“Be yourself. Don’t be afraid to just let your personality shine because let’s face it, there’s not too much differentiation between copywriters. We write words, we help people articulate their value, but what’s different or what will help you stand out is just being true to yourself because no one can really replicate you.”
– Rebecca Cofrancesco
Why the ‘boring’ social media platform is a copywriter’s best friend
LinkedIn; it gives most people the absolute heebie-jeebies.
It has a reputation for being the most boring social media platform, and so many of us hide on Facebook, on Instagram; anywhere, but having to show up on LinkedIn.
But the truth is, as a copywriter, it’s probably a pretty good source of jobs.
So, how do we show up on LinkedIn, become a content creator, a content curator, and a content commenter, and actually have some fun and win some clients?
Today we’re going to explain all that and more.
Tune in to learn:
- Beck’s past jobs leading to copywriting
- How she settled into financial services and tech as her niche
- Why LinkedIn is so important for copywriters
- Beck’s 3 top tips to getting more out of LinkedIn
- Beck’s worst copywriting career fail
- Beck’s number one favourite writing tool
- How she achieved copywriting success
- How she achieves a healthy work/life balance
- Beck’s top copywriting tips
Listen to the podcast
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If you like what you’re hearing on Clever Copy Chats, support the show by taking a few seconds to leave a rating and/or comment on iTunes or Spotify. Thanks.
And big thanks to LyndaCoulson from Australia for their lovely review:
“Sweet, juicy, thought-provoking content
I love listening to a good poddy to get my brain ready for something, like a good warm up before a run. This poddy is juicy and not boring. Perfect when I’m getting my brain ready to write copy. Can’t wait to hear more.”
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About Rebecca Cofrancesco
Beck (aka Beck Co) is a content strategist, business writer and self-confessed LinkedIn geek.
She works with service businesses to help them get the clarity they need to stand out online and make the most of the opportunities on LinkedIn.
With her financial services background she’s a whizz at simplifying complex topics and translating boring corporate speak into simple, everyday language.
Connect with Rebecca Cofrancesco
Useful Resources
- Grab her Ultimate Guide to Stand Out on LinkedIn
- Read her blog on how Copywriters can get more clients on LinkedIn
- LinkedIn Marketing Solutions
- Copy tool: Word Hippo
Transcript
Kate Toon:
LinkedIn, it gives most people the absolute heebie-jeebies. It has a reputation for being the most boring social media platform, and so many of us hide on Facebook, on Instagram, anywhere, but having to show up on LinkedIn. But the truth is, as a copywriter, it’s probably a pretty good source of jobs. So, how do we show up on LinkedIn, become a content creator, a content curator, and a content commenter, and actually have some fun and win some clients? Today we’re going to explain all that and more. Hello, my name is Kate Toon and I’m the Head CopyBeast at The Clever Copywriting School, an online copywriting community and teaching hub for all things related to copywriting, and today I am talking to Rebecca Cofrancesco, Cofrancesco from Marketing Goodness who also happens to be one of our TCCS ambassadors. Now I stumbled over your name then because I know you as Beck Co.
Beck Co:
Yes, that’s right. So, Beck Co is my Facebook name, but really over on LinkedIn, it’s Rebecca Cofrancesco if we really want to-
Kate Toon:
Cofrancesco.
Beck Co:
The Italian way.
Kate Toon:
I like it. I like it, like cappuccino. It’s a very beautiful name Beck Co is a little bit easier, just like Kate Toon. Monosyllabic names are the go. Anyway, let me tell you a little bit about Beck. Beck aka Beck Co is a content strategist, business writer, and self-confessed LinkedIn geek. She works with service businesses to help them get clarity they need to stand out online and make the most of opportunities on LinkedIn. With her financial services background, she’s a wiz at simplifying complex topics and translating boring corporate speak into simple everyday language. Fun fact, Beck has lived in Sydney her whole life. She now calls Wareemba home, but it’s rare anyone knows where it is. I don’t know where Wareemba is. Where’s Wareemba?
Beck Co:
Well, nobody knows. That’s the thing, but it is. It goes with my Italian name because it’s a little suburb in between, people know Abbotsford, Five Dock, and Drummoyne.
Kate Toon:
Oh wow.
Beck Co:
So, it’s a little pocket, and it’s very Italian.
Kate Toon:
I used to live Leichhardt, so not far from there.
Beck Co:
Leichhardt’s a 10-minute drive.
Kate Toon:
How did I not know it was there? Is it like three houses or something?
Beck Co:
Yeah, well, it’s not on the arterial route. So, to go here to Wareemba, you have to know where it is or it’s usually locals hangout here.
Kate Toon:
And now you’ve ruined it. Everyone’s going to be mobbing down to Wareemba. So, yeah, I love that you are a self-confessed LinkedIn geek. So, in The Clever Copywriting School, you’re kind of our LinkedIn expert. You’re also a bit of a LinkedIn guru in our Digital Masterchefs group as well, and you have fun fully digging deep into LinkedIn. We’re going to come to that and why you love it so much and how we can help other people try to love it, but first of all, take me back a few years. How did you become a copywriter?
Beck Co:
Oh gosh, it’s a long and windy path, like most people. But when you think about it, we’ve all been copywriting since we were kids. So, my corporate career didn’t kick off I suppose till my twenties because before that, I was the pimply teenager doing the Macca’s chick, and it instilled a love of a good process in me, and their training, I was a crew trainer for Macca’s. So, if anyone’s done that, they’d know that the training that they teach and their process, the prepare, present, try out, follow up is actually what they teach in university for training.
Kate Toon:
There you go.
Beck Co:
Yeah, who knew?
Kate Toon:
Who knew?
Beck Co:
Anyway, so it’s a pretty good foundation and then went into hospitality and kind of a bunch of different roles which I ended up in function and event coordination which had writing. Teaching, I went to be a teacher. What was I thinking? Can you imagine me in school 24/7? Awful. Sorry to the teachers out there, but I just couldn’t do it. In hindsight though, it probably is a natural fit. All my grandparents and aunties and uncles are teachers and things like that. It’s just I don’t like the school environment. And then, I’m your corporate escapee. So, I landed in a marketing job, and for over 20 years I worked in the big old corporate beast in some of Australia’s largest financial services companies. When a redundancy became on the table, I jumped on it.
Kate Toon:
Good on you.
Beck Co:
I just could not face the thought of spending another 20 years waking up and going, “Wow, I’ve just spent my whole life in a office.”
Kate Toon:
Wow, that’s great. You know what? I’ve always wanted to be made redundant. It’s been my dream that someone would pay me to leave my job. Terrifying though. It’s always really scary when that happens because you’re like, “Okay, now I have to come up with something else and it has to work because I don’t want to go back and work for the man.” So, is that when you kicked off copywriting, when you got that redundancy? You were like, “I’m going to do this”?
Beck Co:
Yeah, I did. When I left I was like, “What can I do? I don’t want to do this again. I don’t want to jump into another role.” And I ended up getting a little bit of a temporary three day a week role with someone and then went, “I wonder if I could make this freelancing thing a reality?” And it turns out I was rubbish at it. For the first six to 12 months, I was absolutely rubbish. Had no idea how to go from being an employee to running my own business. The mindset shift between, I was a marketer, I was used to marketing products or services or solutions to marketing me was terrifying.
Kate Toon:
Yeah, I think that’s it. A lot of the people in our community have good writing skills. Maybe they’ve done writing in their previous jobs. They’ve done marketing. What I say in the membership is, you’re not, it’s a bit cheesy but I think it works, you’re not a copywriter, you’re a business owner and your product is copywriting. It’s a bit of a mindset shift. So, yes, that’s part of what you do, but it’s not really all of it. The business owning bit is actually the hard bit. Marketing yourself, budgets, finances, clients, processes, and it’s like you can be a brilliant writer but if you don’t have that stuff sorted, you just flounder about a like a muppet for a while, don’t you?
Beck Co:
Exactly. And I think part of my issue was too, I wasn’t really that hungry at the time because I’d had been made redundant and then I walked straight into a three day a week kind of decent contract paying role, and then it was… I was kind of just floundering, and I had the attitude of let’s just see if this works. I didn’t have the I’m going all in, I’m going to make this work. It was I’ll just see, because what’s the worst that can happen, I’ll go back to a role. And then it became more of that is the worst that could happen.
Kate Toon:
I love that. I wish you could have all seen Beck’s expression then. Her eyes kind of went, “Ah.” It’s so true. I love that self-awareness, and again, I think this is so true for many of the people in our membership that until it becomes a necessity, it doesn’t become a necessity. Until it has to work. It doesn’t work. Until you go all in, you’re not all in, and it sounds so silly, but these kind of back doors and I can just do this and I’ve got money in the bank, I’ve got a well-off partner or I’ve got a one day a week job, they actually hold you back sometimes from fully immersing yourself and making it into everything it could be.
Beck Co:
Definitely. And coming to CopyCon the very first time at the first Kirribilli one-
Kate Toon:
Oh yes.
Beck Co:
… that actually I was at a crossroads because I was asked to extend my contract and it’s a pretty cushy gig. Three days, I was used to running millions of projects at once, and as a contractor I had one thing to do. That was like, this is easy. Right? This is great, one thing to do. But then I went, “Well,” going to CopyCon and I was seeing everyday people, other women just like me, a few more blokes in the group as well, but having a real goo at it and I went, “I can do this.”
Kate Toon:
Yeah, why not me? Why can’t I be that?
Beck Co:
Yeah, why not me?
Kate Toon:
Yeah. And there’ll always be three day a week job. Well, there won’t. It’s actually quite lucky to get that job. A lot of people long for that. But there’ll always be jobs. There’ll always be jobs. I think a life without trying stuff out and failing miserably possibly, but then at least you can say, “I did it, I tried it.” Nothing ventured, nothing gained. So, I mean, over these years, since that CopyCon, you’ve evolved a lot, and I’ve slowly seen you sort of turning your eye like the Eye of Sauron towards the evil land of LinkedIn, and I feel like that would be your copywriting niche now or area of expertise. You’re all in on that now?
Beck Co:
Yes, well, the thing is I’m not just LinkedIn. I find it really hard to say yes, I’m only niching. So, I’ve come to peace with the fact that I can’t escape my corporate life, and it makes sense that the people who I’ve worked with in the past who enjoyed working with me are the ones who are likely to refer people to me, and financial services and tech is actually quite niche.
Kate Toon:
It is.
Beck Co:
So, you can charge more for that, and I have a lot of knowledge in the back of my brain somewhere that I can just pull out when it comes to financial services. So, I find that with LinkedIn, what was happening was I was leading with marketing strategy, and when I was delivering projects, I was training people on how to use LinkedIn. Financial services, tech people, they had no clue how it worked. And something switched in my brain where I went, “Hang on a minute, I should be getting paid for this. I’m good at it and I enjoy being there.”
So, then I’ve kind of branched out more into how can I talk about LinkedIn. I run a few masterclasses in the groups. I started talking about LinkedIn, more how to show up. I started testing, started learning, getting my hands on every learning training thing that I could and even ran some council seminars for local businesses, just, and I was like, “Yep, this is definitely in my wheelhouse.” So, I think it will always be a bit of both where LinkedIn training and coaching but also leading with the strategy and LinkedIn just becomes one of the tactics.
Kate Toon:
I like that. I think you can niche in different ways. I like what you said about kind of embracing the inevitable of who you are. You can feel when you leave a corporate job that you just want to abandon everything. Okay, now I want to only write for vets or wellness clinics, and you’re like throwing aside all that knowledge that you had. What you can do is enjoy the industry that you’ve learned everything about, but you’re your own boss, you’re your own creature, you can do it wearing pyjamas, whatever, but it’s a shame to abandon that when you’ve got it. As we know, financial services is a lucrative niche, it’s a specialist niche, but then you don’t just have to niche by industry.
So, you’ve also kind of niched into one particular platform, LinkedIn, and I think that’s great and just allows you to narrow your focus a little bit, not have to be worried about everything, “Oh I have to be a video script copywriter and an Instagram expert and I’d be really good at Pinterest optimization.” No, you can focus on that and the two go hand in hand, and I love the fact that you have trained yourself, and then the trainer has trained the person who has become a trainer because there’s nothing like teaching a workshop to work out what you don’t know as well, isn’t there? You see the gaps in your own knowledge, don’t you? And you also see what resonates with your audience. Those live workshops are so invaluable if you’re planning to do courses and downloadables because you can kind of see the moments where people’s eyes glaze over and you’re like, “Okay, I need to fix that bit.” Does that helps you kind of learn more from teaching people?
Beck Co:
Definitely, and also lurking and kind of snooping in Facebook groups. Right? So, I’ll often ask a question and sometimes it’s to get a little bit of insight, or you just kind of if you go into other Facebook groups, not just yours, Kate, but you hear the questions people are asking and it’s the same thing. People are scared. What do I do? How can I start? I don’t want to sound like a douchebag. Those people are wanky on LinkedIn. I don’t want to be like that, and I’m scared of what people think of me.
Kate Toon:
Yeah, and it’s a scarier place. I think there’s levels of fear. I think Twitter’s the most scary. Sorry, I just want to apologise if you can hear my dog scrambling. Can you see him in the background? There’s his bottom scrambling about. Twitter is terrifying. It’s a kind of gather your pitchforks kind of place. LinkedIn can feel a bit terrifying. The thing is, well, we’ve come on to talk about this, you do get so much more visibility, so you’re not just being exposed to people who know you and your friends like you are on Facebook and Instagram. It seems to be a bit of a tight circle. Expanding beyond your first degree of separation is hard on Instagram and Facebook. On LinkedIn, complete randoms see your stuff, third, fourth, and fifth degree contacts. So, you are coming up against people who don’t know your sense of humour, who don’t know that you’re nice, and do challenge you, and that can be scary. I mean, I guess a lot of people have heebie-jeebies about LinkedIn. So, why do you think it’s so important for copywriters?
Beck Co:
Well, number one is our clients are there.
Kate Toon:
Yes.
Beck Co:
If you’re a copywriter-
Kate Toon:
Oh god, it’s so obvious. Goddammit.
Beck Co:
It’s so obvious. Right? We talked about money before, I live in Sydney, have a mortgage to pay, and money’s kind of important. It’s not just the only why, but you need to stop-
Kate Toon:
Yeah, we’re allowed to make money. We’re allowed to do that.
Beck Co:
We’re allowed to do money. But you need money to live in Sydney. Right? So, why not go where the people with money is? It’s fun to hang out on Instagram. I like Instagram. It’s my favourite place to kind of be if I wanted to. But really, I’ve probably got about five clients there the whole time I’ve been in business. LinkedIn is a bit of a gold mine because people have money. So, they’re working, they’re employed usually. For me, my audience is more like marketing managers, small businesses who maybe don’t have a internal resource, but they have a marketing budget to spend. They just don’t know how to spend it or where to best use their time.
Kate Toon:
Yeah, I agree with that.
Beck Co:
To me, they’re less likely to quibble over a couple hundred dollars than the people on Instagram or Facebook. So, Instagram and Facebook, when you see those jobs come out, it’s a little bit of a race to the bottom, and you’re really competing over a few hundred bucks. Where LinkedIn, I was told once, “Put your prices up so we take you seriously.” It’s like, ugh, okay. Now, wouldn’t you rather have clients like that than squibbling over a couple hundred bucks? I would.
Kate Toon:
Yeah. Yeah.
Beck Co:
And the other thing with LinkedIn is why copywriters, why it’s good is that your post can linger for dates. So, if you hang out on Instagram or Facebook, it disappears within a few hours. If anyone sees it after that, miracle, I don’t know how they’ve come across your content. But LinkedIn, your post can hang around for ages in the feed, and it’s almost, you’re doing a disservice if you post too frequently because you bastardise the reach of that post that’s doing really well. So, you don’t have to post two, three times a day to get anyone to notice you. We’re all small business owners, who’s got time to post three times a day without a team behind them or content creator like a machine going, “Right, three posts a day, let’s do this”? I Don’t.
Kate Toon:
Yeah. I so agree.
Beck Co:
You’ve got a team now, Kate, but it’s hard going.
Kate Toon:
Yeah, absolutely. So, I’m just going to touch on some of those points there. So, people are in work mode, they have budgets, and like you said, they’re less likely to haggle over the price. But also a point we were talking about before the podcast is I guess the kind of clients you get from LinkedIn are a little bit more, oh, it’s maybe the wrong word, sophisticated, educated. They’re more likely to know what a copywriter is, what value they bring, what role they play in the marketing ecosystem, rather than someone coming along and going, “Sorry, what does the copywriter do? Do I really need you?’ So, that means you don’t have to hold their hands as much. You don’t have to explain what you do. You just have to explain why you’re good at it, and just the process must be easier I think.
Beck Co:
Yeah, I think so. I think that’s a really good point. They’re used to working with freelancers or people external to their business. So, they get the process, they get the kind of wooing that happens at the beginning, they get the setup, they understand that you need to stick to timelines. So, if you say, “You’ve missed my deadline, unfortunately, I can’t get to it till a couple of days now,” they understand the flow-on effect usually. To me, there’s pros and cons because the big ones have a lot more intense sign off. So, as copywriters, our little hearts die a little inside when you’ve seen it come back through legal and compliance, and all of your friendly, conversational copy is now just a wad of legal rubbish.
Kate Toon:
Yeah, but you can mop those tears up with the nice fat invoice that gets paid on time. I think that’s the thing as well. Often if you are working with a marketing manager, it’s not their actual money, it’s their budget, but they’re less emotionally attached to it than a very small business owner who’s literally spending their holiday money on you. So, those are some good reasons for choosing the client, getting clients from there. But you also mentioned that the content stays around longer. You enable yourself to kind of position yourself as the go-to copywriter in your niche.
Beck Co:
That’s right.
Kate Toon:
How does Google decide which posts… Google, see, I’m obsessed. How does LinkedIn decide which posts stay around and which don’t, and also can you explain the whole creator thing? Because that confuses me.
Beck Co:
Yeah, definitely. So, creator mode, right at the moment, so LinkedIn has two things going for it. So, just touching on Google for a second. If you were to google your name, your business would come up and LinkedIn would come up second. So, to me, it’s another place to have your name and visibility stamped all over the internet. It comes up really good search within LinkedIn. Creator mode is something that LinkedIn have started earlier in this year I think, where are we, November, yeah, earlier in the year. It’s fairly new, but it’s an option where they’re rewarding creators right now. So, I read a stat today that says 5% of people post now, where before the stats were around one to 2% only. By having creator mode, they’re actually rewarding people who post. So, they give them more options to giving-
Kate Toon:
That’s shocking to me that so few people post.
Beck Co:
Yeah, which is why it’s a massive opportunity because you stand out just by being active.
Kate Toon:
Yeah, gosh, you don’t have to do much to get some notice. You don’t have to jump around. One of the main reasons obviously is you don’t have to dance.
Beck Co:
You don’t have to dance. You don’t have to run around on TikTok. You don’t have to do all those pointing and things like that. That’s off the table. But at least-
Kate Toon:
And you don’t necessarily have to be hilarious or funny or good looking. Most people I see on LinkedIn are absolutely hideous in it, folks. I’m just joking, but it’s much less about aesthetics and appearance. It’s more about your brain and your thoughts and your ideas.
Beck Co:
Substance.
Kate Toon:
Yeah, a bit more substance. All right. You’ve tried to convince me many times, Beck, very many times to get on LinkedIn, and you’ll be proud of me, this morning I did two lives onto LinkedIn.
Beck Co:
Yeah, awesome.
Kate Toon:
Yeah, I know. So, you’ll have to go and watch them and have a good laugh at them. I danced. I didn’t really. So, if there’s a copywriter listening, thinking, “Can’t think of anything worse,” what would be your three tips for getting more into LinkedIn?
Beck Co:
Well, I think the first thing is really about nailing your profile because no matter what you do, so to me, your LinkedIn profile is like your 24/7 salesman, a bit like your website. You don’t have to be working, you don’t even have to be there. And because Google… I mean, Google, now I’m talking about Google. Because LinkedIn has such amazing search, if you add keywords into the right places in your profile, you come up when people search for you. And if you have creator mode on, you’re recommended to people as someone to follow or connect with because you’ve already identified some hashtags that you want to be known for, and you’ve got up to five. So, it’s kind of a great thing to do. Now I forget what I was talking about. Oh, nailing your profile. You can edit that out, I’m sure.
Kate Toon:
No, I’ll leave it in.
Beck Co:
Or just leave it in for the-
Kate Toon:
No. So, quick question there, just for the people to try to nail their profile, setting creator mode, is that something we do in our settings?
Beck Co:
You do. It’s on the home page. So, when you log into your profile, it’s on the very first page. So you don’t have to go off into the settings function. It’s literally on your homepage. It says do you want to turn create mode on, yes, and it gives you options for… Sorry, my earphone just fell out. It gives you options for live stream. So, if you did a live stream, you’ve got create mode on. They’ve just released audio events. So, I think they’re trying to replicate Clubhouse. You can have a newsletter. So, you’ve seen the absolute slew of newsletters that you’re being asked to subscribe to.
Kate Toon:
Yeah.
Beck Co:
Crazy. I haven’t tried yet, but I will, just because the reach and what I’m seeing is crazy. So, if you really want to expand your network, this might be the time to try newsletters, but it has to be good because there’s so many, and it’s just like, if one more person asks me to subscribe to their newsletter, I think I might… I don’t know. It has to be pretty-
Kate Toon:
So, those are newsletters that you upload into LinkedIn?
Beck Co:
Yes, yes.
Kate Toon:
Wow. Gosh, it’s all going on, isn’t it? So, we’ve got Clubhouse, we’ve got newsletters, we’ve got LinkedIn Live, videos.
Beck Co:
Events.
Kate Toon:
Events. We’ve got LinkedIn Pulse. I mean, good grief.
Beck Co:
And it’s all to rewarding creators. So, that’s what you get if you have creator mode on. If you don’t have creator mode on, it’s also fine. So, if you don’t want to post every week or at least two or three times a week, then you probably don’t need to support creator mode on. But one of the benefits that I like about creator mode is that it allows me to highlight and feature. So, it’s got the featured section where you can highlight all your favourite posts or your articles or publications. You can kind of do that because your LinkedIn profile, the shift is that you’re not an employee. Okay? So, if the LinkedIn profile is your 24/7 salesman, then you need to, your LinkedIn profile, treat it like a billboard. So, you don’t have to use all of the elements in the way that LinkedIn has first intended, you can really use it to sell.
Kate Toon:
I’m just going to say, I’m looking at LinkedIn while we’re talking. If I look distracted, it’s because I’m looking. I don’t even know about that featured thing, so I’ve just added a few things to my featured. So, obviously my LinkedIn’s going to go through the roof now.
Beck Co:
Through the roof.
Kate Toon:
I’m not clear on this. I’m sorry, this is not meant to be a tutorial and people are listening to this on their ears and they’re like, “I’m trying to listen. Why is she asking things?” How do you do newsletters then? Where is newsletters? I don’t have a button for newsletters.
Beck Co:
No. So, what you do is if you go to make a post, they’ve made it a little bit complicated. So, when you go to a post, if you click on the three dots next to the post, all of these options-
Kate Toon:
Click in, yeah, add a document, create a poll, create an event.
Beck Co:
Yeah, so it should come up there.
Kate Toon:
I don’t have it. Offer help, find an expert, celebrate a-
Beck Co:
And write an article.
Kate Toon:
Write an… I don’t have write-
Beck Co:
So, it’s write an article. Do you have write an article?
Kate Toon:
I do. Oh, hang on, let me go back. Oh see, sorry people, this is all about me. I’ve got add a photo, add a video, add a document, share your hiring, celebrate an occasion, create a poll.
Beck Co:
It’s in there. It’s when you go to write a post.
Kate Toon:
I don’t have it. I don’t have it.
Beck Co:
I shall show you after this, Kate. I’ll show you. You do have it.
Kate Toon:
Thank you. I’m infuriated. Maybe I’m not a creator, maybe I’m not in creator mode. I don’t know. Anyway, I’m babbling and ruining the podcast. So, the first tip that I ruined was to nail your profile.
Beck Co:
That’s right.
Kate Toon:
But the other thing I think that people do a lot on LinkedIn is fanny about. So, how do we not fanny about on LinkedIn?
Beck Co:
Well, that’s my next point is that you should always be strategic and a little bit intentional about how you show up because otherwise LinkedIn is a time suck like every social media. People go, “I’m on LinkedIn all the time, I don’t get results,” and then I go, “So what are you doing?” “Well, I scroll through the feed and I look at other people’s stuff.” I’m like, “Mm-hmm. Are you connected or are you talking to people?” “No.” I said, “Okay, big clue in the name, social media is about being social and it’s about having conversations.” So, when you hop on LinkedIn, if you have say 10 minutes a day, I would be going, “Okay, who of my connections can I go and talk with?” So, who are my clients? So, I would be supporting my clients’ content, write a meaningful comment, I’d be thinking about who else do I want to add to my network, and then I would also be adding meaningful comments on posts that are in my niche, that I’m an expert and I can add to the conversation.
So, being strategic about who you connect with, how you show up, and where you spend your time is where you’ll start to get results, and the best thing about LinkedIn is you don’t have to be the show pony. So, if you’re a bit uncomfortable with fully embracing your thought leadership, brand, position, you can really do a lot of work behind the scenes. So, even commenting, people in your network see that you’ve made a comment. So, you’re still raising your visibility so people remember you because that’s what you want. If someone thinks of a copywriter, they want to think of you, and they want to know how to get in contact with you. So, it’s staying top of mind by just being present and more visible.
Kate Toon:
Yeah, I like that. Often when I’m short on time and I don’t have the time to put a piece of content onto LinkedIn, I will just go through, look through my feed, and just if I read a post, I will force myself to leave a comment, good or bad. If I’ve spent a few minutes reading it, I can at least write some kind of comment and try to go beyond just, “Great post, Bob.” You try to offer something meaningful. I do a lot of reposting with comments. So, that kind of people really benefit from that. I use LinkedIn a lot to give recommendations. So, when anybody does a masterclass or anything, I go on and then that adds me, I’m doing it to be nice, but it also adds me to their profile. People can see I’ve given a recommendation. It just widens your circuit. It’s a nice thing to do. So, you don’t always have to be making content. There’s lots of other ways to get a lot out of LinkedIn without having to do that.
Beck Co:
Very much so. And I always like to say that if you can approach LinkedIn with the intention of giving rather than what can I get. If you go on there, what can I get, what can I get, you are exactly like those people that you excuse yourself to go to the toilet from in a live networking event. Right? Because they’re the ones who thrust those business cards at you, they talk at you, and before you’ve even finished the conversations, they’re glancing over your shoulder because they’ve got someone more important to chat to or do business with. If you are generous and you’re giving, sharing that informative, engaging, and relevant kind of content that the people that you want to notice you will actually find helpful. I would say too, the content you post on LinkedIn, think about it, people are in work mode, they’re in jobs usually. How can you help them do a better job?
Kate Toon:
Yeah, how can you make them appear as an expert with your content because then they’ll remember you for it. Okay, so we’ve got nail your profile, be intentional and strategic about how you use the platform. But I guess the other thing is people give up, don’t they?
Beck Co:
Yes.
Kate Toon:
If it doesn’t work in the first few weeks we’re like, “No, it’s not working.” What are your thoughts on that?
Beck Co:
You need to be consistent. So, I always say you need at least… If you’re really serious about starting out on LinkedIn, give it at least a month of regular posting. When I first did this, so two years ago I made a conscious effort that I was going to go all in on LinkedIn, and I did a 30 day kind of post a day for 30 days, and it really kicks off the algorithm. So, LinkedIn go, “Oh you’re an active person, you’re on here, you’re sharing, you’re creating.” And I find that now after being on there consistently for two years, I only have to post once or twice a week because those posts, like I said, they’re performing really well. So, if I post too quickly, those posts kind of wither and die away, but they’re decent content, and also takes the pressure off me having to create all the time.
Kate Toon:
Yeah, gosh. The idea of posting once or twice a week is very appealing. But you’re right, I’m looking through my little feed now on my second screen and the thing I love, as you mentioned, about LinkedIn is the half life of the posts. The half life of a tweet seems to be something like seven seconds, but on LinkedIn sometimes it’s weeks later, people are still interacting and you go back and it’s kind of quite shocking to see how many interactions you’ve had on a… Some don’t. Some just don’t seem to take off at all. I do notice that if I post from a third party platform, it never has the same impact as if I’m actually alive on the site.
Beck Co:
Yeah, there’s a lot of things around that, but from what LinkedIn have said, about three months ago they released a big report and said, “Here’s how the algorithm does work,” and they said you weren’t penalised from third party software. But I would tend to agree, but the reason being is they want you to be active on the platform. So, if you know you have a post scheduled say for nine o’clock, quarter to nine, go in there and start commenting and being active and don’t post and go. So, don’t get your post out at 9:00 AM and 9:01, you’re off. Spend 10 minutes after engaging with people.
Kate Toon:
Yeah, that’s it.
Beck Co:
There’s a magic 90 minutes which was in another report. So, there’s a LinkedIn guru I follow called Richard Van der Blom or something like that I think his name is, but he analysed thousands of LinkedIn posts to kind of say well, what really is working with the algorithm, and he’s a big fan of the 90 minutes and that you need to be answering everybody’s comments within that. So, if someone comments on your post, answer them immediately in that first 90-minute period and your post will go gangbusters.
Kate Toon:
Yeah. I mean, I think that’s true on all the platforms. They want engagement. They want you to stay there, and those engagement signals just keep it flowing. People are commenting and you’re responding to the comments, there’s nothing better than that. So, I definitely agree, and the way I make that easier for myself is I have the app on my phone so that I can really easily just respond to people. I know a lot of people who only use LinkedIn on desktop. Having it on your phone means you can just quickly get back to people when you’ve got some time, and I think it makes a big difference, I really do. I guess the thing that people are then worried about is, okay, I’m going to update my profile, I’m going to be much more intentional, I’m going to post some content and stay on the platform, I’m sharing stories and questions and trying to be relevant, but how do I get them from there to coming to my site and using my services. How do I make the sale I guess.
Beck Co:
And this is where people fall down because people are scared of the big S word for some reason. They think sales is a dirty word and we shouldn’t do it. But if we don’t tell people what we do or how they can work with us, then how are they going to know? So, to me, I always say it’s a call to engage. So, it doesn’t have to be a sale every time, but your call to engage might be, I’m asking you a question, do you want to find out more about my offer? Do you want to come download my thing, go to my website? And then you put a full-on post that has the sale on it.
I’ve started testing out where I’ve got a standard call to action at the bottom of my post now just to test to see whether I get any more interaction or whether people are turned off by sale, and like anything, it’s the balance of you don’t want every post to be about sales because that’s boring and you hate those people. We hate those people. We hate the people that connect saying, “I just want to connect with you and I’m not going to sell you anything,” next minute, “Oh hey, buy my thing, did you know I’m an SEO expert?” Great, right? We don’t like those people, nobody likes-
Kate Toon:
Don’t blame the SEO people.
Beck Co:
… hey, overtly sold to. So, I think if you can get the balance of don’t be scared to put out an offer or a call to engage if that feels a little bit nicer at the end of your post and then just do the balance. I say, one in five or one in 10 could be a blatant sales post.
Kate Toon:
Yeah, I love that. I mean, I think we see behaviour on LinkedIn which is really bad and it must be some bad coaches out there. As you said, the immediate, awful reply when you connect to someone that says, “I’d just like to get to know about you and your business. Should we have a 15-minute call?” No. Eff off. And then the one I had the other day, I think they must have literally just cut and pasted it to all their connections to say, “My course is launching.” And I’m like, “I don’t care. Why are you filling my… This is unsolicited mail.” I get a lot of those and I’m just like… I’m quite petty. So, I will actually go through the couple of steps it takes to actually remove the connection and shut it down, and I love all the canned responses you now get to messages where you can respond really. They’re a hoot.
Oka. So, we’ve got some tips for getting stuck into LinkedIn to make it a little bit more accessible, and obviously you’re in our communities, you’ve also got some resources on your site that you have to help people with LinkedIn, so I’ll share those towards the end. Let’s get back to copywriting for a minute. What was your worst copywriting career fail?
Beck Co:
Well, I wasn’t really a copywriter then, but it’s my favourite. It just makes me laugh. Like I said, I worked in hospitality for a little while, and one of my jobs was as a marketing coordinator for New South Wales Rugby. Anyway, you can imagine the rugby crowd, they’re very serious, they were very old school boys kind of the network. And my boss said, “Can you quickly put up a sign? We’ve got this massive event, can you quickly put up a sign to make sure that no one wears their rugby shirts, that they have to wear the business shirts?” Right? I was like, “Of course.” Printed it out, put it in the lift, no problem. Next minute my boss walks in, scrumpling up the paper, the sign that was in the lift, and he goes, “You trying to get me fired?” I said, “No. Why? What’s going on?” He goes, “You wrote only business shits allowed.”
Kate Toon:
I love it.
Beck Co:
And he goes, “A bit of a Freudian slip maybe?”
Kate Toon:
Well, maybe not.
Beck Co:
Maybe not. He actually thought it was really funny. He goes, “God, if that’s one typo you’re going to put out there on a day like today, what are you doing?”
Kate Toon:
Yeah. No, I love that. The typo’s the classic. I did a brochure and I think it was for some fire and hose or something and I spelt the name of the event wrong on 20,000 brochures at Birmingham Thing, Birmingham MEC. Brilliant, brilliant. I don’t know how I didn’t spot it. What is your number one copywriting tool? What copywriting tool do you love to use?
Beck Co:
You just froze a second.
Kate Toon:
You froze. Okay, James, edit this little bit out. Okay, so what is your number one fave copywriting tool?
Beck Co:
Well, I don’t have one favourite because I think it depends on what job you’re working on really. But there was one, I think it was Angela Denly maybe in the group mentioned it and it’s called WordHippo and it’s like a thesaurus. Thesaurus, I can’t say it but I can use it. But I like it because it has lots of different ways. If you get sick of writing, say for me, writing for financial services or tech company, they always want to talk about how their bespoke, tailored financial plans are, you can kind of throw in those kind of terms and come up with something, alternate if your brain is going, “Uh, I can’t see it anymore.” So, yeah, it’s a great one.
Kate Toon:
Yeah, it helps you. You know what we need? We need another word for thesaurus.
Beck Co:
Yeah, we do.
Kate Toon:
I don’t think there is one. How ironic is that?
Beck Co:
That someone can-
Kate Toon:
There’s only one word. There’s no synonym for thesaurus. Anyway, you’ve been around a little while now. You’re doing well. I love following you on Instagram. I love all the things that you do. But what has been one of the most successful strategies for your copywriting businesses in marketing? What have you done that’s really worked for you?
Beck Co:
I always say marketing is a bit of a puzzle, so everything kind of works together. So, for me, I’ve got a strong performing website, it does okay and I’ve only really optimised it for a couple of terms, but in financial services it’s doing quite well. So, it’s optimised for that which means I get leads coming through my contact form which feels a bit exciting. You go, “Ooh, it works.” It’s always a good thing to have. I’ve joined networks. Pre-COVID days, I was in a couple of local networks that weren’t about referring but more just connection, and I get referrals from making connections. So, either I keep in contact with past clients, groups like yours, Kate, I get a lot of referrals from your group, and also joining directories and things like that. But they all kind of work together, and then it’s I suppose showing up on LinkedIn. Doing that changed my business.
Kate Toon:
Fantastic. So, it’s not some big overarching marketing concept that you rolled out over a bit.
Beck Co:
No.
Kate Toon:
It’s just being visible and being present and building relationships, which to be honest, I think for most of us, it doesn’t need to be a massive, big idea. I mean, sure, great, if you’ve got one, go for it, but often it’s just, work comes from surprising places that you wouldn’t expect. You’re banging away trying to attract client A, and in the meantime client B has snuck in the back door and going, “Hey can I work with you?” And you’re like, “Okay.” So, it’s funny where it comes from. You seem very balanced human being, but possibly you’re not. I mean, it’s an emotional journey being a copywriter, running a business in any way. How have you managed the whole mental health thing as a copywriter?
Beck Co:
I think I’m naturally one of those annoying half-full people, glass is half full kind of people. So, I think that helps for me, but also I know what’s works for me. I think COVID was very interesting for me because all of these kind of mental health coping mechanisms that I hadn’t even realised were my way of dealing with life were kind of taken away. So, connection’s really important to me. So, not being able to see anyone, talk to anyone, go outside your suburb was stressful for me. A lot of introverts, I know my sister was like, “Oh great, I don’t have to talk to anyone.” And I was like, “Give me people.” And I’d be like… I wanted to talk to people.
Things like making sure I get out and exercise or go for a walk every day. I know when I’m getting a little bit touchy, my partner will say, “Do you want to go see sunrise? Go for a drive to the beach somewhere.” It’s like yes. It’s like he can almost see my tipping point of I need to get out in nature. I need to be away from the computer. So, I think that’s really important to me. And also boundaries. So, I think we find it hard, we’re people pleasers at heart. We’re service businesses so we want to keep our clients happy, but if you don’t put the boundaries in and work till midnight or drop everything to help out a client, it’s kind of on you. It’s up you to put that boundary in. And I find that having that separation, because my office is upstairs, so turning off the computer and I don’t look at it again. When I finish, I walk downstairs, my day is done.
Kate Toon:
Yeah, it’s so important. It’s so important. And you train your clients how to treat you. So, if you train them to treat you badly, they will, not because they’re cruel people but because you’ve said that’s okay. And I love the comment about getting out in nature, a good partner that you’ve got there, because I noticed that on your Instagram there’s a lot of kind of beautiful, “Oh look, I’m at this gorgeous beach, I’m here,” it’s a nice balance between the two of… I used to be the kind of person that would race to my desk because I didn’t want to lose a minute and I was like, “You got to hustle and start.” And now, I do try and take that time in the morning to just set myself up for the day, and I always benefit from it. I like the fact that your partner helps you recognise when you’re about to tip off the edge, it’s really good, yeah.
Beck Co:
Because, well, it’s really hard to… You kind of get lost in a focus zone. So, you’re like, “I’ve got this deliverable,” and you get laser focus, I’m going to get it done, I’m going to get it done, and you’re just there. You forget to eat or you forget to go out or whatever.
Kate Toon:
Or go to the toilet.
Beck Co:
And all of a sudden, you’ve sat a whole day in front of your desk, in front of your computer with nothing else, and that’s a little bit, I don’t know what the right words is, I don’t say crazy, but…
Kate Toon:
No, it’s so easily done, and once you get into that zone of work, work, work, everything seems super important and client feedback is harder to deal with and delays are harder, and everything, it just gets harder and harder the further down that rabbit hole you go. Then you step away, you come back, and suddenly, the problem just feels silly by comparison.
Beck Co:
Exactly.
Kate Toon:
So weird, isn’t it?
Beck Co:
And I’m much more creative when I have that space. So, if I jam everything up together, I find that I’m just in this constant stress and I don’t take a minute to go, “Shit, I delivered a massive project.”
Kate Toon:
I know.
Beck Co:
Instead of going, “Yay, go you, you’re done,” I’m on to the next.
Kate Toon:
I just started another one.
Beck Co:
Yeah.
Kate Toon:
Yeah, I mean, I can’t-
Beck Co:
Like, a cup of tea in between.
Kate Toon:
I can’t talk to this because I’m terribly guilty of it, but after this podcast, I am going for a walk on the beach, Beck. So, I hope you’d be very proud of me because I could just keep going. I’ve got something at 6:00. We’ve got a masterclass in our membership about UX copywriting and I’m like, “I could just keep going till then.”
Beck Co:
I’d a picture on the beach.
Kate Toon:
Okay, I’ll make sure I send it and then you’ll know I’ve done it. I’ll be like superimposing a background like…
Beck Co:
You do your proof of life gym selfies. So, now this is a proof of life beach selfie.
Kate Toon:
Yeah, I’m going to do that. All right. I’m going to do that, I’m going to tag you, and you’ll know that it happened. So, we like to wrap up the pod with a bit of a tip for fellow copywriters. So, what would your tip be for fellow copywriters, no matter where they are in their journey, whether they’re starting out or old C badgers being copywriting for years? We’re a C badger. What am I saying? See, I need WordHippo, C badger. What is your tip for fellow copywriters?
Beck Co:
Be yourself. Don’t be afraid to just let your personality shine because let’s face it, there’s not too much differentiation between copywriters. We write words, we help people articulate their value, but what’s different or what will help you stand out is just being true to yourself because no one can really replicate you. Don’t compare yourself to everyone else, and that to me is the hardest thing. I think it’s natural, but you don’t know where everyone’s at in their journey. You don’t know if they’ve been doing this for five minutes, five years. You don’t know if they’ve got a rich sugar daddy funding their business.
Kate Toon:
Oh I wish, yeah.
Beck Co:
You don’t know anyone’s circumstance. So, you only get the highlight reels. And so, I think if you can stop comparing, that’s amazing. Lean on people who have been there before because guaranteed, whatever problem you’re experiencing or challenge you’re facing where you’re like, “I don’t know how to do this, what do I do? This is a nightmare,” go jump in the groups, especially if you’re in your groups, Kate. People are super helpful and they will really just help steer you on the right path without you needing to jump off a bridge.
Kate Toon:
I think it’s so true. The whole ethos of my business has been start community so people can lean on each other, and it can sometimes feel hard to ask for help because you’re like, “Why would this person give me advice for free? They’re another copywriter.” But I remember when I first started out and I – Wouldn’t it be lovely if he was listening? There was a copywriter called Charles Cunningham and he was amazing, and he was the one who kind of explained to me the charging a 50% payment up front and making your second payment not reliant on something the client does, but something you do. Yeah, so sending your invoice when you send the copy or separately and blah, blah, blah. And that one little bit of advice that he gave me very early on solved so many issues. It was nothing for him to tell me that, nothing, but for me it just resolved so many problems. It was life-changing. I’m forever grateful to him, Charles, if you’re listening.
Beck Co:
And the angst of worrying of when is the next paycheck coming.
Kate Toon:
Yes, exactly, exactly.
Beck Co:
Nobody wants the angst.
Kate Toon:
One comment, one little short comment that he made in a Google Plus group changed me life. Anyway.
Beck Co:
One last little tip is that I think if you come at it from community over collaboration kind of thing, and I know that sounds cliche, but if you truly believe that there’s enough work for everyone, you can be generous with your time and your knowledge and knowing that you’ll find the right clients for you and that those right clients will also find you over another copywriter. But it doesn’t mean that you have to compete against your peers.
Kate Toon:
It is the hardest thing to learn, the competition piece and the comparison piece I’d say. You can learn everything else, have all the processes and prices and beautiful branding, but those two mindset issues are the two things that I think will hold you back longer than anything else. So, yeah, very underestimated, but very, very, very important. We’ll finish up with a kind of city question, personal question. You’re obsessed with Sydney. I know you love it. You’ve never left. But if you could live anywhere else in the world, where would it be?
Beck Co:
Oh, well, I’d have to go nod to my Italian heritage, wouldn’t I?
Kate Toon:
Yeah.
Beck Co:
I’d have to live in Sicily or somewhere in Italy and I’d have gelato and have Luigi.
Kate Toon:
Yeah, you’ve also got to work on that Italian accent, I’m going to say there.
Beck Co:
Hey, I’m a copywriter. I never said I was good at accents.
Kate Toon:
That’s true
Beck Co:
I’m particularly bad.
Kate Toon:
Me and my partner had a long-term dream to move to Puglia. We were going to live in Puglia and have a tru and convert a trulli into a little house, and we were going to, because we were childless then, and we were going to have a white sofa and travel the world. And then I got pregnant and that was the end of that, and I had to start a copywriting business, and it’s all been downhill since then. No, I’m joking. Here I am now, I’m very happy. But there you go. So I agree. Italy would be my place too. I might move in next to George Clooney on one of those beautiful Italian lakes.
Beck Co:
Oh, yeah, lake Como or something.
Kate Toon:
Yeah, beautiful. Well, maybe one day. Well, look, thank you very much, Beck, for coming on today and explaining the wonders of LinkedIn. I’m going to keep Beck back after class and get her to show me that newsletter thing. I highly recommend you follow Beck on LinkedIn and Instagram. We find you on @marketinggoodness.
Beck Co:
That’s right.
Kate Toon:
I’ll include links to Beck’s LinkedIn, also her Instagram. She’s got some great resources, The Ultimate Guide to Standing Out on LinkedIn. She wrote a great blog as well, Copywriters Can Get More Clients on LinkedIn, and she’s got LinkedIn marketing solutions on her site. So, head to the show notes and you can find links to all of those. I highly recommend The Guide to Standing Out on LinkedIn. It’s fabulous. So, I really recommend that you get that. Becks, thank you very much.
Beck Co:
Thank you. Thanks everyone. Good luck on LinkedIn. See you there.
Kate Toon:
See you there.
So, that’s the end of this week’s show. If you want to grab more tips about LinkedIn, you can head to The Clever Copywriting School website and also head to the Misfit Entrepreneur Group on Facebook. Beck is a member and she’ll be more than happy to help you there. Thank you, Beck Co, and also thanks to Lynda Coulson from Australia for their lovely review, “Sweet, juicy, thought-provoking content. I love listening to a good poddy to get my brain ready for something, like a good warmup before a run. This poddy is juicy and not boring, perfect when I’m getting my brain ready to write copy. Can’t wait to hear more.” Thank you very much, Lynda, and thanks to you for listening.
If you like the show, don’t forget to leave a five-star rating and review on iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify, or wherever you heard the podcast. Your review will help others find the show and learn more about the wonderful world of copywriting, and you’ll get a shout out on the show. Don’t forget to check out my other show, The Recipe for SEO Success, and I hopefully have a new podcast coming out very soon, maybe in 2023. Keep your ears peeled. So, until next time, happy writing.
