eCommerce Made Easy - Growing your Online Business

Mastering LinkedIn for your Business: Strategies from Expert Brenda Meller

• Carrie Saunders • Episode 97

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Are you really using LinkedIn to its full potential? Or is it just a profile you set up and forgot about?

If you’re an online business owner, course creator, or coach looking to grow your network, attract the right clients, and build credibility without spending all day on social media—this episode is for you!

Today, I’m sitting down with LinkedIn expert Brenda Meller, who’s sharing her top strategies to help you make the most of your LinkedIn presence. 



In this episode, Brenda walks us through:

 ✅ The first steps to take if you’re not active on LinkedIn but want to be

 ✅ How LinkedIn differs from other social platforms when it comes to 

business growth

 ✅ The biggest mistakes service providers make (and how to avoid them!)



Connect with Brenda:

Brenda Meller is a self-proclaimed “ambassador” of LinkedIn, national speaker, and the Chief Engagement Officer at Meller Marketing, which helps solopreneurs, business professionals, and job seekers enjoy a bigger slice of the LinkedIn pie. She’s a former corporate marketer who “GETS” LinkedIn.

Brenda is the author of the book, "Social Media Pie: How to Enjoy a Bigger Slice of LinkedIn" and producer of the podcast, "Enthusiastically Self-Employed." 

Connect with Brenda on LinkedIn or your preferred platform:

-> LinkedIn

-> Instagram

-> Facebook

-> https://www.mellermarketing.com/



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Carrie Saunders:

Are you really using LinkedIn to its full potential, or is it just a profile you set up and forgot about? If you're an online business owner, course creator or coach looking to grow your network, attract the right clients and build credibility without spending all day on social media, this episode is for you. Today, I'm sitting down with LinkedIn expert Brenda Meller, who's sharing her top strategies to help you make sure you make the most of your LinkedIn presence. Whether you're brand new to the platform or just not seeing the results you want, brenda will walk us through the first steps to take if you're not active on LinkedIn but want to be. How LinkedIn differs from other social media platforms when it comes to business growth and the biggest mistakes service providers make and how to avoid them. Brenda brings a ton of value and actionable steps, so grab your notebook and let's dive in.

Carrie Saunders:

Welcome to the eCommerce Made Easy podcast. I'm your host, k Saunders. When we started this business, all I had was a couch, a laptop and a nine-month-old. My main goal To help others. Now, with over 20 years in the e-commerce building industry and even more than that in web development, I have seen a lot. I love breaking down the hard tech into easily understandable bits to help others be successful in their online business.

Carrie Saunders:

Whether you're a seasoned e-commerce veteran or just starting out, you've come to the right place, so sit back, relax and let's dive into the world of e-commerce together. Welcome back to the show. Today we have a special guest for you, and her name is Brenda Meller. She is an excellent resource for all things LinkedIn and I've actually been recently learning from her and her course called the Recipe, and it's been a great source of information, some surprising facts and some great useful but time-conscious ways to use LinkedIn. So, no matter whether you have five minutes, 15 minutes a week or you have a few hours a week to spend on LinkedIn, she is great at helping you learn how to utilize your time effectively there. So welcome to our show, Brenda, thank you.

Brenda Meller:

Keri, I'm delighted to have the opportunity to chat with you today and hopefully teach some of your listeners some new LinkedIn tips.

Carrie Saunders:

So tell me, tell us, a little bit more about you, more than what I shared here. How did you come upon, you know, getting to be an expert in LinkedIn?

Brenda Meller:

Yeah, so my backstory is I was when social media first came on the scene. I was anti social media. I remember like all my friends were like you got to get on Facebook and I said why do I want to be sharing my life online? It seemed like very intrusive. And a few years went by and LinkedIn came onto the scene and I had a few people I really respected who worked in marketing tell me about it and I said, well, I should check this out. It's a professional networking site and I found it was a really great platform for people like me, who are introverts and will always be an introvert at heart, to find and connect with people from across the world, across industries. So I started with LinkedIn. I leaned into it, I really felt comfortable using it, understanding how to navigate it, and at the time I was working in corporate marketing it understanding how to navigate it, and at the time I was working in corporate marketing.

Brenda Meller:

A few years went by and I changed careers using LinkedIn. It was at the height of the 2008 recession when this happened and I made a connection to a hiring manager, ended up getting an interview within a few days and for me it was like a game changer for the job search. So after that point, the new role I was in was helping out with marketing and overseeing social media. So then I had to embrace Facebook. I had to get into it, but LinkedIn was always at my core, one of those sites that I knew about.

Brenda Meller:

So many years went by and in 2017, the universe nudged me forward, so to speak. I had an opportunity to figure out what I wanted to do next, and at that point, I had built up such a great presence for myself on LinkedIn as a thought leader in the space that people were approaching me. Since you have some time now, can you help me with LinkedIn? Since you have some time, can you train my team on LinkedIn? Since you have some time, can you help us with social media? And I realized that I could create a business for myself solely around marketing and social media and LinkedIn and not have to work for a company anymore. So I've been doing this full time now since 2018. And what I do carry is I help both individuals the self-employed, executives, et cetera and I do help some individuals who are in career transition also to use LinkedIn. My catchphrase is I help you to get a bigger slice of the LinkedIn pie.

Carrie Saunders:

I just love that and I love how you make it so much fun by relating pie to the things that you do. If you could find Brenda on LinkedIn, we'll have her link in the show notes. She loves to incorporate the things she does with pie and I just I find that very relatable. So I love seeing that from a marketer, because sometimes people aren't really very relatable on social media, especially on LinkedIn, because it's a bit more corporate-ish. So I just love how you bring the humanity in to a place that's also very professional too, which is why it's a perfect platform for our listeners here, because it's a really great way to meet other business owners and or get jobs and you know if you're a service provider or find your people there. So if you're not already on LinkedIn, what are some of the first things you should do if you're not active and you want to be and you want to make an effective use of your time?

Brenda Meller:

Yeah, great question. This is really common. A lot of us have set up a LinkedIn account, but many neglect it. They haven't really been on it, and what I hear from people sometimes, carrie, is they get on LinkedIn and they feel like you know, they're running with the big dogs over here. It's a big corporate stuffy environment, and I'm a solopreneur, I'm a self-employed service provider. It doesn't feel like my people.

Brenda Meller:

So if that's the case, it's probably that your homepage feed is really being consisting of people who aren't in your ideal target audience kind of sphere. So my advice is, if the first thing you wanna do is just start spending some time in the LinkedIn homepage feed, what will happen is, when you're interacting with posts, whether liking, reacting or commenting on them you're training the algorithm. These are the types of things that I want to see more of. These are the types of people that I want to hear more of, and your homepage feed will start to be more relevant.

Brenda Meller:

The other side is, you really need to make sure that your profile is accurate or reflecting who you are, the services or expertise that you offer, problems that you're solving, and that there's some type of a call to action if people are interested in working with you, doing business with you?

Brenda Meller:

How do they start that process? Because what I really want folks to walk away with, keri, is that LinkedIn is almost like a professional directory and it's really the type of site is different than Facebook and Instagram and a lot of these other sites out there where people can be locked down because it's a personal site they're sharing personal information about their family, things like that Whereas on LinkedIn it's all professional, so it's almost the equivalent of going into an online networking event. People want to be found, people want to have conversations with you, but you need to make sure that your profile is built up in a way that is highlighting how you want to use LinkedIn. So we're not looking like a job seeker if we're not job seeking. If you are promoting your business as an e-commerce provider or somebody else who's self-employed, you want to make sure that it's clear to people visiting your profile what it is that you do and how they can start working with you.

Carrie Saunders:

I just love that. And actually we had I would say, probably like six months ago or so one of the people we worked with probably eight years before that and moved on from their company, so we no longer worked with them, and he found me on LinkedIn and sent me a message to start up the conversation again to help him with his new you know, the new business he was associated with. So I love how LinkedIn can bring people together like that, especially people that you've worked with before, or that you and you meet in real person, in real life too, and you can make this great network of like-minded business individuals on there and it feels in some ways safer than like the typical social media like Facebook and Twitter and Instagram and things like that. So I just I kind of love the vibe over there at LinkedIn because it's professionally friendly. I guess would be a way to I would describe it.

Brenda Meller:

Yeah, I think that's a great way of described as professionally friendly, and there's been a lot of people who have started moving off of Facebook and Instagram and some of the other platforms in recent years. You know different things happening in the world and they're like it's not, it's not feeling right for me anymore. So they come on to LinkedIn and I'll often hear them saying, wow, it's like Facebook, but everyone's friendly here, everyone's professional, everyone's polite and for the most part, they's going on. Linkedin is kind of the equivalent of going into a professional work setting and you're going to be meeting people you know from different backgrounds, different industries. But a lot of times, to be honest, carrie, people will look you up on LinkedIn before deciding whether to do business with you, whereas years ago it used to be you would look up their website to see do they look like a legitimate business? Now we look them up on LinkedIn because we're trying to verify.

Brenda Meller:

Okay, carrie says she does website and SEO. Does it actually look like that's what she does or is it not matching up with that? And then we can also look and see. You know, do you have recommendations? Do we share common connections? So I can reach out to my friend Diana and say hey, I see you're connected with Carrie. Tell me about her. You know I'm thinking about hiring her for SEO, so it really can be a really great place for people, like you said, to do their research on you.

Carrie Saunders:

I love that. Now let's get into the question, though, and we were kind of already touched on this, but how do you feel like LinkedIn is different than other social media sites as it relates to building your business?

Brenda Meller:

Yeah, so when we're thinking about building our business, when I think about sites like Facebook and Instagram and Twitter and YouTube and there's a lot of different sites and things that are out there Think about your own personal use of those sites. You might have a personal page on Facebook, for example, for your personal profile, friends and family activities and things like that, and you probably have a business page on Facebook as well, and I think the numbers are still showing that there's more people actively on Facebook than are on LinkedIn and some of the other sites and things like that that are out there. But there has been both a decline in usage and we've also been noticing that our personal feed is definitely getting much more coverage than our business pages, our business pages. If we want to really have momentum, we might have to look at Facebook ads and other things out on that platform. But I don't know about you, carrie, but if somebody sends me a friend request on Facebook, I want to make sure that that's the type of person that I feel comfortable sharing family pictures with, because I'm sharing a lot of personal information out there, but also that I know and I align with their values. If I'm not sure, I may not accept their friend request right away.

Brenda Meller:

A lot of differing opinions about things that are happening in the world nowadays and, without going into detail, I think Facebook is a place that we share some of those values, whereas on LinkedIn we're much more selective about sharing information that's related to our area of expertise, our industry, our employer.

Brenda Meller:

We avoid subjects that are controversial because it's a professional networking platform and the things that we're sharing there are similar to the things that we are sharing when we go to an online or in-person conference, or if you're in the workplace, you're interacting with people in the coffee room or on the water cooler. It's common talk, it's things that aren't going to offend people. It's things that are acceptable in those professional areas. So you know, similar to Facebook, I have a personal Instagram and I have a work Instagram for my Mellor Marketing. Mellor Marketing is wide open. My personal Instagram I use that more similarly as my personal Facebook and I think you'll find there's a lot of people that are like that. They're a little bit more locked down on their personal accounts and their business accounts are more wide open, whereas LinkedIn, everything is pretty much wide open there.

Carrie Saunders:

I would have to agree with that, and I see that trend right now too, in Facebook and Instagram, on either less usage or, or you know, kind of being a bit more careful what we're sharing anymore to, just because of the state of the world right now. So with LinkedIn, though I know there's some people out here that have never used it and there might be some that have dabbled in it a little bit, but what are some of the biggest mistakes you see service providers or entrepreneurs making on LinkedIn that they should?

Brenda Meller:

look to avoid. Yeah, great point. And I think one of the things is, if you really aren't super experienced in LinkedIn, you might treat it the same way you do Instagram or Facebook, and I'll just use an example. I was talking to a client recently who I was working with, coaching her on LinkedIn, and she was saying, ok, I'm putting my posts out there, I'm publishing posts and publishing articles. Isn't that how people find me? Just by publishing content? Because if you think about, on Instagram, you publish something, you put a bunch of hashtags and people can search for and find you, and on LinkedIn, it's really more based on the network of people that you keep. When you post or publish something on LinkedIn in the homepage feed, it only goes out to a small percentage of your first level connections and if they engage with your post, then it publishes it more. You'll get more impressions and more views of those types of things. So you know, I think the difference is understanding like all of the platforms have slightly different algorithms that are associated with how to get better reach on the platform.

Brenda Meller:

But my advice is that you should you should treat LinkedIn as kind of like a two-way street, so to speak. You definitely should be publishing content regularly, at least once a week, moving up gradually to daily, based on the level of engagement you're getting. But you also need to be spending time in the homepage feed every day interacting with other people. I like to refer to this concept as social media karma. You know, what you put out to the universe will come back to you. What you put into your LinkedIn homepage feed in terms of effort, interacting with, learning from and contributing conversations with other people, that's going to come back to you as well. So, just treating it a little bit different, understanding the algorithms a little bit different on there and for me, everything really started to turn around when I wasn't just using LinkedIn selfishly for myself, but I started using LinkedIn to help other people, both by engaging in their posts and also, you know, occasionally tagging people in and bringing people into my posts as well.

Carrie Saunders:

I think that's a really interesting way to think about how LinkedIn is, and one thing that I have heard, too, is that you shouldn't post, so let's go to the posting. You said at least once a week, working up to once a day. I have heard that you can shouldn't be posting more than once a day on LinkedIn is. Is there a nuance to that? Is that true?

Brenda Meller:

Yeah, and it's interesting because there's a. There's a super influencer out there. I'm not going to name names, but he has over 5 million followers and he goes around telling people you should post 17 times a day on LinkedIn and if you have 5 million followers that might make sense for you, but the average mere mortal person like you and I Carrie it really doesn't benefit you and there's actually going to be a penalty in the algorithm if you post more than once within 18 hours. Every now and again I hear the rules are changing a little bit and LinkedIn doesn't publish this anywhere. The information I'm sharing with you is based on my own personal experience as well, as I share and collaborate with other LinkedIn coaches and trainers from around the world. We're all independent, but we share notes and we'll share what we're doing, what we're noticing, and we'll test different strategies as well.

Brenda Meller:

So really posting once a week, I think, especially if you're just getting started on LinkedIn, that feels manageable. It's almost like if you think about you're planning on running a 5K, you're not going to go run three miles today, because if you are tomorrow, you're going to be sore. Then that's going to be the end of it. You're not going to go run three miles today, because if you are tomorrow you're going to be sore, then that's going to be the end of it. Instead, you might start out by doing a brisk walk today and maybe a day or so later, maybe a brisk walk with a jog. You're going to gradually build that up to something that feels manageable and enjoyable, right. Same thing on LinkedIn. I think posting once a week, starting out at that cadence, can help you to get comfortable with posting. And if you're complementing that with going out into the homepage feed every day seeing what other people are posting, you're learning right and then also you're engaging with them. So that way, the next time you post next week you're going to get better and more engagement coming from that.

Carrie Saunders:

I love that perspective because I feel like a lot of business owners and they're they're thinking, oh, I'm going to jump into LinkedIn, I got to do all the things. But it sounds like you're giving them so much permission to to not do all the things and to really pull it back and start out slowly with once a week and then maybe working up to twice a week and then, if they have the the you know the ability to do every day, eventually to do that. But I love how that makes LinkedIn so much more manageable and doable for most online business owners because you don't feel like you have to be in there all the time, like we feel like we need to be for Facebook and LinkedIn, for example, like we feel like we need to be posting all the time to have anything seen. But it sounds like with LinkedIn, that's totally different.

Brenda Meller:

Yeah, it really is, and I do want it to be enjoyable for people, but I want it to feel manageable for you as well. And you know, sometimes I'll have clients reach out. They'll say I'm posting every day, why am I not getting engagement? And we'll take a look at their posts together and I see that there is some engagement. They're getting some likes, they're getting a couple of comments here and there.

Brenda Meller:

And going back to your question of mistakes that people are making, when you get comments on LinkedIn, you need to reply back to them. Think about a comment is like a gift that someone has given you and it's good from an etiquette standpoint to reply back and acknowledge them, not just liking it, because liking is kind of like patting them on the head. Thanks, gary, you know. But like, imagine if they were standing next to you and they said whatever it was, you would turn to them and you would say something back to them. Right? And the other thing that happens, kind of from a magical standpoint, is every time somebody engages with your post you or a connection it's going to push that post out to the homepage feed again, so you're getting more impressions. So not only are you doing the right thing from an etiquette standpoint by commenting back, but also you're helping yourself to get more reach for the post as well.

Carrie Saunders:

I love that, and something else that just that made me remember too, is I've also heard that the one nice thing, especially for business owners, about LinkedIn is that the people on LinkedIn generally have a bit more of a budget to work with other businesses, so it's a great place to work with. Versus like Facebook and Instagram, they may not have that business type of budget that they would have on LinkedIn. Have you seen that to be the case too?

Brenda Meller:

I haven't.

Brenda Meller:

I recently read a report from LinkedIn and I think they said, like LinkedIn, users have like two times the buying power.

Brenda Meller:

It might even be a higher percentage than that, but it was definitely a magnification of number of dollars that people have on LinkedIn compared to the average user on Facebook and on Instagram. And I think we see it as well, because it's a professional networking platform platform so we're able to connect with people that are, you know, all the way from college graduate, newly hired employee, all the way up to senior level executive, and there are people from 200 countries and just about every industry that are represented on LinkedIn. So we really can get a little bit deeper into reaching the right type of person, and you certainly can do that with Facebook and Instagram ads. But the cool thing with LinkedIn is you can search and apply filters to find people using the free, basic version of LinkedIn. You don't have to spend any ad money on that, but you can actually search for people using filters so you can look at people by job title, by industry, by geography, and you can find and connect with these people who might be your ideal target audience.

Carrie Saunders:

I love that and I feel like it helps build some confidence in those who might be completely new to LinkedIn. This may be a good platform that I can spend 15 minutes maybe 30 minutes a week at first on and feel like I'm getting, you know, a good return on my time investment for it. So, to wrap up, I'd love to hear for anybody who's brand new to LinkedIn or, you know, maybe they've dabbled in it but not really done a whole lot with it what would be your top three to five suggestions on, you know, getting started and getting getting the wheels rolling in LinkedIn.

Brenda Meller:

Yeah, great question. So, first thing I would say spend some time optimizing your profile. So think about who is your ideal target audience and what are your goals for using LinkedIn. It's probably to find more prospective clients right, and to market specific products or services. So look at your profile from top to bottom, thinking of yourself in the seat of that ideal target audience, and everything on your profile should be optimized to be directed towards that ideal target audience. Your banner image at the top should be promoting your business, maybe a product or service. Your headline shouldn't just be job title at company. It should be specifically speaking to the problems that you solve, the services you're offering, et cetera. Your about statement is not really about you. It's about you as it relates to how you can help to solve their problems or what services you're offering to them, right. So everything in your profile should be optimized. So that'd be my top tip.

Brenda Meller:

My second would be to be active on LinkedIn, and I would recommend 15 minutes a day in the homepage feed. And, carrie, this is something I do, the first thing I do when I go into LinkedIn. It's so important. I spend 15 minutes a day in the homepage feed first, before doing anything else, because we are building up that social media karma. You're training, continuously, training that algorithm. These are the types of things that I want to see and that's going to help to make LinkedIn more relevant for you, which, in turn, is going to make you want to come back to LinkedIn, because if it's not relevant, you go there. You're like, ah, forget it, right. So that would be the second thing, and let me say, let me give you three things. The third thing I would say is continually be growing your network on LinkedIn, whether it's reviewing those pending invitations that people are sending to you or searching for people using filters on LinkedIn, inviting them to connect. I recommend using a personal note. You only get five of them if you're using the free version a month, but still use all five. You upgrade to premium. You can add a personal note to every invitation that you send, but getting some conversations started with those people as well.

Brenda Meller:

And I think, if we take a step back here, you really need to think about LinkedIn as a long game. It's not something where you're going to come on today, on a Monday, and, by Friday, have a new client. It's something where you need to be investing some time and some effort over time, but similar to that analogy of wanting to run a 5K, that's how you get from sitting on your couch to running a 5K. It's by regular routines and exercise and building up the muscle and your stamina right. It's not by going. I mean, could you run a 5K without ever having ran ever before? Probably, but you might fall over halfway through the race and collapse and pull a muscle or something. So I want to make sure that people are getting into a routine that feels manageable to them over time and understanding that LinkedIn is a long game.

Carrie Saunders:

Thank you so much. I feel like that's going to be super helpful for those listening and new or have fallen off the wagon with LinkedIn. So where are some of the best places that people can find you, which is probably obviously LinkedIn, but what are some of your favorite places for people to find you if they want to connect with you and learn a bit more about you?

Brenda Meller:

Absolutely so, yeah, LinkedIn. You know, Brenda Meller, it's M-E-L-L-E-R. When you go to my profile, you're going to notice my default button is follow instead of connect. If you want to connect with me, you can just go to the more button or the three dots and you'll see an option that will say personalized invite or connect Mention that you heard me on Carrie's show here. Now, if you are on Instagram or Facebook, you can certainly look up Mellor Marketing and I provide links back to my LinkedIn profiles as well as my website from there. So if that's where you are, I'll meet you where you are and I'll take you to where you need to be. And the last place would be my website, Mellormarketingcom.

Carrie Saunders:

Love that, and we will have those links also in the show notes. So thank you so much for this wonderful conversation today, brenda. I so enjoyed. Even. I'm always learning something new from you about LinkedIn, and sometimes, when we hear it more than once too, it sinks in a little bit better.

Brenda Meller:

So thank you so much for being on our show. Yeah, absolutely. Can I share one final resource with you? Sure yeah, go right ahead For those that are getting started and really want to work on optimizing their profile. I've got a free downloadable checklist. It's called 15 Free LinkedIn Profile Tips for Coaches and Consultants. Even if you are a service provider or working in e-commerce, the tips could work for you as well. Just go to mellormarketingcom slash list if you want to access that.

Carrie Saunders:

Perfect. I love that, and we'll also add that one to the show notes as well. So thank you again. So much, Brenda, for being on our show. Thank you.

Brenda Meller:

Keri, this was great. Appreciate it.

Carrie Saunders:

Well, wasn't that a great episode with Brenda. She shared so many golden nuggets about LinkedIn today, from making those first key updates to your profile to understanding what not to do. This episode is packed with insights you can apply right away. So here's your challenge Pick one thing Brenda mentioned today and take action upon it this week. Whether it's optimizing your profile, engaging more strategically or avoiding the common mistakes, small steps lead to big results. If you love this episode, be sure to connect with Brenda on LinkedIn. She's always sharing amazing tips and I know I enjoy following her. And don't forget to subscribe to the podcast so you never miss an episode. And if you found this episode helpful, I'd love for you to leave a review or share with a fellow business owner. It helps more business owners, just like you, get the strategies they need to grow. Thanks for listening and we will see you next week.