 Well, hey, good morning everyone and good afternoon if you're in eastern Canada It's Leanne Calderwood coming at you on LinkedIn live I am joined today by one of my favorite people in the industry Ryan Young. Hi Ryan. Thanks for coming today. Hello Good morning to you. Good afternoon to me. Yes, it is afternoon Well, if we're suit we're gonna be in the same time zone soon enough We're both getting ready to head out to Toronto for the Canadian meetings and events expo And I'll be honest every time I say those four words Canadian meetings and events expo I start to laugh because I feel like holy crap. This is actually happening We are actually going to see people face-to-face at the expo. I am so so excited to be there And I know that you're heading there as well and the irony is you're heading there for the first time With your new role at the Ottawa Marriott, do you have a couple of minutes just to share what it is You're doing over at the Ottawa Marriott. Of course. Yeah, absolutely Yeah, I had one of those people that made a transition right at the start of a COVID on April 1st I joined as the director of sales and marketing at the Ottawa Marriott in downtown and You know very happy to be over here But also extremely happy to start to see the return of live events and to start to grow the Teams again and start to see groups coming back. So Yeah, it's been great over here But it's as I said, there hasn't been a lot to market in the last year and a half You're just trying to survive and so here we are where things are on the up and up Yeah, it's been a promising fall already. I mean, we're starting to see events come back We're starting to see Obviously our own events like the CME expo coming back and we're starting to see a lot of people reach out again on LinkedIn as teams are starting to hire back their sales forces and get ready for a new sales cycle and a new sales season And so that is what we're actually doing today is as teams are starting to grow and change So are all of our LinkedIn profiles as we start to add our new positions and kind of position ourselves in A place where people can find us to do business with us So one of the reasons I'm heading to the CME show is to help Ottawa the Ottawa tourism and business and sports events Ottawa With their LinkedIn presence and their LinkedIn profiles So I'll be in the booth helping planners with their different profiles and of course representing Ottawa So we thought it'd be a fun exercise today to kind of do one of these Reviews live on LinkedIn live to kind of give planners a sense of what they'll experience When they come and visit us in the booth on the show floor So I want to say thank you for starters because you've agreed to do this in front of I'm sure Millions of people who are gonna tune into this live and for this closure. You wouldn't let me tweak it I wanted to tweak it before so it was already good to go Leave it as is. Yes, I am making you leave it But but this is great though Ryan because I think people then can see themselves in their own In your profile and then be able to make those changes as well Which reminds me everyone a lot of people watch LinkedIn lives on replay So if you have comments or things that you want to mention to Ryan even on replay drop them in the comments We're monitoring the comments throughout the weeks ahead So please keep your comments rolling in if you're on team replay For those of you who are though are on team live We encourage you to join the conversation as well and we're gonna dive right into this profile So just give me a second here. I'm gonna bring up Ryan's profile So this is Ryan's profile and and I'd like to start by saying it is a very attractive profile You've got some great color. You have a great profile picture Ryan Do you mind if I ask how old is that profile picture? No, I'm just looking I am actually wearing the same shirt Which is honestly by fluke You know what's great about this profile. It was the last picture I had taken before the pandemic hit this was I was taken at the European meeting and event Congress in Spain And that was February of 2020 so just before the pandemic hit So that's great news. I'm glad to hear that it's within the last couple years. It does look recent so What you see is what you get when you see Ryan's profile and then when you meet him in real life So even the same shirt you get the exact Yeah, I love the integrity of the profile picture So but I want you to talk to me a little bit about your background and why you chose this particular Graphic for your background. Okay, so as someone in marketing I talked about being with the the Ottawa Marriott But I'm also like many of us have a side hustle in the industry and I am co-host on a podcast called the illuminate project So and we've had the pleasure of you having being one of our guest land in this season So we just launched season two So I wanted to kind of build that up and throw that on the LinkedIn profile to get people listening because You know in that that podcast we talk all about surviving and thriving in the status quo So kind of put that on there But I usually try and flip out the header a little bit every now and then but my question to you Which I'm hoping you're going to is I wear multiple hats. How do I represent that? Yes? Well, and we're we are gonna cover that today and I appreciate you giving me some background on your intention behind Your banner because I think now we now I have something to work with So so let's start with that first question or that last question you asked about being a multi passionate That's a word that gets tossed around a lot about people who have their hands in many pots and serve many different audiences and Ryan based on what I know about you because we are industry friends, but also based on what you shared today You've got a few different audiences You've got your The clients that would be using the Ottawa Marriott Hotel, that's one audience That's one person that you want to appeal to but you also want to appeal appeal to industry professionals as a whole To draw them into the illuminate project podcast. So so let's start with those two passions You've you've captured the passions in your headline But where we can kind of I guess tighten up the headline just a little bit is Why they would want to? Engage with you in either of those things. So first, let's take the hospitality sales leader part I know what that means because I'm in the industry and hang out with with people like you all the time But for someone who you are trying to attract your ideal client. So perhaps this is a The occasional meeting planner or the administrative assistant who's never done this before When they come on their profile, are we accurately portraying what a hospitality sales leader can do for them? So that's what I encourage people to do with their headlines is Put your target audience in mind and ensure that the word city that you use in your headline Communicate very clearly on how you're going to make their day better So hospitality sales leader, I think there's opportunity there to include a few helper words like helping event planners meet in the heart of canada Something i'm worth throwing stuff at the wall during this live people if you've got stuff to throw on the wall to help Ryan throw that in the comments So that's one way that we can reach out a little bit better to those Those occasional meeting planners who maybe don't know what a hospitality sales leader is Now if you were to tell me that your audience was also You're trying to attract different thought leadership opportunities because you do want to position your personal brand I think we can still keep that hospitality sales leader piece in there But we definitely want to add something to the meeting planner that says I can trust this guy to help me with my meeting in downtown Ottawa Same thing with the second piece. We are convert you are a conversation starter But what does that mean to the listener? Do we want people to listen to the conversations that you're starting? Do we want people to inquire about sponsorship opportunities? What is it that about the illuminate project podcast? Do you want people to engage in? And that now circles back up to your background photo. It's a fantastic visual It's got great color. It's easy to read. These are all good things ryan. You've done everything right But where's the call to action? Do we want them to listen to the podcast? Do we want them to pay for the podcast? Do we want them to Speak on the podcast So if there is a way that we can keep the integrity and the cleanliness of what you have And add a call to action and I and you'll have to remind me what the website is for you guys But maybe it's just putting your website link in the bottom right hand corner So people know, okay, there's a podcast They're they're on season two and this is where I go to listen. Okay. Um, does that make sense? Yeah, now my question would be to my marriott family as well Is there a way to represent both in a header image or does it just get too complicated? So I thank you for asking you're right I would probably leave it out of the header image unless you wanted to make the header image about ryan young Right, and then it becomes about the hospitality sales leader about being a dos at the Ottawa Marriott and about being a host on tip So that's that's kind of where some entrepreneurs can take some Creative liberties by being putting all their multi passions in the background photo But I wouldn't have the brands of the multi passions competing with one another right So ryan is a brand Ottawa Marriott is a brand and tip is a brand So when you're doing your background photo focus on one at a time But you raise or you you said it earlier and I'm so glad you did backgrounds are super easy to change out So if you if you get bored of your background or you want to change out what brand and what impact you want to make You have the ability to do that Um, as long as you're not creating confusion in any of your target audience's eyes about who ryan young is As a person you can change out your background to to kind of suit your needs So like you said, you're right in the middle of season two with tip So if you want to put a website link there one season two winds down, maybe it becomes more about um booking Weddings at the Ottawa Marriott, and so we have a flashy background banner Where we can maybe keep the consistency is ensuring that our headline Stays consistent and but yet still reflects the integrity of the background picture Okay, are you still with me? Yeah, I just can say with the the headline Text there there's a limit of text I believe right so how wordy are you kind of off trying to keep it to two lines? I would assume Yeah, so you still have quite a few characters to go I would need to do a character count on yours in particular But you still have some real estate to work with ryan For people who are multi-passionates like you what they do is actually what you've done here Is they'll have a like a little divider line Or they'll divide their passions with an emoji or some kind of Like the divider looks great Once upon a time I heard that the divider doesn't get picked up by the search engine, but I If there's any LinkedIn experts watching and you know what conversation i'm referring to drop that in the comments as well So I saw people lean away from the divider line at one point because of the algorithm, but I can't remember Why that was a discussion I had well over a year ago with some other linkedin peeps So you have some real estate and actually maybe I'll Just because this is the only one that comes to mind right now is is mine I'll kind of show people what my profile looks like and how much real estate that you would have ryan So I've got three lines filled here And it's oh and here's our lives. Sorry. I forgot that this would happen By the way, if you're ever curious on what it looks like if you host a linkedin live This is what it looks like it actually shows up in your banner So whether you're watching whether someone's watching it on their phone or they're watching it on their desktop They're actually on your profile watching the live. So that's not my banner folks That is the live program that ryan and I are literally on right now. This is very meta actually super meta Anyways, I've got three lines here and I don't think I was super super struggling for characters So you've got some room there Again, it doesn't have to be a star, but it just has to be some sort of visual break With with linkedin what I love about linkedin because it gives us so much real estate is there's all a lot of opportunities to create those visual breaks So that when someone comes on to our profile It's almost like a design board where we have opportunities to keep them on our profile Right, we keep them on with our featured section. We keep them on by adding some color and some Section breaks to our about section, which is I know what you're going to do after we get off the call So we have opportunities to bring people into the profile and you do a great job with the visuals up here And now we're going to work on keeping them on the profile with some other visual elements And again, it's that clear. What is it that you do for me that's going to keep people reading on about you? Okay Um, how are we doing so far? Yeah, no great following along. I'm I'm curious about the about section That's what I want to hear your your feedback on and I've I've been through a couple other linkedin Reviews many years ago, and I think that is where I need to know for all myself Okay, so so let's do it right now. So the about section is Awesome real estate. You have so much room here. You definitely Way more than what you've got. In fact, I think you could probably triple maybe a drukel your text here But the about section really we should we should word that we should use a different word for the about section because The about is really about The people that you're serving The when linkedin first started it was the resume platform and it was all about Talking about ourselves in our experience But now when people come to linkedin, they're looking for problems to be solved So the about section is a great place to start solving their problems or at least to start positioning You as someone who can help solve their problems So most linkedin experts would agree that an about section that focuses more on the other individual versus ourselves Tends to get the reader to keep on reading This does a few things ryan is number one the person who's reading it will know right away. Am I supposed to be reading this? Am I the person that is ryan the person that can help me with my thing? and and secondly is The about section then gives you opportunities to talk about all those different people that you're helping Because again with you you've got a few different audiences that you're helping you're helping industry professionals Find relevant conversations through tick and you're helping event planners find Their ideal hotel in the heart of heart of Ottawa. So we can outline this all in the about section using um replacing words like I with words like you Um and outlining, you know, you are looking for conversations that Defy the status quo That's that's what this this podcast is about and me and my team do it and Right. We're spitballing again people drop in the comments if you think it's if you got something to tell ryan same thing with mpi stuff if you're looking to um If you're looking to Influence someone with this information ryan be clear about who it is you're influencing um, otherwise Anyone from outside the industry that event planner, they're going to read this and go. I don't even know what this is like Yeah, I can already picture what I need to tweak that to now Yeah, yeah, so um and again, I'll go back very very quickly to mine Uh about section because like you ryan. I have a oops like you ryan. I've got a few audiences that I speak to Um and a lot of again linkedinets experts would agree if you've got this much real estate make sure it's easy to read So include lots of carriage returns include some emojis include some breaks So that the readers I can quickly go from section to section and keep their interest and this is where you may want to spend some time is um create Create a value added statements to the audiences that you're serving and then put all of those audiences right in the about section Um so that when a meeting planner comes to your profile They'll know right away where they where they fall right and so they don't have to Go through all of the paragraphs to get to the stuff that's relevant to them. They find that they're meeting an event planner. Okay Um, this is this is what this person can do to help me help make my job easier today How are we doing so far still good? Yeah, no, it's great. I just I'm trying not to get too far ahead And I want to make the changes now. So but I'll wait till we're done Okay. Yeah, well and and we can always do a redo live on the show floor Right. Um, so after you've made some made some changes. Um, any other immediate questions about the about section? No, no, that's clear Okay, um, we're gonna keep going then. So again, I love your featured section I took the liberty of of looking at all of your assets on here Which is what featured really is is just a collection of your best assets And your assets can be in the form of websites, which you've got here It can be in the form of YouTube videos, which you've got here It can also be in the form of some of your most popular Popular linkedin posts or articles Um, so you've got a great featured section. It really catches the eye. Um, again with each featured piece Make sure that there is a goal behind the piece If we're going to feature this is this to attract someone in this case. This one definitely is I know exactly what it is That you're trying to, um, achieve with this, uh, featured piece The only thing I would mention there isn't a featured piece yet. Um, about your hotel So, yeah, that's a you can tell you've caught me. I haven't updated it, uh, probably since february last year And that's fair and that's fair. Um, so you may want to add a featured piece. Um about your hotel Um, and then you can always reorder them Yeah, correct me if I'm wrong. You can upload a pdf to this too, right? So if I've got like a one page fact sheet on our hotel, I can put that up there You can. Um, my only cautionary tale with pds is they like this is such a nice clean image. It's really stunning. Um, As you can see this one gets cut off. Right. Um, the featured section ain't great for, um Dimensions on images. So if you upload a pdf that's super wordy, that's how it'll appear in here Um, so what I recommend for people who have fairly wordy pdfs Is um, create a clean simple image Do the image but then down in where they can read on for more details link to the pdf that lives in it Like a google doc or something so they can still get access to the pdf and and print it and do whatever it is But the hook the picture the hook gets them to the pdf. Otherwise, it looks really wonky Okay, test it ryan play it out. Um, because I don't know what your pdf looks like Maybe it looks very clean to start but I have a feeling if you just try and do a straight upload It's just gonna be okay too much. It's gonna be too much for our people to follow Um, so the other thing I wanted to um, yes, okay, sorry, should we how are we doing for the featured section? Yeah, no like clear. I think I um I wanted to find out about the pdf point and your point of just linking it in the google drive or google doc makes a lot of sense Yeah, well, and I've done that with mine here. Oops. I gotta go up for my featured and I'll tell you why um Not this one. Not this one. Not this one. This may be this one. Let's try this one. This one might be my pdf Oh, no, I did I did away with my pds because they were too wordy and I turned them into ourselves. That's what I did presentations. Yeah Yeah, um Shoot Doesn't matter. I guess I don't have a an example to show you Um, is this an example? Nope. Okay. I don't have an example. You're too professional. You're too ahead of it Well, again, it's because my pdf looked like crap It just you know, it just didn't flow with the rest of my um profile Maybe I'll I'll talk about this because we're on this right now my featured section Is above my activity and my about and my experience and ryan if we look at yours Your about and your is above your featured and your activity Um, there's a reason for that. I am on what's called creator mode Um, which means I have indicated that I want my content to rise above my experience um, I can I could very simply turn this off and then my profile would Look a lot more like yours where I have the about and the featured and the activity and the experience Um, so that's why our profiles look different It's not because I'm any more special or I've done anything, you know, okay Anyone can be a creator and have a different layout of their information Okay, um, so and we can talk more about creator mode Maybe on the show floor, but if you go to your profile, there'll be a section here Just like on mine that says your dashboard And there will be an option that says creator mode and you can decide if you want to turn it on or off Okay, that's great. Um Okay, where are are we? We are on experience. Okay. What I love about experience now and actually well, this has been for a few years, but um It's definitely an enhancement since linkedin began is we can add different assets on the experience as well So this is another great place to put that pdf, right? So, um Again, we're just gonna go down to my experience. This is where you can add documents. You can add images, etc So on. Um, so you may want to do that under the odd one area. You also may want to do an undertip Yeah, I mean you can it looks like you've done one for the brook street So so you know how to do it. You just uh need to add more assets under your experience Um, and then you've got your mpi stuff, which is awesome. Um, love it. Love it And it's under the volunteer experience as well. Um Everything oh, I gave your recommendation. Look at that. Um, yeah, I mean the rest of the profile it Where we all lose eyes is kind of around here You know, they all kind of make it to the top two experiences and then that's when we start to lose dwell time on people Um, so you can do one or two things you can spend a ton of time Updating everything else or just pick one or two things to focus on This season to update and pick another couple two next season to update Um, but the majority of your time for any updates here and moving forward is really from Experience all the way up to the top and great And lots of lots of little takeaways, uh lots of takeaways in there And I think sometimes and maybe I didn't know linkedin could do or or I guess I did know they could do I just forgotten they could be done like the attaching stuff to your experience that makes a lot of sense I fact sheets and everything else for mary and I can throw up there Yeah, and you know again, you'll you'll have to gauge from your clients You know, where did they find you to to find out how effective those assets are? um But the great thing about linkedin is is you have this real estate to put the asset Taking five or ten minutes to do it just it just again helps for even if it's just that one person who checked out that asset and got a better sense of of what the mariat can do for them and You know, it's done its job type of thing um Yeah, so that's kind of the bulk of of the profile, but certainly Happy to stay on to answer any questions um, or what we can do like I said is um Give you some time now to kind of take some of these tips away start to Make a few tweaks here and there and then we can pull it up again on the show floor in a couple short weeks What do you think? Well, yeah, that's what I think I would like to make some tweaks too And I also think there's some some value and for those who watch this and see the old version then they can come and see the new version at the show come and see us in the Ottawa tourism booth and Yeah, I get kind of a more in-person experience of review of the linkedin which we're all excited for Yes, I I'm excited to do it. So thank you so much for your time today, Ryan and you made a good point Take some screenshots of your old profile And when you make edits, make sure you save it in a google doc Because if linkedin was to disappear tomorrow and then all of a sudden it launches, but it lost all of your hard work You've got it saved somewhere in a google document. So, um, especially for your about section There's a lot of lot of words there. So yes, everyone We are so excited to come together As an industry in two very short weeks at the metrotrono convention center in the heart of downtown Toronto At the canadian meetings and events expo I'll be hanging out with ryan in the Ottawa tourism booth doing exactly What we are doing here today with ryan We won't go through your entire profile But we'll go through the top sections and and make sure that it's speaking to your target audience So that you can attract more leads and opportunities ryan. Thank you so much for being my guinea pig here today Um, do you have any parting words? No, I said you were nice. You took it easy on me I think you were you you probably gave me some flattery that I uh didn't need but I appreciate it and Yeah, I know some really really great tips in there And I used to be I used to think I was kind of caught up in linkedin But clearly I've I've got if you're not updating it every couple months here. You're not on top of it So listen, we're all we're all in the same boat ryan And yes, you you do have some really great things about your profile and you've got such a powerful brand that Yeah, you can do a lot of really fun things with your profile. So I'm excited to see the changes that you make Um, yeah, and so thanks for joining us folks again if you're watching on replay ryan And I will be checking in on the comments, um, and we might even talk about your contributions live on the show floor in Two short weeks. I can't believe it's great. Yeah, so exciting. It is it is well. Thank you everyone for joining us ryan Thanks again for for being a part of this experience and we'll see everyone in a couple weeks Sounds good. Super. Bye for now