 Let's talk about LinkedIn and whether holistic professionals such as coaches, healers and intuitives should be using LinkedIn. Is it beneficial for their professional growth? So it's actually been a question that I've been asked often throughout the last 13 years that I've been teaching LinkedIn. Yes, I started using LinkedIn about 16 years ago, a long time. And then after a few years later, when I was so active, my colleagues and friends were just asking me to teach them how to how to use it well because they noticed what I was doing with it. And so I started teaching it about 13 years ago. And since then, I have taught a LinkedIn marketing class almost every year since then. I've taught it to, I was counting the other day, something like 20 different audiences, including my own, but other audiences, many holistic service professional audiences. I've even taught it in the university setting. And I've taught it to, yeah, many groups and associations and things like that. Okay, so I took a survey of my audience who are mostly non-corporate professionals, people like coaches and healers, intuitives. And I asked them, hey, do you think LinkedIn is helpful for you? Those of you who have experienced using it? Or those of you who aren't non-corporate professionals and have friends who are non-corporate professionals, have you noticed whether it's helpful for them? So I took a survey and thankfully, 151 people filled it out. And I wanted to summarize the results for you because a lot of you have been looking for the results of this. So let me go ahead and share the results here. Okay, so the first question is, do you sometimes look up people on LinkedIn to check their credibility and background? Now, if you didn't take the survey, you can feel free to comment below if you want to share your feedback. Here are the results. Okay, 20% said often, 46% said sometimes, and 34% about a third said rarely or never. So the summary basically is that two-thirds of non-corporate professionals go to LinkedIn at least sometimes to check out someone else's professional background. Now, you might say, George, but I'm not trying to reach my fellow colleagues. I'm trying to reach potential clients who could hire me for healing or for other holistic services. So is LinkedIn so useful for me? So this is a really important shift, I think, that you should make about networking and overall, which is you have the potential, obviously, if someone finds you on LinkedIn, they might be a potential client. I mean, actually, there was a great quote somewhere down in the survey that said, business people need healing too, okay, or corporate people need healing too. Of course, corporate people, business people need intuitive coaching as well. A lot of corporate and business people are woo-woo, but they hide it until they see someone on LinkedIn who is willing to share the woo, share their whatever the woo is, maybe Reiki, astrology, energy healing, et cetera. And then they're like, oh, wow, yeah, I'm actually into it, but I never, you know, they secretly contact you, okay? But actually, a lot of people don't realize that ever since 2017, so it's been at least five years, LinkedIn made a big shift from being about networking to being about content discovery. It's a content platform. Since 2007, they've been competing with Facebook since 2017, and it was a good move because as we all know, Facebook has gotten battered over the last couple of years in terms of reputation with various documentaries and things in the news and whistleblowers and things. So a lot of people have started moving their connecting activity or just staying in touch activity from Facebook over to LinkedIn and creating content. A lot of content has been produced on LinkedIn since 2017 when they really opened up the platform, encouraged a lot of people to create content. So yeah, videos, articles, images, slideshows, carousel posts, those are all being done on LinkedIn very frequently. So the shift that I'm going to, so that's actually one little shift is to understand that LinkedIn has changed. A lot of you don't even realize, because LinkedIn for most of its years were about corporate networking and HR and recruitment and things like that, but they shifted in 2017 and a lot of people have gone over there who are non-corporate, including a lot of my audience members. So that's number one. Number two is you have to understand that to get clients happens in two ways. One is a potential client sees your content somewhere and then they get opened up to the ideas and then they contact you, et cetera. OK, that's potential clients finding you via content. The other main way that people find you through, become clients of yours is through networking or word of mouth or referrals, right? So let me ask you this. Do you think colleagues might refer clients to you? Of course. Of course, they refer clients for two reasons. One is they might have overflow. So that can't take on any more clients or they can't take on clients at this time zone or with this different kind of issue or whatever. So they refer people to you. Number one, overflow. Number one, number two, they refer clients to you because, well, actually, I'm sorry, one is overflow. The second reason is because a client might not be right for a colleague, not the right kinds of issues that they deal with, not the right kind of person. Could be other issues, like I said, time zone and location and personality, energy match, or whatever maybe might not be right and then refer them to you. So what's more likely that someone's going to refer you clients if they see you less often or if they see you more often? So basically, the more you are top of mind for your colleagues, the more likely you're going to get referrals. Come on. So let me ask you again, is it a good idea to be on LinkedIn? I'll let you answer that question. I mean, I'm biased because I've been teaching LinkedIn forever. So of course, you want to be top of mind for your colleagues, including on LinkedIn. And you know a lot of your colleagues are there. So let me keep going in the survey. I just shared the first number with you, which is that 2 thirds of non-corporate professionals go to LinkedIn at least sometimes or often to check out someone else's professional background. OK, second question is, besides LinkedIn, where else do you look up someone's credibility, professional credibility? And by far, the top percentage was they look up someone's website, not by far, 88% say they look up someone's website. So of course, website is important. But 72% said they Google them to see what info is available. By the way, if you want to see the other data, there should be a link in the description of this video that goes to more of the data. So summary, 72% of people Google someone's name to see what information is available about their professional background and credibility. Now, since Google is number one in terms of search, besides website, then I asked the next question. I didn't even know this, but I'm glad I asked the question in the survey. If you Google someone's name or when you Google someone's name, do you see their LinkedIn profile? Like does it usually pop up? And then do you go click on it? That was the question. When you Google someone's name, do you see and then click on their LinkedIn profile? OK, so here are the results. 27% said usually, 53% said sometimes, 20% said rarely or never. So the summary is 80% of people after Googling someone's name sometimes or often visits their LinkedIn profile. So again, just to talk this through, a lot of people, when they're looking your credibility up, they Google you, and 80% of the people who Google you will see your LinkedIn profile and click through to it to check it out. OK, all right, so that's good to know. So then I asked, if you use LinkedIn for the people in my audience who do, what do you find useful about it? And I'll share a couple of quotes with you. I thought that was particularly interesting. Connection in a drama-free environment. Connection in a drama-free environment. I thought that was pretty cool. Yes, it's true. Especially Facebook can have a lot of drama because people are feeling like they're like letting loose and like they can comment in ways that are sometimes mean or less thoughtful or whatever. Whereas Proton LinkedIn, people know that their professional profile is attached. So their comments are generally much more kind, thoughtful. And it makes the comments usually more the discussion more interesting. So let's keep going here. Another quote, I've had numerous people reach out to me via LinkedIn that led to clients and podcast interviews. Great, another quote. LinkedIn's stodginess, simplicity, and general feeling of reliability versus Facebook, which is flashier and feels less reliable. Or any other social media, which feels even further down the whole flashy, non-reliable end of things. Interesting. Another one, meeting other professionals, cheering them on and growing a sense of network. Okay, another one. People find me on LinkedIn and offer me opportunities to speak and create content for their platforms. And I also like letting people know when I have content that I'm delivering. Next one, LinkedIn is a tool that showcases someone's education and work skills. It tells me a lot about their credibility and their personality. I think it speaks to their confidence and seriousness about their business. It establishes legitimacy. Remember, one of your most common leads for potential clients is word of mouth or fellow colleagues who refer people to you, right? So, or it could be. That's usually what happens as your business grows. You start getting warmer referrals from colleagues as your reputation grows. Okay, another one. Positive spiritual messages put onto LinkedIn raises the vibration of the platform and helps those who are opening up their curiosity about such things find out more on a platform that they're already used to using. This is what I was saying. If you think LinkedIn is a bunch of corporate people, my question is, do corporate people have no spiritual life and they don't want healing and coaching? No, that's nonsense. In fact, they're probably, many of them are suffering because they haven't been willing to, they haven't been given the permission or giving themselves a permission to open up to their authenticity, open up to more of their spiritual life or bringing more of those kinds of values into companies and businesses, which I believe we desperately need, you know, for a more, a world that has more wellbeing, right? Leadership that's better, et cetera. Okay, so, okay, let's keep going. The next question was asked of the people, some people took my survey were not non-corporate professionals. They were corporate professionals, but they were taking the survey on behalf of, to kind of like answer it in regards to how they're non-corporate friends, what their thoughts. Anyway, so these people, I asked them, hey, do you think non-corporate people like healers, intuitives, should be on LinkedIn sharing their content, like articles and videos? All right, 69%, 70% said yes, emphatically yes. And then 31% said maybe, okay, great. And a couple of quotes, business people need healing too, okay? Another one, I think basic presence on LinkedIn is necessary for everyone, even if you don't engage there much, it's essential for SEO, search engine optimization for your name, if nothing else, I agree. Google most people's names, if they have a LinkedIn profile, it'll show up at the top of the search results, okay? Their LinkedIn profile. And another quote, healers need networking too. That's a beautiful summary. So again, I am biased, even though the survey I think wasn't, now you could argue that survey may have been biased because of the way I asked questions, but long story short, the survey results points to the fact that non-corporate professionals by and large believe that LinkedIn is useful if used effectively. It could be an ongoing source of potential clients, referrals, et cetera. Personally, I wish everyone would update their LinkedIn profile and show up there at least occasionally because then we would have more opportunities for each other. It's networking or what I like to call it net caring, okay? So if you are interested in learning LinkedIn, there are plenty of resources, you can just Google it, YouTube videos about it. If you wanna learn it from me, which I think I have a unique perspective about marketing authenticity, and I have trained thousands of non-corporate professionals on how to use LinkedIn. If you wanna learn it from me, I do have an online course about it and I've just made a major update of the LinkedIn strategy and course. I mean, it's very much the same strategy over the years, but I think I've taught it more clear now than I have ever before, and I'm also now including using LinkedIn company page and ads, because now I'm using LinkedIn ads on a regular basis. It's an alternative, a great alternative to Facebook ads or Instagram ads or Google ads or et cetera. So LinkedIn ads is actually easier to use than Facebook ads and it has targeting capabilities that are in some cases better than Facebook. So for example, on LinkedIn, you can use ads to target members of groups. You can't use Facebook ads to target members of Facebook groups, but you can use LinkedIn ads to target members of LinkedIn groups. People interested in various different things or professions or industries or associations and just personal interests, lots of groups on LinkedIn, tens of thousands of people with different personal interests like yoga or healing or et cetera, things like that. So if you're interested, you could take my online course about how to use LinkedIn, especially geared towards non-corporate professionals and maybe I'll see you there. But either way, I hope you find this video inspiring to get you brushing up your LinkedIn profile and reconnecting there to your colleagues in a more of a net-caring way where you know that if you care about others professionally and you comment on their things, you are much more likely to be top of mind. And therefore being top of mind means you're much more likely to be referred clients and other opportunities that you would want. So I hope this helps. And any questions about the survey I took, please go ahead and comment below. Any questions about LinkedIn? I hope you'll take my course on it because it has everything in there and it answers all the questions that I've gotten about LinkedIn. But if you have anything quick, you can comment below. I'll try to answer quickly as well. All right, have a wonderful rest of your day and thank you so much for watching. See you in the next video.