How to Leverage LinkedIn’s Untapped Potential

LinkedIn is a powerful platform that can help unlock some incredible opportunities for B2B companies. However, many companies and their marketing teams have not optimized the potential that LinkedIn offers, or resort to tactics that don’t generate the best results. They can do better and lead with expertise as well as building trust.

That’s why we’re talking to LinkedIn expert Indrek Poldvee (Chief Executive Officer, B2B Growth) about how B2B marketers can leverage the untapped potential of LinkedIn. During our conversation, Indrek explained what LinkedIn’s untapped potential is and what pitfalls to avoid. He also highlighted the importance of having a good LinkedIn profile and why an understanding of your target audience, having the right strategy, and the right messaging are paramount. He provided us with some actionable tips and explained why commenting on other peoples’ posts helps to build trust.

https://youtu.be/4rwcj1D1f7Y

Topics discussed in episode

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• [1:50] Indrek talks about the untapped potential on LinkedIn
  
• [5:06] Why many B2B companies implement initiatives on LinkedIn that are not working
  
• [7:21] Indrek explains the importance of having a professional LinkedIn profile – why your LinkedIn profile is not just for you
  
• [12:06]  Pitfalls to avoid when it comes to leveraging LinkedIn
  
• [16:47] When to post on LinkedIn
  
• [17:43] Which content format works well on LinkedIn
  
• [20:24] The importance of understanding your target audience and having the right strategy
  
• [27:59] How to use comments to build trust
  
• [31:38] Actionable tips:
  
  • 
    
  • Have a clear goal for LinkedIn
    
  • Map out your target audience and narrow it down
    
  • Think about what value you want to bring to your target audience
    
  • Optimize your profile so your target audience understands the services you offer
    
  • Make sure you have a professional profile picture
    
  • Be polite when you connect with people
    
  
  
  
• [34:43] Indrek’s take on the use of AI on LinkedIn
  

Companies and links mentioned

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• Indrek Poldvee on LinkedIn 
  
• B2B Growth 
  

SPEAKERS

Indrek Poldvee, Christian Klepp

Christian Klepp  00:00

Indrek Poldvee is the founder and chief executive officer at B2B growth. He’s an Estonian LinkedIn expert and a dynamic marketer known for his problem solving mindset and entrepreneurial spirit. He helps people and B2B companies grow internationally via LinkedIn, enabling them to leverage this platform’s power to unlock new opportunities. Tune in to find out more about what this B2B marketers mission is.

Christian Klepp  00:30

Okay, fantastic. So, Indrek Poldvee, welcome to the show, or as you say in your language. Tere.

Indrek Poldvee  00:35

Yeah, glad to be here. And glueklich to be here. I can speak German.

Christian Klepp  00:43

Fantastic, fantastic. Indrek, I’m really looking forward to this conversation, because we’re going to be talking all about LinkedIn. So let’s just dive right in, because this is obviously your area of expertise. You’re an expert in helping B2B companies to unlock the power of this powerful platform, yeah. But for this conversation, let’s focus on a specific topic, and that is how to leverage the untapped potential of LinkedIn for businesses. So I want to kick off this conversation with two questions, and I’m happy to repeat, okay, so the first question is, what do you think the untapped potential is on LinkedIn. And number two, why are so many B2B companies implementing initiatives on LinkedIn that are not working?

Indrek Poldvee  01:29

Oh, yeah, so I’m pretty sure, yeah, if you want, we can make so that you don’t have any chance to ask any more questions. Because these two are so, so huge that, yes, top level. Yeah, okay. But so, so the question, So, to start answering your question, so what we try to do first is, first we need to ask, does your company even need LinkedIn? So the problem, what I see with a lot of companies, they want to be in all social medias, and then if you go to their website and etc., and you see that they have the icons, like five or six icons, the Instagram TikTok, LinkedIn, YouTube, and it’s all fantastic that they have, but all of them are empty, or nothing happens there. So the first question is, do you even need to be there? So because if you have an account there and it’s not professional and doesn’t look good, and I think it will damage your brand reputation a lot more than for example, just focus on maybe Instagram, Facebook or LinkedIn, whatever the social media platform that you need or the your ideal audience are. Make it look nice and professional, and then focus on one and if you have more resources, then focus more and more so that that’s the first thing that I try to understand from the company side. But if we go, what is the untapped potential? What we see is 90 to 95% if you talk about the company profiles, a lot of them make really bad content, and the really bad content is they only talk about themselves. Look at our new product, look at what we did, and nobody cares about your product. That is, that is the thing. Nobody cares about it. And that, yes, they are some brands, and the biggest one, like Apple, Tesla, all of those things are really, really great. And people follow them because they are. They’re doing something new, and they have a really amazing fan base. But the thing is, in LinkedIn, the only thing we tell the companies that what you are selling is trust and trust with your audience. You’re building a community, and if you are not this well known brand as Apple, Tesla, Microsoft, whatever. Most of those brands do not have a lot of trust with their community. Yes, they have all these partners and consumers, etc., who trust them, etc. But in social media, like, for example, if you are a company that operates in Ontario Canada, then I’m pretty sure in Texas US, you have zero trust if you are not like a global like that, but in LinkedIn, you can be. So you need to always think in this, what is the untapped potential, what we see there is first, you need to ask the question, what is the reason our company is in LinkedIn? Who is our target audience? And what kind of content does our target audience want to read, or what is the value that we can bring to our target audience? So these are the strategic questions that we want to firstly tap in a little bit and then we start to produce content, or we start to focus on these people who we see that we have the content that we can provide value so this is the untapped potential.

Indrek Poldvee  01:29

And also the second question, also what you asked, what they are doing wrong and etc, this is what I see the most. The thing is what I see a lot in LinkedIn, especially here in Europe, the person who manages LinkedIn accounts, they also manage Instagram or Facebook accounts or do something like that, or they are assistant or secretary or something like that. And they don’t have any idea how LinkedIn works, because LinkedIn and Facebook and Instagram and TikTok, they are all different social media channels, and they all have different algorithms, and they all have different content that works in that case, because Facebook is entertainment, LinkedIn is business and the content doesn’t work. You cannot copy paste LinkedIn content and put it in Facebook and you think it works or other way around. So you need to know the basics, like how it works, what kind of messages it works because, for example, in Facebook, really popular are, if you you do a lottery or something like that, they share this post with your friends, and you can win. This doesn’t work in LinkedIn, if you don’t like you can win a 20k expense paid to Ireland, to with Richard Branson, for example, to naked island and something like it. Yes, that that will also work in in LinkedIn, I’m pretty sure. And there are some cases that, but these, like 50 euro or 100 euro coupons, etc, because most of the people who are in LinkedIn, like 70% of them are decision makers. They don’t buy in LinkedIn emotionally so much like I see a product and then I just buy. No they will buy from companies and people who they trust, and most of the times they buy from people, people buy from people. So LinkedIn is not B to B, it’s H to H to human to human. Like that is also one of the things that you need to really think about. So I’m just pausing right here.

Christian Klepp  06:38

No, no, fantastic, fantastic, great answer. And I totally agree that it’s about selling trust, right? Because a lot of these people that you’re reaching out to on LinkedIn are decision makers. They tend to be also part of buying groups. I think that’s, I would say, 98% of the time on B2B, that’s the case, right? You’re, you’re dealing with more than one person who’s making a decision. I had a follow up question for you based on something you said earlier, because I think a lot of people either misinterpret this or have a different interpretation. When you say that the LinkedIn content or the LinkedIn profiles are not professional. What do you mean by that? Can you give us some examples?

Indrek Poldvee  07:21

So, so this is again, like something that we see a lot. So we have done over 1000 profile makeovers in the last four years. And what it is we go into a company and we fix like, about 20, 30, maybe 40 senior people’s profiles. And the thing is, what, what you need to do in the company, first, you need to do a training. So, because a lot of people think LinkedIn, and it’s correct also, but that my Facebook and LinkedIn account, they are my own personal. The company cannot tell me what kind of backgrounds, how my profile should look like and etc. But what we are trying to do with the training, people need to understand that in LinkedIn, you are not only representing yourself, you’re representing a company you work for. That is, that is the business environment. And again, like I emphasize on business environment. So LinkedIn, for me, it’s like a 24 hour, seven days a week, networking event. And for example, if you work in a company, and they are sending you other networking event, other potential partners and customers who are there. You are dressing up smartly. You are dressing up so that you are polite and you don’t go there… depending on the event, but you don’t go like a like a smart casual event with your flip flops and with a tank top, and you go smoking or half drunk or something like that. So the same analysis is going to your LinkedIn profile. So if your LinkedIn profile doesn’t have a background image your profile picture, it’s not your face or the profile picture that you have is like 5 to 10 years ago, your profile picture, the headline under it, like you say, like your CEO or project manager, and X company, again, that is these. These are like, flip flops to me, like, these are the nobody understands if you are a project manager at, for example, XCOM. What is XCOM? What is a project manager? What do you do? So we try to do in the trainings, you need to understand that the profile of your LinkedIn, LinkedIn profile, it is not for you. It is for people who do not know you. And on average, this is LinkedIn statistics that three to seven seconds one person it takes them to take a look at your profile. So in three to seven seconds with your profile, you need to have message there that if I do not know you, I come to your profile, I understand what is the value you can offer me. Is it? Is it marketing services? Is it LinkedIn services or for example, if you’re a sales professional who’s helping other companies to grow the revenue, or hit their sales. And then it’s a really fantastic headline, helping fast growing companies in sales department by systematic sales from zero to 2 million, something like that. You’re getting your value preparation already. And then you go to the About section. The about section also needs to be longer than four or five sentences. It needs to show who you are, etc. So for us, approximately takes like eight hours to do one profile makeover. And this is not… If you do it, depending on the profile, but again, like if, and this is not like heavy details. This is if you want to do like a full profile, like writing all the job experience, then it’s like 12 to 15 to 20 hours sometimes. And people don’t understand, or have never thought about it that they take so much work. It’s basically like writing your own CV. So you’re writing your own CV. It’s not like 20 minute job, because it’s easy to make a LinkedIn account. You just sign up, you put the profile picture, you blah blah blah, that’s it. But again, I really, really, really recommend people to think like, Who is this profile for? Who is my ideal audience, and What is the message I want them to write. Because in your profile, it’s like your company website, you are in control of the narrative that what you want other people to know about you so that so again, it might be a too long answer, but, but all starts with your profile and the company profile and all those.

Christian Klepp  11:33

Absolutely. The LinkedIn profile aspect of it is really good, and I think we’ll get back to that in a second. I wanted to move us on to the next question. So you brought up some of the pitfalls to avoid already, right? So, for example, not to be too company centric, talking too much about, oh, our product is so great, our company is so great. And try to make a more professional LinkedIn profile. What are some of these other pitfalls that people should avoid when it comes to leveraging LinkedIn?

Indrek Poldvee  12:06

Yeah, so this is a case study that we are just writing. So we are working together with. It’s not popular in US and that, but we are working together with little Estonia. So little is like a chain in Europe, one of the biggest food chains. So we are working and we did a report with them together right now for we’ve been working with them for eight months. And what we did is we took the eight months, we did about 70 posts in that time. So we posted like two, three times a week. And then what we did is we took their competitors in LinkedIn accounts, all that information that’s publicly available. We saw that they did 50 posts, which is, again, 20 posts differently. That’s how much. But what we saw when we did it, this is the competitor started to do the similar way, the post that we are doing it, the writing and structuring, and also the competitors, have similar amount of followers. So we all have like these follower amounts. It might different, like four or 500 people, etc, but what we saw was engagement. So that means comments, likes, all these things, our posts were getting four times better visibility and engagement than our competitors, and so the visibility is four times higher with organic reach. So and these are the pitfalls that we see that so most companies, they do not have posting schedules, they do not have content topics written. They don’t have it planned out. What do I write about? They don’t have a schedule. And what we see, which is what typically, most companies do, like they post maybe one or twice, twice a week, and then one week they don’t do any post because, oh, I don’t have any any content to share. Then one week they do like three, four or five posts, and then two weeks they don’t do any post. So there is no consistency and but LinkedIn loves consistency then, and this is one of the, one of the key things that you need to have. You need to have consistent, so to say, planning, and also it’s really important, is the days and times when you post, because, for example, in company post, really good times are morning times, when you post, because it gets more engagement, especially 7, 8, 9, in the mornings also post. You need to vary post. So those formats, some are a little bit videos, then you do a PDF, then you do pictures, then you do a text, then you see you make a question. So you need to see what works for you and for your audience. You need to test those things. But the consistency is key, because what we see is what LinkedIn measures, is how long time does one person read your post, and also that what LinkedIn values is the consistency. If you post it every week, and then LinkedIn measures the time, how much time do people spend on your post, and do they read them then? And they see an upgrade, like you’re doing consistently, people spend, like, 3, 4, 5 seconds more on your post. Of course, they want your post to get more engagement and visibility, because you are bringing tons of value to LinkedIn, because people stay on the platform longer. So so these are the couple of things, and then also one of the key things are getting your own employees to engage in the platform also. So, so the biggest growth in all the companies that we work is it comes with your own people. So getting them to share, getting them to comment or or those, these extractions only if you get like two or three people in your company to do them, that’s a massive boost. That’s a even if you have like 1000 employees and 300,000 followers, etc. But if you, if you get like three, four people in your own company who start to comment on post, trust me, the engagement levels will go up. And we see with every company we work with, after six months, all statistics, the organic visibility, likes, comments, shares, will go up, minimum for three to three, three times in six to the previous six months, when we do the statistics. So these are, these are a couple of things that needs to be but it is a system. It is a really, really big system, and you need to know how to play the system.

Christian Klepp  12:06

Yeah, yeah. No, no, absolutely, absolutely. I think, no, you brought up some really good points there. I wanted to go back to this one point you made, and just from your experience, what’s the best day to post on LinkedIn?

Indrek Poldvee  16:47

There is no like, yeah, there is no like, this day is the best. Very good days are Mondays, for example, because Mondays people go to the office, they start scrolling. But with your personal profile, also, weekends are really good because Sunday there is, again, it depends all on your target audience. Who is your target audience? So for example, LinkedIn studies have shown that the Sundays are really good, because if your target audience are CEOs and decision makers like this, high value. Most of them plan on Sundays their next week. So they don’t comment or react, but they read a lot on LinkedIn. They go and scroll it and see what’s happening, because they are in front of the computer. So we’re planning the next week. And so there are multiple things that it’s all about testing, and it also depends on the target audience.

Christian Klepp  17:35

Yeah, yeah. And I suppose your answer will be very similar to the question on the best format, because there probably isn’t one, right? It depends.

Indrek Poldvee  17:43

Depends. So the best formats right now are, for example, that we see if they are well done or PDF documents. So these are basically the ones that you can click next and next and next. And why they are really good if they are well done is because people spend more time on them, because they click on the next picture, next picture, next picture, next picture. These are really, really good. They have about 100 to 200% better engagement than most posts. Then the second format that is, that is really good, are picture posts so that you have about 1000, 2500 maybe 2000 characters of text, and then you have three, four pictures of people and post that have people in them, or pictures that have people in them work really, really, much better than other post when, because people love to see people because, again, like, for example, this is what we are doing with the employer branding side, is we introduce people in LinkedIn. And again, like you have, especially if you have a very strong, like, offline presence, like you have a lot of fans, then these people see your picture. They like it. They comment some people, etc. So, so it works amazingly, like we have some companies where we, we introduce the CEOs, etc.. And they have a really, how can I say, strong offline business culture. And then a lot of people comment on LinkedIn that I didn’t know that, etc. They are rooting for them, basically. So so we have seen that also. So, so again, it’s a lot of mix, because you need to know what is the company account. But when we talking about the company account, what is the company accounts purpose on LinkedIn? Is it the employer branding? Is this company branding? Is it building trust with your collaboration partners? Or is the company page a communication channel with the communication channel, etc? So, so depending on those goals, the content also varies, and how you plan the structure of posting, etc. So there are a lot of lot of things that need to take, how can I say into consideration.

Christian Klepp  19:52

Yeah, exactly, exactly. Or, as they say here in North America, there’s a lot of moving parts, right? Because it’s an it’s an ecosystem, essentially.

Indrek Poldvee  20:00

Exactly.

Christian Klepp  20:01

And I’m glad you brought that up, because it’s such a great segue to the next question. And you’ve mentioned some of these things already, but talk to us about the importance of the following for leveraging LinkedIn the right way. So one is having a good understanding of the target audience, having the right messaging and content for the different groups, and having the right strategy. And you did bring up some of these already.

Indrek Poldvee  20:24

Well, the key thing is also having patience and consistency. These are, these are the thing, and also depending now on the company size, or there are also other things that you need to see, the company sizes, also when we and again, like there are different strategies with the personal profile and company profile. So the thing is, personal profiles, they get maybe 70 to 80% more engagement than the company profiles. But where the company profiles are really, really important are for bigger companies. And bigger companies are maybe like 75 to 100 people plus, because they are also doing recruitment, and they have a lot of partners, etc, so they need to allocate the resources to make sure that the company is also well represented in LinkedIn. But for example, in smaller companies, the CEO, founder, board member, whatever the title is, their personal profile is the key to unlocking LinkedIn and/or your sales people, etc. Because with your personal profiles, you can add people, you can communicate with them, you can message them, and this is right now with your company profile, you cannot do that. Well, in some cases you can, but it’s not very efficient. So people still want to talk with people, and that’s why making sure that your personal profile is more active. And again, with your personal profile also, there are, there are so many things that we see a lot of people have not considered, for example, if your target audience or CEOs, and let’s say in medical industry, medical industry CEOs, like hospitals, etc. But for example, your network, you’ve been maybe 10 years in LinkedIn, or your network, like you, I’m pretty sure that a lot of people have thought about it like, who are the people that I’m adding into my network? And most people, I think 90 to 95% of people I’m communicating with, they never thought about it, and they have added in their network people who were the former colleagues, school mates, random people, and somebody who sends an invite. But these are not your ideal audience. So if you want to target like a CEOs in the medical industry, and you want to get better content, then the network you already right now have, they are not producing it, so you need to very strategically, start adding these people that you are so to say, want to get as a target audience or your customers, you need to add them into your network. You need to follow those people, because then you can see what kind of content they make, what kind of messaging and again, like there is a multiple steps, because it’s not that easy. Oh, I’m just, I want to sell to medical people. Oh, I just started adding them, and that’s it. No, it’s not that easy, because you need to build trust. You need to know who they are. You need to like so, so again, like, and that takes time. It might take, like, six to 12 months before you see any kind of results in LinkedIn, and it’s a huge, it’s a big investment, because if you like managing somebody’s profile, depending if you do content or data, it’s like two to 10,000 a month. 2000 to 10,000 a month, depending on the services you need, and who are the people you are doing it together and well, so, so and the service, because it varies a lot, you can, you can get it from Philippines a lot cheaper also, but now depends on the quality, etc. Do they do…? So, so there are multiple, multiple things that you need to, need to think about, and your LinkedIn personal profile is really, really important, because if somebody screws it up, it’s not their reputation that goes bad. It’s your reputation that goes and you need to be very careful. But again, like we are working, for example, together with one investor. We did eight months, seven months working together. Nothing happened. We added investors. He had calls, etc, but nothing. Nothing did. But then one of the startups that he was working with, they were looking for a lead investor. So one of the investors that we added into his network, he mentioned, oh, that sounds like an interesting person. Maybe we match. He introduced the investor to the startup. They did a little, little over, over a million euros of lead investment for the company. That investor cut was 4% and then our, our services were paid for the next, like, basically one and a half years, basically our services. So, so again, like these happen, and I’m 100% sure in these next one and a half years we will get multiple deals, like two or three deals more. And then again, like the ROI is there. So to say. Like now, but again, like it works with this bigger deal. So in LinkedIn, what I normally recommend with the sales is like your product needs to have a return of investment at least, like two to $3,000 a month, or something like that, then LinkedIn makes sense. But if you, if you’re selling pizzas, then LinkedIn is not for you if, but if you want to sell container full of pizzas, then LinkedIn makes sense, because the deal values are much, much higher so and the ideal, the best, the best companies that I also… I’m looking this like where the deal started, 100,000 or half a million, or a million euro, million dollars or more. Because even if you get like, two sales per year, then our costs are covered there, etc, and there are multiple opportunities will come from those connections, I’m 100% sure.

Christian Klepp  25:50

Yeah, yeah, no, absolutely, absolutely. I’m glad you talked about strategy, because I think especially based on what you’ve been talking about in the past couple of minutes, there’s many ways that you can look at it, right? Because there’s a strategy, there’s an overall strategy, but there’s also a strategy based on what you said, that links to how you plan to approach members of the target audience, right? How do you connect with them? What’s your strategy there? Right? Because, as you said, it’s not just okay, I’ll just connect with members of the target audience, and then we’ll definitely be able to jump on a call. That strategy. That’s one part of the strategy. And I think the other strategy is, going back to what you said earlier on in the conversation, is based on the content strategy. So what are we going to write about? Right? Because I’ve seen, I’ve seen this happen, right? If you don’t come up with that kind of strategy, you’re going to run out of content ideas, right? You’re not going to be able to fill that content calendar. The way that you produce content is going to be very reactive, which leads to, as you said, inconsistencies, right?

Indrek Poldvee  26:53

Yeah, yeah, exactly. And again, with the content, think about quality over quantity in LinkedIn, definitely you don’t need to start posting five times a week and all those things. You can start once a week, even in the beginning, just to get so to say your… How can I say, content idea of flows getting to go because writing content is basically the same as learning to drive a car or learn a new language in the beginning, it’s not that easy, but if you do it consistently and well, then, trust me, writing, it becomes very, very easy. Or you can just outsource everything. So that is, there is also so there are… I’m a really believer that you do not need to do everything, like, if you are really good sales and host and, and then basically outsource everything else, and you do that, but what you are where your ROI is the maximum, basically, so whatever skill set for you that is. And again, like I normally don’t recommend to do like content strategy in the beginning with the personal accounts if the person is not very LinkedIn familiar, because there are other ways to build trust, etc. And one of the ways is, for example, commenting. Commenting on others people’s posts is a very, very effective strategy if you, for example, comment right like 20 to 40 comments per day. It takes a lot of time, but if you do that, then 100% I can guarantee you, in one month, you will get a lot of inbound messages. Are there the right messages you’re looking for? Definitely not, but you will start a lot of conversations and people notice you, as long as your comments are adding value. Not these comments, like well done or Thank you. These comments, they do not add absolutely nothing. So I do not recommend those.

Christian Klepp  28:54

Well, I mean, and you’ve probably heard about this, but there are these groups out there, like the LinkedIn pods, and that’s what they’re doing. It’s artificial engagement. So they’re, they’re probably posting something out there that, in essence, adds no value and doesn’t mean much, but then they get like 500 likes.

Indrek Poldvee  29:10

Yeah, right. I’ve been also testing with the with the posts, and we did it. You can also, you can in the post. You can also write the comments yourself and make it longer, etc. And they are also those and, but again, like you, you kind of see which posts have using the LinkedIn pods, etc, because LinkedIn is banning them, and, and. But if you’re using smartly, it still works, but again, like I think in some places it is a interesting strategy in the beginning to get stuff going. I do not recommend them. Definitely not. But depending on the pods, sometimes the pod can be also five or six people that let’s, let’s help each other grow like we build an engagement pod ourselves, and then we add valuable comments to each and if your content doesn’t resonate with me, I don’t have to comment basically like that. You do that, or maybe there are 10 people. But what I see with those you can really see that the comments sometimes, if somebody who doesn’t know how to use them, you see that they are using a pod, because all the comments are coming like in seconds, baba, baba, you have 20 comments that are written pretty similarly, even if they are, but you can, if you start to read couple of comments, you you see that these are AI made or somebody like that, because they are all kind of similar and they all have like this, also timestamps, you know exactly five minutes, five minutes, one minute, five minutes, whatever that they put like, but they are also, I’m pretty sure, randomizers there. But even if you’re using that, the key is also in LinkedIn, you need to respond to those comments. And this is also a good way to see if there are pod or not. Is if the author responds to the comments and there is no response to the author, then again, these are automatically made, so if they have like, 20 comments, and they added 20 responses and none of them replied to the author, then again, you can see that, okay, this is, this is… some something is going on there basically.

Christian Klepp  31:16

Yeah, no, exactly, exactly, okay. So we get to the part in the conversation where we’re talking about actionable tips, and you’ve given us a lot already, but just imagine that there’s somebody out there that’s listening to this interview that really wants to leverage the power of LinkedIn, and there’s three to five things that they can implement right away. What would those things be?

Indrek Poldvee 31:38

Yeah. So another question is, Is it personal, a company account? Those are totally different. So, so, but, but I will come to what we started in the beginning, like, what is the reason you want to, want to use LinkedIn? What is the number one goal? Like, let’s say it’s sales, let’s say it’s recruiting, let’s say it’s whatever… building your personal brand. Okay, so then you need to map out who is your ideal audience? Like who I am like, or the other, other way, like who I would like to be surrounded in the next two years. Who are the people that I want to be surrounded within the next two years? Because that’s how long it takes in the beginning, if you, for example, building a personal brand and for example, let’s say I want to be surrounded with business owners, CEOs, board members and these people. These are, these are my target audience. Okay, that’s fantastic. So, but if you’re living in the US or Canada, these bigger countries like you, like, I don’t recommend that. Why all in US are my target? No, definitely not, maybe, maybe 100 mile radius, maybe 200 mile radius. So let’s say we want to go Ontario Canada. So basically, it’s a place. But okay, like I narrow down, so to say, basically my target audience, and then the question is, what is the value that I want to bring to those people? Maybe I finished my university. Oh, I don’t have any experience. I don’t have any money. I don’t know what to add them. But then it’s a personality that you’re curious. You’re asking, for example, the way to starting reaching, reaching to start people out. They said, Hey, I really love your background, and you have done a lot like, what are your tips as a starting entrepreneur, or as a starting somebody who started out of university or something, you can, you can approach like that in people, and trust me, maybe 10 to 20% would reply to you. That is okay, so, but the thing is, in LinkedIn is it’s a long time game, but you need to think also like, don’t be afraid of connecting people, but be very, very polite when you connect with people. And if you like to ask for help, that that works really, really well in LinkedIn, or you’re looking for a mentor, or something like that. But if you want to do sales, it’s the same, same approach, again, like, who are the people? What is target audience? What is the value that we bring? And then if you have those things written down, then try to optimize your profile so that that when they come to it, they understand, what is the service you offer, what is the company you work for? And, and what do you do? So those, those are… and make sure your profile picture is also it looks professional and, and it’s up to date. It’s not from 2005 or something like that. And 70 to 80% should be your face on your on your profile picture?

Christian Klepp  34:21

Those are some really great tips. And I hate to do this, but I have to bring up this question, because I’m sure you see a lot of this on LinkedIn, but LinkedIn and AI, and I’m sure you have some opinions about that, and I’m sure you also caution your customers against overusing AI, right? So what are your thoughts on that?

Indrek Poldvee  34:43

No, I think AI is here to stay. AI is amazing, amazing tools. But again, like, just like you mentioned, you need to know how to use them. So that is, that is the main thing. Like, I do not recommend, yeah, we are also using AI to write some of our poll. Still do, but the AI does maybe 70 to 80% of the work. And then the final 20, we will go over manually. We go over by hand, because it’s the storytelling, it’s the personalization. The AI, when I did my post it, it added some words that I have no idea how to even pronounce in English. So, so my English, again, like a basic if the words are more than five characters, I have no idea what what they mean, so I try to keep it extremely basic and simple. But AI added some and yes, there are prompts that will help and etc. But again, like I think majority of people, they are not, they don’t know how to use to test the thing, because I know that the people who are AI experts, etc. They make content that actually you don’t even need to change, because they have, they have trained them and etc. They are really, really fantastic. But again, on LinkedIn is also trying to adapt the AI a lot. And I really do not like them, because if I, if I see the messages that it automatically prompts and etc, these are really, really bad. And also, what I don’t recommend is, like, LinkedIn says, Hey, I will write the about section with AI with you too. Like, don’t use it. Like, it’s, yeah, it’s really, really terrible, and, yeah. So, so yeah.

Christian Klepp  36:15

There was something that was circling around on LinkedIn, and I’m sure you’ve seen it, but it’s, something in your profile settings where you can go in and you can switch off that functionality, where it’s basically giving LinkedIn permission to use your data for, like, AI training, right? So that was something that was circling around for a couple of weeks.

Indrek Poldvee  36:37

So basically, basically, it was LinkedIn automatically added in the settings that whatever you post, whatever you do, it goes automatically do their AI LinkedIn training, and it is automatically turned on. So you need to turn it off if you don’t want it. So, so basically, but LinkedIn is collecting a lot of data, so, and I’m sure that 90%, 95% of LinkedIn users have no idea.

Christian Klepp  37:00

They have no idea that this exists. Yeah, exactly, exactly. Okay. So here comes the next question, what is a status quo in your area of expertise… So in this case, LinkedIn, that you passionately disagree with and why? So what is it that people are saying about LinkedIn, where you’re saying, No, I don’t agree with that at all?

Indrek Poldvee  37:20

Oh it depends on the people who are listening. Is it trainer or is it average people? With the LinkedIn trainers, I, like a lot of them, say all the right stuff. So like, but most of the things, like, again, like we talked about it, but it’s the personal profiles. Like people think, like, whenever I do trainings, etc, they say that, Oh, we can fix our own profiles, etc, and people think like, it’s quite easy, but actually it is quite, quite challenging. That is, that is something that I see a lot. Like, people think like, Oh, yes, I can fix my profile, but trust me, very few people can. And this is where I say, like, try, like, get professional help if you, if you want your profiles to look good, like, if it’s a copywriter, if it’s your friend who knows how to speak better English, etc, like, get them, get feedback or or whatever. And what I also recommend with your personal profiles is write down like, five to 10 questions and let somebody ask those questions from you, because then it’s easier to it’s always easier to answer questions than going to into front of your computer and say, oh, I need to do my profile makeover. I start doing it, and then you are stuck. You have just no idea how to do it because, but if somebody asks you, hey, tell me the things, what you are proud of, like in professional session.  What are your achievements that you have done? These, these, these are the questions. You open up and they can record it, and then you have a really good, so to say, draft of what can you write in your personal profile, for example?

Christian Klepp  38:48

Yeah, yeah, no, absolutely. I mean, I’ve done that for clients before, like, rewritten their LinkedIn profiles, and I can definitely attest to what you’re saying that it does take time. It’s not a simple exercise that you complete in 10 to 15 minutes, because it is… there is a bit of a process to it. You have to conduct the interview. You have to conduct some research. You have to talk to people that they’ve worked with and collaborated with, because it is, in many ways, as you said, it’s a kind of like a condensed not necessarily a CV, but it’s a condensed CV, it’s a condensed bio, it’s a condensed promotion piece, right? It’s all these different things, at least in my opinion.

Indrek Poldvee  39:31

Exactly, exactly.

Christian Klepp  39:32

Okay, so here comes the bonus question Indrek, because a lot of people outside of Europe, I’m just gonna say, probably have no idea about Estonia, like number one, where it is and you know, they just don’t know anything about this country. So if you were to tell an audience outside of Europe, like, say, specifically North America, one unique thing about your country, what would it be?

Indrek Poldvee  39:59

Oh, there are so many. I can make a new, new podcast about it.

Christian Klepp  40:05

Just pick one.

Indrek Poldvee  40:06

Yeah, but, but if we go, what is the like most fascinating. A lot of people have no idea that Skype was founded in Estonia, and Estonia has more… Is number one in the in the world per capita, the unicorn startups. We have so many billion dollar companies. So we have, I think, 11 or 12 billion-dollar-startups here in Estonia, wow. And we are extremely technologically advanced. So, so, so that is, that is something I think, fascinates people. And we are also a digital nation. I said, you only one but, but everybody who’s interested, if they Google Estonia e-residency, they think people can become digital residents of Estonia, also, we are the only world in the only country in the world. I think, who does this right now.

Christian Klepp  40:57

Yeah, yeah, I did know that, actually, right? Because I did know, I didn’t know somebody from Estonia, and she did mention that, right? So that’s a that’s an incredible, incredible piece of information. Okay, for all you listeners out there that did not know where Estonia is or what Estonia is about, feel free to reach out to Indrek. Speaking of which, I want to thank you for coming on the show and for sharing your expertise and experience with the listeners. How can people get in touch with you, especially if they want to leverage LinkedIn for their businesses?

Indrek Poldvee  41:28

The easiest thing is, just hit me up in LinkedIn and they will they will find my name Indrek Poldvee B2B Growth. And quite easily. And I think that is the best way. And all my emails, etc. are available, so hit me up, and more than happy to assist and consult whoever is interested.

Christian Klepp  41:56

Perfect, perfect. Once again, indirect. Thank you so much for coming on the show. Tänan I think is the word, right?

Indrek Poldvee  42:03

Perfect, yeah. No. Thank you Christian for doing it and inviting it was… it’s easy to talk when you do the things, and it’s easy to talk about them.

Christian Klepp  42:12

My pleasure. Okay, take care, stay safe and talk to you soon.

Indrek Poldvee  42:17

Yeah. Same here.