Amanda Cupido is an author, TEDx speaker and entrepreneur. She is the founder and chief executive officer of Lead Podcasting and an adjunct professor in the School of Media at Seneca Polytechnic.
When I have a few minutes to spare, my first instinct is to pull out my phone and check LinkedIn.
When I tell my media students at Seneca Polytechnic that LinkedIn is my social media channel of choice, they roll their eyes. I may sound like I’m just trying to prove a point about the importance of networking, but it’s true.
As a journalism instructor I encourage all my students to set up a LinkedIn account and instead of handing out business cards at industry events, offer to connect with people on the platform.
For people looking to enter the work force, it’s a no-brainer. LinkedIn allows your connections to keep up with your work and gives people an easy way to reach out. And as I’ve learned, no matter your career stage, LinkedIn can be extremely powerful.
I wasn’t always a fan. The platform officially launched in 2003, which was before Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Although I registered my account about five years after its launch, I was not regularly active until 2018.
That year, I set a goal to post once a month. It was the year my book, Let’s Talk Podcasting: The Essential Guide to Doing it Right, was published and I wanted to make sure I supported the release. Little did I know, I was setting myself up for the launch of my business.
In 2020, my business Lead Podcasting was incorporated and in its first year it was not only profitable, but it was a healthy six-figure company. And I owe a lot of it to LinkedIn.
Here are three ways LinkedIn has helped me grow my business:
- I have been able to invite personal connections to get to know me professionally. These aren’t people I’ve previously worked with; these are old acquaintances whom I only met a few times, people from my adult recreational sports teams and past peers from university whom I haven’t spoken to in well over a decade. They are also people I’m not connected to on any other social media platform and wouldn’t have known what I was working on if it wasn’t for LinkedIn. And just like that old friend from high school who keeps popping up on your Facebook feed, I started popping up on their feeds talking about podcasting. When my company launched, these were some of the people who immediately reached out with interest in working together.
- I was able to land clients from “friends of friends” (or as LinkedIn calls them, second or third-degree connections). It usually starts with the common practice of someone asking their network for recommendations. On LinkedIn, people will commonly make posts, calling for professional referrals from their first-degree connections. People will tag referrals in the comments. As the popularity of podcasting grew, so did the number of posts I was being tagged in with business opportunities. One of the first clients I landed after incorporating Lead Podcasting came through one of these kinds of posts.
- I have been able to source talent to fill specific gaps in my company. I’m not just talking about posting a job – I’m talking about searching through LinkedIn’s giant, information-rich directory. Most recently, Lead Podcasting expanded its services to include French podcast production and I needed to fill some key creative production roles. I used LinkedIn to search for people who were based in Canada and had the specific audio experience I was looking for. I landed on a profile of someone in Quebec who seemed to be the perfect fit. I sent him a private message on the platform and was able to hop on a call with him within days. Recruitment can be tough, but in this instance it was seamless. He was the real deal and was excited about the work we were doing. He has officially joined the team.
I can’t identify exactly how many accounts I’ve landed because of LinkedIn, but I can confidently say it influenced more than half of the clients I work with. And I know it’s not just me: research from HubSpot in 2020 shows LinkedIn is 277 per cent more effective than Facebook and Twitter for lead generation.
It’s not all sunshine and roses, though. One pitfall I will warn about is connection requests. Many people will search LinkedIn and add anyone who comes up as a suggested connection. Although accepting requests from people you don’t know can help grow your network quickly, your connections will end up being weak and can misrepresent you. For instance, when someone searches a name, like on other social media platforms, LinkedIn serves up any mutual connections. If you’re connected with people, it can seem as if you’re endorsing them; people will see you as a mutual connection and be more likely to trust them. I have been burned by this in the past, so now I regularly monitor my connections and I don’t accept everyone who adds me.
But the pros of the platform heavily outweigh the cons. The thing I like most about the social media channel (aside from the business leads) is that there is no such thing as “doomscrolling.” And that’s simply because there’s not a lot of doom on the platform. It’s pretty positive (and some may argue too positive) as it’s filled with people cheering each other on. Rarely do you see trolls in the comments or people amplifying their latest personal grievance.
Now, back to my LinkedIn feed.
This column is part of Globe Careers’ Leadership Lab series, where executives and experts share their views and advice about the world of work. Find all Leadership Lab stories at tgam.ca/leadershiplab and guidelines for how to contribute to the column here.