MARCO ISLAND, FL — The baking industry is based on relationships, making social media a critical platform for companies and professionals to connect. But in a post-pandemic world, creating an engaging profile will look a little different.
The new focal point? Your own personality, according to consumer behavior expert Shawna Suckow.
In her social media workshop today, presented during the BEMA Convention: Workforce Edition, Suckow explained how the current climate has made LinkedIn a more important tool than ever before — and how to make it most effective.
Years of tumultuous political and cultural change have created a shift, not just in who people are but also how they buy. That means, in order to keep up, brands must change how they sell and market.
“We are far more casual and humanized than ever before,” Suckow said. “It’s like this filter has been removed, and we can relate better to other people, including clients and customers, on a more authentic level. What this all boils down to is traditional professionalism is gone.”
“Sales is not about starting a conversation by trying to sell,” Suckow said. “When you start a conversation as a human being and to truly connect with someone, they’ll want to stay. It starts to build a relationship where they trust you a bit more. A LinkedIn profile does that in your absence.”
In the business world, LinkedIn usually provides the first impression of someone and the company they represent. Suckow says the point of your profile is to make yourself humanized, likeable and memorable — not uber-professional.
“Sales is not about starting a conversation by trying to sell,” Suckow said. “When you start a conversation as a human being and to truly connect with someone, they’ll want to stay. It starts to build a relationship where they trust you a bit more. A LinkedIn profile does that in your absence.”
During her presentation, Suckow shared tips to personalizing your profile and connecting with potential customers in a new, relationship-driven way. Here are the top three.
- Utilize your cover photo and headline. Don’t be afraid to get personal. Find authentic ways to express yourself at the intersection of your career. Rather than just listing your job title in your headline or posting a beautiful stock image for your cover photo, give prospects an idea of how you got to where you are now professionally, what you love about it and what passions you have outside of it.
- Connect better. People’s inboxes are flooded. Break through the noise every time you send an invitation to connect by including a personalized note. “Give them something to grab onto,” Suckow said. It will help you stand out and break the ice, especially when you stick to a topic such as family and friends, nostalgia, pets, moving forward, optimism or humor.
- Use video. Multimedia is especially engaging, and now that LinkedIn allows you to upload videos to your profile or company page, Suckow recommends taking advantage of it. There are plenty of content opportunities for video, whether it’s sharing a video to greet people who come to your profile, showing customers the behind-the-scenes of your operation with a video tour of your manufacturing plant or bakery, or creating a video selfie of you and colleagues to mark the occasion at a trade show (with tags and hashtags for more visibility).
