m not privy to LinkedIn. I know LinkedIn from when I was in my career, but I’m so excited to pick your brain, learn from you, and also give everyone the perspective as well. But how are you doing?
Simi: I’m doing great. I’m so happy to be on Show Up Real podcast. Love the name, love everything about it. And it’s so you. So I’m really happy to be here and to speak to your audience, speak to you as well.
Cat: I’m so, so, so excited. Okay. So I already gave an intro, kind of like a little bit about you, but I would love to ask, can you just give us a high-level view? I didn’t send this question to you, but I know you’ll be able to answer it. Can you give us a high-level view of how you got into this, into your business? How did you end up as a coach who markets on LinkedIn? How did you start helping women in their careers and entrepreneurs on LinkedIn? Tell us a bit of that story.
Simi: Oh, perfect. So
I’ll start from the very beginning. My background is in tech, and so I’ve always worked in tech, always worked in corporate companies, and throughout my career, I realized that, especially in the early days, I didn’t necessarily have a lot of support and didn’t have a lot of mentors or people I could lean on for advice. I would say in the past, say, seven years or so, I really started to focus on my personal brand because I realized that if I really wanted to accelerate in my career, I had to get people to know who I am and what I do, and not just be the best kept secret. So I really focused on building my personal brand. And through that, I started to get lots of opportunities, speaking engagements, awards, things like that. But I noticed that there were other women, especially women of color, who were struggling with the same thing. And I thought, “Okay, how can I help them?” I was having so many conversations with women who were just, they were ambitious, they wanted to achieve great things, but they didn’t have that visibility. So in 2019, I launched my coaching business to help women with their personal brand, but I actually didn’t use LinkedIn at first. It was more just general personal branding. But as time went on, I realized that LinkedIn was such a powerful tool because it’s literally a free platform where you can showcase your expertise and you can get opportunities from it. So I really started to focus on LinkedIn in my coaching, and I’ve seen amazing results. Women have been able to get new jobs, start businesses, get clients, get speaking engagements, all through LinkedIn. So that’s how I started to focus on LinkedIn.
Cat: That is so awesome. I love that. And I have a lot of people who listen to my podcast who are in their nine to five and who are starting their business or who are like doing the side hustle thing, and they’re starting to take it more seriously. So I’m sure this episode is going to be super valuable to them.
Cat: Oh my God. Okay. So let me, let me pick your brain a little bit. I’m curious from your experience, what type of posts do better? Is it video posts? Is it like an actual picture, like a static picture? Is it like a Canva, like graphic with like a quote? What typically does well in your experience on LinkedIn to get more eyes on your stuff?
Simi: Okay, great question. And I’m just going to paint the context before I answer because it can be very easy for people to take what I say and just, you know, not realize the nuances. So the way LinkedIn works is you land on the feed. And when you go on the feed, you basically see your followings’ content. So people will see your content that way. And then if they’re interested, they’ll click on your profile to learn more about how to work with you. So it’s like a funnel. When you think about content, instead of thinking about it as structure, you have to think about it as a purpose. So there are three purpose types of content on LinkedIn.
Simi: So when I think about the purpose, I’ll then kind of talk about what that structure means. The purpose is one, visibility. You want to create posts that resonate with people, even if they aren’t directly in your target audience. The whole point of a post sometimes is to reach your target audience. So visibility content is like “read your mind” content and basically saying things that people are thinking. Right? So you might not be selling in that post, but it will be on your topic and you’ll be basically creating “read your mind” content.
Simi: The second type of content is lead attraction content. So you’ve done visibility. You’ve tried to kind of get people to engage. The next is lead attraction. You want to show people that you can solve their problems. So whether that’s a case study, whether that’s talking about your success story, that’s lead attraction. And then third and final is income generation content. So that’s pitching your services, pitching how you help people. So, for example, you pitching Show Up Real.
Simi: With that in mind and knowing that, okay, there are three types of content that can do different things. You see all those types of content, they all center your brand. Visibility is about who is this and who’s Cat. Lead attraction is about how does Cat solve my problems. And then income generation is about what services does she offer. So with that being the background, the best type of posts are posts that can showcase your brand. So posts that have pictures, video, not necessarily because most people consume LinkedIn on mobile. So they scroll quite fast. Video doesn’t tend to have that much reach, but photos are great. So carousels are great. We call on LinkedIn, they’re called documents. So they’re kind of PDFs carousels are great. So break down ideas instead of having a really long text piece, but most importantly, when you remember that LinkedIn is consumed on mobile, you remember that you have to be able to convey what you have to say in quite succinct language.
Simi: And that’s not like, you don’t have to use big words, just write how you speak. That’s something I’ve learned from you, writing how you speak and something you talk about all the time. LinkedIn loves it when you write how you speak because people want to know that you are a real person and that’s how they buy from you. So just bearing in mind that rather than thinking about, okay, I need to create a carousel document first, or I need to post a picture. Think about the purpose of your content. Is this for visibility? Is this for leads? Or is this for income? And that just makes the structure of what you want to create more purposeful. Remember, LinkedIn is about making your marketing go further, and it also helps you make sure every post you create is intentional. So LinkedIn is, my approach to LinkedIn is different. People think, oh, solution aware, problem aware. It doesn’t work that way on LinkedIn. People are much more quick to, and think about it as people on LinkedIn are serious.
Cat: People on LinkedIn are serious on the perspective of they’re serious and ready to buy on Instagram. One day, one second, someone’s looking at your business post, the next post, they’re looking at their niece, their cute niece or their cute nephews. So they’re quite distracted, right? But on LinkedIn people are like, hey, I’m here to hear from what leaders have to say. And when you think about the fact that, if I make this post purposeful and relatable, that’s how I’m going to actually grow my community. That’s how I’m going to convert this community into sales. Right. So that’s a long winded answer, but I love to give context. So people don’t feel, Oh, I just need to go out and create a photo post now.
Cat: No, so, so, so good. So in your opinion, what do you think as a person who already, let’s say for a person who’s already very established on, um, here’s what I find a lot of. I’m not, I have a lot of thoughts about repurposing unless you’re an established business and you’ve written a lot, but for people who are on LinkedIn, no, I’m sorry, people who are on, let’s say, Instagram or TikTok, and they want to get on LinkedIn. I think the easiest way is, and I don’t say, I’m not saying do this, but I’m what I hear and see people do is like, they’ll just repurpose. And I, I just hate going into a brand new platform with very little intention. Right? Like I think repurposing is fine and I believe in repurposing, but if, what would you recommend?
Cat: Like if you, if someone was like, okay. I am deciding to get on LinkedIn this year. 2024 is the year I add LinkedIn to my, to my marketing channels. What would you say is like the best way to re engage with your LinkedIn audience as an entrepreneur? And maybe everyone that kind of follows you or however it works on LinkedIn, maybe they are all from your like career, right? Like they, they haven’t seen much of you since you left your job. What would you say is like the best way to kind of re engage with everyone or any, any thoughts you have on that?
Simi: Yes, I have a lot of thoughts cause it’s part of why I teach. So this is the first thing I’ve learned. And I think people, Instagram is a little bit different, but I think posting on, on LinkedIn is like investing in the stock markets. There’s a lot of compound interest. There’s a lot of growth from doing the same boring thing over and over again. So let me give you context. When I post on LinkedIn, I post Monday to Friday. By the way, I do repurpose content, but I repurpose what works. If you start brand new on LinkedIn, you should not be repurposing content. You should be learning how to find your voice on the platform. Finding your voice on the platform means that you have an opportunity to share your story because the people on LinkedIn are human first and a lot of times people forget that the whole point of having a brand, your brand itself can be monetized, your brand is money, your story is money, your story is dollars. So when you’re able to actually share and showcase your story, and when I say story, I’m just going to give some tangible things. Even if you work in a niche, let’s say you work in systems or you’re a business coach and you feel, oh, it’s only people in corporates that are following me right now. One thing you should be doing is you should be talking and finding out the main pillars of life. So the main pillars of life, I always say, are relationships, health and wealth.
Simi: A lot of times, no matter what business you have, a lot of things you’re doing are helping people improve their relationships, improve their health, decrease their stress, save them time, or help them make more money. When you’re able to share your mistakes, client success stories, what people shouldn’t settle for, and maybe what the industry needs to start and stop doing in the realm of those things, even if you’re a business coach or not, or even if you’re a marketing coach, or even if you’re a systems person, or even if you’re an accountant, no matter what, your services complement those side, those, those, the, those kind of life pillars, so you can always build your brand anywhere. So I would say first things first is find your voice, post consistently. One thing I do is I have a LinkedIn VIP day where I teach people how to create three months of content topics and structured outlines. So you know what to talk about for the next three months on the platform and know how to build your brand and convert that into sales. I repurpose my content, but I’ve been posting on LinkedIn for years. So I know exactly what one turns into DMS or inquiries, what turns into applications and what helps me build community. But if you just take what works on Instagram or LinkedIn, people on LinkedIn don’t want to read the longest caption in the world. They want you to be succinct to the point and tell your brand story in a punchy way. And they want to click on their profile to learn how to work with you. If your profile, if your content is just like, Oh, this is a nice story. And they scroll past your content, it won’t work. You see what I mean? So it’s all about how are we going
to make our content purposeful? Because we understand this is the main thing I want you to take away. I’m sorry for giving you such a long answer.
Simi: The main thing I want you to take away is that you have to work on creating content that has purpose. Visibility, lead generation, income generation, or community building. When you have those purposes in mind, it doesn’t matter if it’s a short post, a long post, you’re going to get more traction on the platform. When you have those purposes in mind, you’re not going to make, you’re going to understand what works. LinkedIn is about finding your voice, finding your voice as a personal brand and understanding the impact you can create by creating content that’s impactful.
Cat: So good. So, so, so good. I love how you like explain this in such an easy way because I think sometimes people can, and I’m not going to lie, I get, I get caught up in this too. It’s so easy to look at like, oh, here’s this formula. Here’s this, here’s that. And there’s no shade against formulas. I think formulas work really well, but sometimes like those formulas, especially when you’re in a platform like LinkedIn that you’re not familiar with or you haven’t been on in a while, you almost feel like a robot. And that’s how I feel when I’m like trying to like apply things that aren’t natural to me or to what, how I would communicate to my audience. And I love what you said about like, it’s about your voice and it’s about how you communicate and communicate and not just about like, okay, is this optimized for LinkedIn? Like, because it’s about communication and communicating your brand and your values and you can’t always do that by trying to fit in a box that might not, you know, be what you’re typically used to speaking about or doing on the platform. So I just think that that is just so helpful. Like you just shared so much valuable information. Um, I feel like I can listen to you talk about LinkedIn forever. Um, but I want to be super respectful of your time. So if you could just share like, what are you excited about right now in your business or any offers or anything that you want to share, um, with the audience, just let me know.
Simi: Thank you. So first of all, thank you for having me, Cat. One thing I really want to share with the audience is that you can build a highly profitable business on LinkedIn and building a highly profitable business on LinkedIn is so doable. What you need to do is you need to have a clear strategy in mind and you need to be able to understand the type of content you need to create. And you need to know that you can do it consistently and intentionally. So we have a few things coming up. I have a LinkedIn VIP day where I work with people. We spend six hours together and we create three months of LinkedIn content. We build a LinkedIn strategy. I even teach you how to build, uh, book and close sales calls from LinkedIn. So we have the VIP day. And if you want to learn more about that, just send me a DM on Instagram or LinkedIn. And then, um, in the summer, we’re going to be launching, um, my first ever LinkedIn course. And it’s basically going to be teaching people how to build a high-ticket business on LinkedIn in 90 days. So, um, that’s something to look forward to. And if you’re interested, just, um, make sure you join the waitlist. And if you join the waitlist, you will be the first to hear about it and be the first to get the early bird prize and first to get some awesome bonuses. So I’m really excited about that. And, um, yes, thank you for having me.
Cat: So excited for you. I’m so excited for all the people that are going to get to work with you. And you guys, I know we talk a lot about Instagram on this podcast, but don’t sleep on LinkedIn. And I think there’s no better person to learn LinkedIn from than Simi. So thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for sharing so much valuable information and time with us. And, um, I’ll make sure to include your links, all of that good stuff in the show notes, but thank you so much, Simi.
Simi: Thank you for having me. Thank you, Cat.
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