The Risks and Rewards of Being an Early Adopter

Transcript lightly edited for spelling and punctuation. The conversation is unabridged.

Mark Evans: Hi. It's Mark Evans, and you're listening to Marketing Spark. Over the past eighteen months, LinkedIn has transformed from being a platform for job seekers and recruiters into a thriving community teeming with content and insight from people around the world. Personally, it's been a game changer for my marketing business. Michael David Chapman was way ahead of the pack when it came to recognizing the power of LinkedIn. In 2017, Michael started using LinkedIn to talk about his personal and professional challenges. One thing led to another, a massive understatement. And Michael has established himself as one of the leading voices on LinkedIn with more than 250,000 followers. Michael is the founder of Leadin Social, a digital agency that helps entrepreneurs and business owners use LinkedIn to extend their reach and grow their businesses. Welcome to Marketing Spark, Michael.

Michael David Chapman: Hey, man. Thanks for having me. What a great, what a great intro. Appreciate it. How are you? Thank you.

Mark Evans: Let's start with a loaded question. What's your take on how people have embraced LinkedIn over the past eighteen months? Last year, in March or April, I kind of climbed on the platform thinking it was the same old same old LinkedIn and was pleased and excited to discover it had changed. So I'm curious about your take on how the platform has evolved while we've all been locked at home over the last eighteen months.

Michael David Chapman: Mhmm. Yeah. I've seen two polar opposites. I'll start with the first, starting with the pandemic. On this side of the pandemic, there's an interesting stat. I gotta find the article, but, there was a gentleman that wrote an article around if you, he was talking about coaches. And if you would have done, like, just talking about how coaches, you know, the coaching space is really saturated. There seems to be one behind every tree, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. Little tongue in cheek there. But he had done, like, a keyword search prior to the pandemic, and you might get, like, you know, the word coach. You might get two and a half million hits, meaning that word is somewhere in a profile. Now it's on, you know, it's approaching three x that. So I think people that found themselves displaced because of things out of their control or even in some cases, had planned, a digital transition or some, oh, it just began to, start doing something in the digital space. Maybe they found themselves flat-footed. In that space specifically, it just took off in terms of the amount of people for sure. Then there's the polar opposite where, like, you know, talk with people like the real estate space, the mortgage space, and other spaces. They just like it's still just like it was for me prior to 2017. A great place to find talent, a good place to find a job perhaps and read a Forbes article. It's just that they just don't care about it.

Mark Evans: I find that interesting because people like you and I, it feels like we're in the eye of the hurricane. We're creating content. Right? We're leaving comments. We're engaging. We're doing what we think is just the right thing to do. It just seems natural to leverage LinkedIn in this respect. I find it surprising that 99% of the people on LinkedIn don't create content, don't leave comments. Some of them are lurkers that read comments. For the most part, there's a lot of people who are just not leveraging the platform. Does that surprise you?

Michael David Chapman: Not at all. I mean, I would say for people that are in positions where they do their own thing, they're not working for a specific company or, you know, if they're an entrepreneur, they own their own business. That would be a surprising thing because, again, with a little under what we got, 800,000,000 people, there's got to be a segment of your, you know, your market on the platform. But for people that are working, you know, your everyday W-2 position with a corporation, I can completely get it. In fact, I always sort of have an opposing view, no shock there, around people that drive personal branding for job seekers and very, you know, buy my course. Personal branding is the way of the pathways. I get it. I mean, on some level, you know, it used to be your personal brand was your resume. And then what somebody would say about you when they picked up a phone and we're looking to do a reference check. So I understand the power of social media for a job seeker, but I think you have to handle that a little bit more carefully. So I'm not surprised to see more, you know, people that hold, you know, your typical nine to five job not doing content, but business owners and entrepreneurs. Yeah. That's surprising because it's just it's too easy to get attention on the platform. It's too easy.

Mark Evans: Before we ramble down the LinkedIn rabbit hole, I do want to circle back with you on personal brand because I see a lot of that these days, and there's so much attention. And as you say, there are coaches and mentors, and personal branding seems to be so important these days. And my take is with personal branding, do the right things, you know, be a good person. And then in time, your reputation will start to build in a positive way. But do you think the focus is there an over-exaggeration on personal branding these days?

Michael David Chapman: Yeah. I don't, I wouldn't say over-exaggeration. I think it's more of a, maybe a lack of understanding. I mean, again, I mean, it's a fair question, but perhaps a bit broad, and so I'll give it a broad answer. You know, I would say I'll give you an answer. Like, if I was going to hire somebody, to help me with personal branding as a job seeker, there would be somebody that, has got some either relevant experience, or influence. In the hiring game, they've hired somebody. Perhaps they've let someone go slash fired someone. They've worked in talent acquisition or talent development and or had influence in that space because those aren't silver bullets, but those are going to be people that are going to bring what I think a more holistic view to it, a more practical view to saying, hey. You know, anybody with time and a cell phone can get out there and get attention, but is it the right thing? For example, when I quit my job, I quit my job without a job. And at the end of the day, some of the stuff about what you started with with this intro, I mean, I think it ran potential employers off. I wasn't talking anything bad or anything disparaging about a previous employer or holding any one position or another, but I found LinkedIn at a time when it was really easy to not just gain followership but drive viewership. And so, you know, you got a guy that's looking for a job in sales leadership in New England that's got 100,000 views on a post talking about leadership stuff. It's good stuff, but maybe that's, you know, maybe we don't want someone with such a perceived personal brand. I mean, like, it's just you've got to handle it. So I don't think it's over-exaggerated, but just think that, like, the marketing that I see around it, I don't see it all, but I don't see enough of the balance as it is for job seekers. For entrepreneurs and business owners, no excuse. I don't think it is. When I see people say, look. If you're a business owner, entrepreneur on LinkedIn, and you're not working on your personal brand, your company's brand, you're missing the boat, you know, in general, I get that. But for job seekers, it's oftentimes it's not delivered with the right level of balance, in my opinion.

Mark Evans: Over the last year, what has surprised you most about LinkedIn, and what has disappointed you?

Michael David Chapman: I think some of the surprises, I mean, it's, you know, with what happened, like all social media platforms, I think they get the least amount of this sort of not accusation, but claim that, they've taken positions in subtle ways in terms of how they've handled some people's content. And I'm not talking about, you know, we saw some things last spring that were just, you know, very, very not only just disheartening and disappointing, but just really scary in terms of how, you know, things can get out of hand really quick in a law enforcement situation. And I saw the platform like a lot of companies, you know, take positions that they didn't hold before in ways that they're not in that same position. Right? So I've been disappointed in seeing that. I'm kind of being a bit cagey of what I'm saying there, but I think the difference is clear. I've not appreciated some of the approach that they took to supporting some voices in that space and not other voices, whether you're having a balanced narrative and we can really talk about workable solutions. I've not appreciated that. What I've really liked is they've continued to ask questions on how they can make it more of a, a creator platform because, you know, there's people that create a whole lot more than me. But back then, you know, four, five years, you know, four years ago, I was creating two, three times a day. And so people like myself and people that have done much more than me made a non-creator platform into a creator platform.

Mark Evans: Mhmm.

Michael David Chapman: So I like what they're trying to do. What's been disappointing? So that's good. What's been disappointing with that is it doesn't look like they're always really canvassing and seeking out input from the membership of people that, you know, have been around and done it. It doesn't have to be me. But, you know, like, when's the last time you got an update from LinkedIn that said this is what we just did, you know, this is what we're doing. And, by the way, you know, it came from, you know, not these people, but this is what we did to really listen to our members and really give them what they want. That's been probably my biggest frustration. But again, it's like that's such a small thing. I mean, it's a great place to be. They make it, like I said, very, very easy for you to not just find people to do business with or to hire or to be hired by. I mean, what other platform has, I mean, this is a great thing to give a heap of. What other platform has a Sales Navigator? Right? Where, well, yeah, Facebook's got, how many, what, three billion? How many people on Facebook?

Mark Evans: Three billion.

Michael David Chapman: Yeah. They don't have, yeah, they don't have anything like Sales Navigator. You can't find people and niche down to a very narrow target of potential prospects like you can on LinkedIn. They do a terrific job with that with all its imperfections.

Mark Evans: What I find interesting over the last year is that all of us have been working from home. We've been masters or mistresses of our own domain. Pretty much as long as you do the work, no one's watching you. There are very few Zoom meetings, but you can be pretty flexible on your time. And I think it's allowed a lot of people to multitask, have LinkedIn on one screen, do their work on the other, be connecting, leaving comments. But what happens when people start going back to the office in September? Because I know in the States, you guys are already working in the office. In Canada, we'll get there in a couple months. But how do people's use of LinkedIn change when you're not at home anymore and that you're working with people and there may be less time to leverage the platform? Do you think we'll see a discernible change in people's usage of LinkedIn?

Michael David Chapman: I do. I do. I mean, I think, you know, again, I mean, what did you do if you were... I think I'll answer all this. What did you do if you were a senior level leader at a marketing agency? What did you do if you were, you know, summarily displaced because of the pandemic? You know, if you were in a position financially, to take some time and weather the storm, great, but a lot of people aren't and weren't. And so, you know, but you have these skills. And so a lot of people went into, you know, got on LinkedIn and started obviously looking for jobs, but, you know, also, saw the open to work Mhmm. Thing that LinkedIn started where you're making it in your picture very obvious to job seekers that you're available. Right? Well, a lot of consultants and coaches and intangible service providers did the same thing. And so I do think you'll see a follow-up. I think it's the intrinsic question. Like, because, you know, companies now, I mean, we're hearing it depending on what report you look at and what news outlet. I mean, people are struggling to find people for various reasons. I mean, we can go down that path. And, you know, you're that same leader, worker isn't trying to be an entrepreneur. They're not trying to be a business owner. They're trying to ride out the next fifteen years or whatever their career working for an organization where, you know, the culture is good, the pay is good, they can have a good life, etcetera, etcetera. So the disruption with the COVID created where, okay, now I gotta get online and find something, and LinkedIn is the one of the, probably one of the, if not the, natural outlets for that. I think we're going to see, I mean, I'm seeing it. I mean. Mhmm.

Mark Evans: For sure.

Michael David Chapman: as people are going back to work. I don't know if I answered your question, but, yeah, I mean, I think that, and then there's some people that got on that they're there to stay. I mean, there's a lot of new faces and creators since the pandemic that put out great content every day. Sure.

Mark Evans: One thing that I want to ask you about because you focus on helping business leaders and entrepreneurs leverage LinkedIn is your thoughts on CEOs being active on LinkedIn. Because there's one school of thought suggesting that it's a great place to build thought leadership in a personal brand. On the other side of the coin, there's some people who are some CEOs that are afraid of LinkedIn. They're afraid of putting themselves out there. Everything has to be vetted, and that it's almost not worth the risk. And I'm wondering where you sit. Obviously, I think I know the answer, but do you think that CEOs should be active on LinkedIn and should be engaging, for both their own personal brands and for their own company's branding?

Michael David Chapman: Not as a general point. Not without some. I mean, you know, because someone said that and there's opportunity, no. I would say if you're in a, for sure, if you're in a, which most businesses are. If you're in a business where it really matters to get a sense of what it's like to work with not just the CEO, but the organization, and you have the time, you know, and, again, we're talking about let's just talk about a privately held company. Right? Because I think the dynamic is a little bit different when you're publicly held and some of all of it comes with that. So, and, of course, I've never been a CEO. I'm just having worked with CEOs both in both spaces in what you're talking about and some of the work with now. You know, a lot of times, they choose to sit in the back seat. They're part of the creative process or the energy on that side of the marketing side, but they really want to be doing other things. Alright? And so Mhmm. What I'd say to the CEO is not so much should you be out there, but, you know, at the end of the day, whether it's you or your team or whatever, if you're not there, here's some, you know, some numbers. Right? I mean, like, there's almost 800,000,000 people on this platform. It's still, here's a fact, it's still an algorithm while they're changing it all the time. You don't need ad spend to get organic reach. You or your team needs to engage your potential prospects or your audience in meaningful ways on their content, and that naturally brings positive energy and engagement to, quote, unquote, your content. Maybe not from the company page because those are oftentimes ghost towns. But, you know, if you have your senior director of marketing, you know, you're... put it this way. If you're a $25,000,000 company that's got 70 employees, whatever it is, and you've got a marketing person that's not doing something on LinkedIn and you're in the roofing business, you're missing out, whether it's your CEO or not, whether you're the CEO or not. So does it need to be the CEO? No. You could argue, listen. What's a CEO doing sitting around putting out content on LinkedIn? I mean, it's just, you know, you're not going to make everybody happy. What I would rather say is whether it's a CEO or somebody marketing or a frontline account executive, somebody needs to be out there holding the flag of your company brand and going up the hill with it because your competition's doing it. Your competition's cracking and figuring it out. I mean, so you're hearing that all the time for sure.

Mark Evans: I would say one of the keys to my success and enjoyment of LinkedIn over the last year has been conversations. So I have reached out to, I've probably had 150 conversations, and I don't mean that to boast. I just say that because I've taken the initiative, and I enjoy the conversations, and people have been open to having conversations with me. I would think that there's a leap between connections and conversations. It's easy to make connections, and everyone talks about the fact that they have, you know, thousands of followers and 500 plus connections. But what's your advice on taking the next step to moving a relationship to the next level and reaching out to somebody and saying, hey. I would love to connect with you and not coming across as too salesy or opportunistic.

Michael David Chapman: Yeah. I mean, we create messages for our clients. So I don't think anybody's entirely, you know, and I'll just for your audience, and this is going to be a probably a little dogmatic. I don't think anybody's totally cracked that. I mean, at the end of the day, I can definitely tell you some tactics, but, I mean, at the end of the day, I always liken it to, you know, what would it look like if I walked up to you at a very loud football game in the concession stand? Or let's just say a mutual friend. A mutual friend. Right? Your brother—we both know your brother or sister or spouse, whatever—invited me to a football game where you knew I was a potential client for your marketing business. You're in the marketing business. You and you know by hearsay or by word-of-mouth, whatever, that I could be a potential client. So you and I are there. Where are you at? Where are you located, by the way, Mark?

Mark Evans: In Toronto, Canada.

Michael David Chapman: Okay. So it's not going to be a football game. It'd be a hockey game.

Mark Evans: A hockey game. Yeah.

Michael David Chapman: Might be a football game. It's a good football game if you're down here in New England. Let's say we're a New England football game because I'll just, I'll do what Americans do where we make it sound like it's all about us. Right? In the third quarter, by that time you and I have built rapport, you haven't tried to, you know, talk business. You know, I've got kids that are but, like, you haven't really started to talk to me about the business. Now imagine a scenario I'm like, man. Let's go get a refill. I'm like, hey. Now what do you do again? That would be your three to six seconds of time to get my attention. That's how you need to treat outreach. Right? I mean, that takes a lot of thought, and I know that's, like, a very, probably not so likely example that would happen in real life, but that's the best metaphor I've come up with that's helped us increase our conversions with our clients because what's happening is, first off, everybody's sending everybody messages on this side of the pandemic. More or less so now, presumably, but they're not all, but people are trying to get appointments to talk about their service, to talk about them, how they can solve that person's problems, and close deals. I get it. I totally get that. I think one of the best ways is to just remember, how do you want to be talked to? And that's not going to fit everyone. You know, we've got campaigns where we don't send a, you know, the conventional send a personalized message. I mean, that's been around since the beginning of that's been around since Reid Hoffman started the platform. I mean, my god. People are still preaching that without a lot of data. There's data out there, but it's just changed. People, because everyone said, okay. I'll send a personalized message. And then, you know, hi. I was looking at your profile, and they sent a terrible one.

Mark Evans: Right.

Michael David Chapman: Right? Like, it's like so what I, the more defined answer I'd say is building your approach and outreach around your client is the key. That takes time. It's not a one size fits all. If you say to me, hey. Listen. Your target is C-suite executives in Big Pharma. That's how we talk to them like that. Mid-level leaders in e-commerce, we talk to them like that. And frontline leaders in manufacturing or transportation, we talk to them like that. Well, you can boilerplate some of that. But at the end of the day, the best way is to just be direct and honest as you can. People don't have a lot of time, in my opinion. People don't want to sit around and chat. I'll speak for myself. If you want to chat with me, I'm going to be like, let's get on a call. I don't want to sit there and text all day. So but, again, that's subjective. Some people, that's all they do. So it's about knowing your client. I would say one thing and just around that success, you got to try things and measure it. The one of the reasons why people will preach ad nauseam around, you know, direct outreach doesn't work on LinkedIn is because a lot of times they're not measuring anything. You know, if you're not measuring each conversion or response rate conversions and response rates on every single touch, you're really not saying that with anything empirical. So I think at the end of the day, treat people like you want to be treated. Sometimes coming right out and saying, hey, Mark. Thanks for connecting. You know, a little bit about me. I am a blank, blank, blank, blank, blank. And in that blank, blank, blank, that touches on your pain or presumed pain. Hey. Would you like to have a call? That still works depending on what you're selling.

Mark Evans: I love that.

Michael David Chapman: if you were asking me that on the sales side, but that's what I turned it into. So sorry. Yeah.

Mark Evans: Yeah. Well, I love the football game analogy because I think that in some cases, directly messaging someone after a connection request makes sense. But in a lot of cases, it's about relationships and building rapport and coming across as sincerely being interested, and you make a contribution, and you're offering insights. There's, you've got street cred, and you've got some points, and you can cash those points in to, you know, request a conversation. And that that's a natural way of building relationships.

Michael David Chapman: You know, again, if I walked up to you and your spouse at a football game and I said, 'Hey, I just want you to know, I really think,' and paid you a compliment. How would I say that? It's the same transferable point. That's that's so aggressive. I mean, who's doing that? Right? Nobody. Right. Right. We treat it like we treat people with care and respect. Should I send a message, not a message? That's all that should be driven by not just your approach, but what converts from a numbers perspective.

Mark Evans: One final question before we get into the rapid-fire round, which is always a lot of fun. If you're not one of the 800,000,000 people that has jumped on the LinkedIn bandwagon, and it suddenly dawned on you that maybe LinkedIn is the place where I need to be, what's your advice on getting started? Because it can be intimidating when people are saying, 'You've got to create content. You've got to leave comments. You've got to be connecting with people.' And all you want to do is just sort of dip your toe in the water.

Michael David Chapman: Yeah. I mean, this is, I've had, man, I've had some really interesting debates, borderline arguments with people on content posts on this topic. Right? What should happen first? So I'll give you, I'll give you some, I'll give you the opposite of what I think. A lot of people will say, 'Look. Just start putting out content.' There's nothing wrong with that. But it turns into, it's sort of a, it's a, it's sort of a, not always. Not always. It'll be fair to people out there that because we, we inadvertently, our business has to brand you. I mean, basically, when we build a messaging campaign, the last thing we look at is your profile because we want to, we want to make sure the profile supports the outreach. We don't. We do the process. Most people build the profile, and then they build the outreach. We build the outreach and the profile. So I understand personal branding enough to sound smart at a networking event. I'm going to say this, okay? People will say, 'They start putting out content, people will just show up.' Well, there's some merit to that. There's a lot of merit to that, especially if it's tailored to the right target, and it's authentic, you know, let's use the word genuine, authentic, and you're very niche, and all of these things they talk about. At the same time, there's something about, and these are the two analogies. Right? You know, content marketing is like you driving by, you having a product, and you driving by my house and throwing, you know, whatever it would be. Let's say you're, you know, you throw a newspaper, you throw an advertisement in my front yard, you hang it on my door. There's a reasonable chance I'm, and let's say it's folded up in the center of something. There's a reasonable chance that I'm not going to read that. Number one, there's a reasonable chance that I may not even see it for a week. When I open it, I may not see what you want me to see, etcetera, etcetera. That's content marketing. All right? Direct outreach is, 'Hi, Mark.' There's probably a 50... what I don't know the odds because I'm not a mathematician, but I'm just going to say fifty-fifty, to make more. So a fifty-fifty chance that's either going to go bad, or go dormant, or go good. So, direct outreach... one of the constructive points I have around just people that are heavy, heavy content, content, content, content marketing. It's not as direct, and it's not as measurable as direct outreach because direct outreach is a literal knock on someone's digital door. So, to an... so I'm just... that's a huge preface of sort of just putting a landscape. You need to have both of those clubs in your bag to be successful. Mhmm. In my mind. Or not to be successful. You may be successful about direct outreach, but to me, it's too good of an opportunity if you're not out spamming people, and if you can make friends at a bar, you can make friends, you can do direct outreach. If you're good at making friends in the real world, you're going to be good at doing direct outreach. It's the same transferable attitude and spirit, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. It's just it's a different way of doing it on the front end until you can shoot a video and audio. So what I'd say to people is if I was going to do one thing first is to really be thinking about the end game and working backwards. Who are the people? Let's say it's somebody who's going to sell something. Right? You didn't really, you didn't really frame the who, but let's just say it's a, it's a solopreneur who's just left the company. They've got a, they've got one year of, you know, financial runway to figure it out. They don't need to work, and they're building some. They're going to do an online course. They're a coach. It doesn't really matter, whatever they're going to do. To me, they need to be thinking about the who. Because once you know who the who is, even if you're not 100% sure, you can start knocking on those doors, and you can start building those connections, which inadvertently, most assuredly, even at 35%, is building the audience. So now you're building your YouTube channel audience. Now you build who is going to, who's going to read that content? Don't get me wrong. You will if you just start putting out content and start getting new levels of virality, you know, I start commenting on Mark, and Mark comments on mine, and I've got a thousand followers. He's got 500. Well, now my thousand followers are receiving the fact he's commenting. They've got it interlocked like that, but that's less reliable than a, 'Hi, Mark. Notice you're in, you know, Durham, New Hampshire, you know, looking to connect with other people there,' whatever you would say. Understand that. Put it... so the content thing I'll address, but putting out, starting to talk to people, having a plan for that in tandem with building your content strategy. Because, again, a lot of people quit the content game because they don't get the right attention. Even if it's for vanity metrics, it's not even for a business. They don't stick with it because they're not also building the audience on the outreach side. Don't get me wrong. When I started going viral, people came to me. At one point, I was getting 600 to 700 followers a day after I got past 30,000. I get that, but that's different. That's a different time. We probably won't see that on LinkedIn again. That was 2017 to 2018. People need to have a plan to do outreach for sure.

Mark Evans: Let's do the rapid-fire round. I'll ask you a question. You can answer it for as long or as short as you like. You ready for this?

Michael David Chapman: Ready.

Mark Evans: Does LinkedIn launch a Zoom-like service?

Michael David Chapman: Yes.

Mark Evans: Does it launch a Clubhouse-like service?

Michael David Chapman: Yes.

Mark Evans: Why are you hesitant?

Michael David Chapman: They just need... see, the Zoom thing would make total sense because where did you go if you didn't have Zoom? You had Skype, you had Google Meet, and I think those are two, I'll probably get trolled as double, you know, not double, but substandard to Zoom. I think they missed an opportunity, but definitely Zoom. Clubhouse only... yeah. Definitely Clubhouse, but only like, go talk to people that did Clubhouse early on. And bring them in and talk to them and say, 'Hey, how do we do it and do it better?' Go ahead.

Mark Evans: Will groups be as good as Facebook groups?

Michael David Chapman: Never. No. No. Not 'never.' Not unless they decide to be really good at some things instead of trying to be, you know, average at a lot of things, which I think is a lot of the problem right now.

Mark Evans: Will LinkedIn offer analytics for personal accounts, or will it allow Shield.ai to dominate the market?

Michael David Chapman: I think the question is, will they mimic what Shield.ai is doing? I'm still surprised that they are not, you know, and I've used Shield.ai. I have clients who use Shield.ai. Are they, are they approved? I'm still surprised they're not an approved vendor. They haven't figured out to help take that to another level. I mean, they've got the views, likes, comments, and shares, but I just don't think... I think that's the long-winded answer. That's an example. And, I don't know. I don't work there, but Shield.ai's been around for how long now? That's an example of, obviously, people want it. People like it. They want to understand things. And, you know, if you're an analytics geek like me, you're getting into, 'You did a 500-character post on Monday at 2:00. You get another 500-character post on Monday, but a different topic,' and you're tracking that. You want to understand the conversion. That's an example of them not listening. No. I don't think they'll do that.

Mark Evans: I just find it incredible that people talk about Shield.ai. People love Shield.ai. The, you know, the power users love Shield.ai, and LinkedIn seems to be ignoring that. And I don't know why.

Michael David Chapman: They're just, again, I don't think they would ignore. I think, again, they're, you know, I think, the data, the viewpoint, this is an anecdote. They're more interested in other things like ad spend, what's going on with their ad business. I mean, like, you know,

Mark Evans: Got it.

Michael David Chapman: You and me caring about, you know, how many likes, comments, and shares. You've got enough. Figure it out with that, dude. That's what it feels like.

Mark Evans: Right. 300 characters in posts. Good or bad?

Michael David Chapman: 3,000.

Mark Evans: Sorry. 3,000. 300 would...

Michael David Chapman: be bad. At some point, I did a post today on my phone. I think I found a hack. I don't have the update or something, but it didn't let me go past 1,200 on my phone. I think it's good because I've had many a post I've had to pare down. So I think it's a good thing. Just again, it's really going to... that's why they say short-form is the best. I don't entirely agree. I used to say it all the time. Used to preach that from the mountaintop. I think when you're a compelling writer and you can keep somebody in 1,300 characters, it's something to keep them at the 3,000 level. So, no, I'm happy that they did it.

Mark Evans: Do you ever publish articles as opposed to posts?

Michael David Chapman: I haven't done one in over two years. It's sad. I did one on New Year's Eve 2019 going into 2020.

Mark Evans: Creator mode, meh or interesting? And if so, why?

Michael David Chapman: Creator mode, like stories, I'm going to put them together, is the Ryan Leaf.

Mark Evans: I remember Ryan Leaf.

Michael David Chapman: He's the Ryan Leaf of LinkedIn. If your audience doesn't know, Ryan Leaf was, I think, considered the number one draft bust since 1998.

Mark Evans: So, yeah.

Michael David Chapman: It's not, I mean, intrinsically, I know what they were trying to do, but I, you know? And, again, people have sworn, like, 'I'm getting more views. I'm getting this. I'm getting that.' But then when I hear them say that they're not comparing, you know, they're comparing a highlighter to a pen in terms of the post style and time and day and all that, I haven't seen a compelling thing for it. I like that they're trying to do things better for creators. But, again, it just looks like I'm not sure who their sample set was to look at and who they talked to.

Mark Evans: LinkedIn Stories: a bust, a complete bust?

Michael David Chapman: I don't think it's a bust. It's just like, how do you, how, you know, tell me how to... I, I like what I really liked about it, like, I like with polls, is where it seemed like once you would post a story, you know, they're pushing it outside your network. So whereas, like, a regular text post would go, you know, I think it used to be they would, they would, you know, the algorithm would send it to the first 10, maybe 25% of your first-degree network. Stories were going the total opposite. It was, like, 80% to the second and third degree. I love that. But the problem is you can't get analytics. You can't download the information. Like, if I put out a story about, you know, the next best water bottle, you know, in a commoditized environment, people are all going crazy about it. I got screenshots to see who engaged it and viewed it and whatever. Same thing with polls. It's just like, that goes back to your Shield Analytics thing. I mean, they have a huge opportunity. My question back to anybody: would you pay $25 more a month for better analytics? I would. I'd probably pay more than that.

Mark Evans: Publishing a post every day: There are evangelists who say that it's absolutely necessary, and others suggest that as long as you're consistent, maybe one or two a week, that's good enough. What's your take?

Michael David Chapman: I never liked that discussion without, 'Well, what are you trying to accomplish?' I mean, I know I beat that horse like I did on Clubhouse. I used to post at the height, I was doing three to four times a day. It had a direct relationship and followership. You know, when I hit, when I got to probably 130, 135,000 followers, more posts drove more followers. There's no doubt about it. Because intrinsically, I'm communicating relevancy in the algorithm no matter who's engaging. So, again, if you're trying to get more followers, I'm a fan of it because you're just gonna be in the feed. And, you know, I've seen the ones that got a couple million. They get, like, you know, and I love these new people that come on, and you've heard them. 'Oh, I get more, I get more engagement than guys got, you know, people with millions of followers.' Like, those people with millions of followers do not care about that statement. They're not trying to get a lot. They've been down the path of, 'Hey, I remember when I had my first beer, too.' Like, 'I had a...' I remember when I had a thousand likes, too. Like, they're over that. It's a totally different game for some of those people. I know that because I know some of them personally. So you have to ask, what are you trying to accomplish and work backwards? For the most part, the more you're in the feed, the more you're gonna get attention. You may not get the same amount of attention on this first versus that post because there's a preference at that point. But in terms of name recognition, branding, more can be good. The unfortunate side of that is more that's, like, terrible, is not a good thing. So this is what people are probably that are listening to waiting for me to say. If you're putting out, like, clickbait stuff, stuff that, you know, you know, a fifth grader with a cell phone and time could do, that's not a good thing. So if you're in the game, you gotta understand your endgame. If you have relevant, you know, and I don't like saying quality because what's a quality post? I don't even like it. What's a quality post? What's, what's good content? Quality and good content is gonna be the content your audience wants to hear and see, among other attributes. If you're doing that and you're serving them, I don't have a problem with more than once a day.

Mark Evans: Do people underestimate the value of comments?

Michael David Chapman: This isn't quite a rapid fire. They do. Comments is how... I mean, yeah. I mean, I took some time off. So, I mean, anybody who's followed me was like, 'Oh, what's he talking about?' Like, I built more of that followership based on my comments than I did my content. Even though I was posting that much, when you show up to, you know, a popular person's post that gets a lot of engagement and you provide a lot of value, like, and not just to do it, but you're bringing a lot of value to the conversation, you can see the result. People have said, and I agree, it's a Givers Gain algorithm. There's some type of relevancy improvement. Mm-hmm. An algorithmic score, magic thing behind the scenes. I've never seen it that goes on when you're giving to other people. Whether you believe that's an algorithmic thing or not, I just think it's a good thing. People want, you know, people want attention on their content. They want the right attention, but they want it. No one's, no one's putting out content to get zero attention. Right? That's called journaling. So I think people underestimate it because they don't see the immediate ROI, but people that have been doing it, and I know the people that do it, they get it. They've seen the increase not just in their followership, but the increased engagement on their content. And if they're doing it for their business, you know, some type of indirect, maybe about five, six, seven degrees of separation ROI on their business.

Mark Evans: Final question, and this may not apply to you because you've been on the platform for four plus years and you have a huge following. But should people accept every connection request?

Michael David Chapman: No.

Mark Evans: Why not?

Michael David Chapman: This is the only time I was gonna give you a one-word answer. I really planned on giving you a one-word answer. Well, I did that. I mean, I did that. You know, when in 2017, I was at, like, a thousand connections. I didn't know anything about anything. And I started getting all these people coming. I accepted everyone until I got to, like, 20,000, 22,000, maybe even, like, 25,000. And that was a mistake because, well, let me rephrase it. That wasn't a mistake. That would have been a mistake had I had a plan. I was just trying to find a job. I wasn't trying to be an entrepreneur. I wasn't trying to be a thought leader. I wasn't trying to be... I was just looking for a job, which again goes back to the personal branding. I think I did have, I think, in that period, probably 10 or 11 opportunities that didn't work out for whatever reason. But, again, I was in the feed all the time, and I'm sure I was communicating, 'God, does this guy ever work? Like, my gosh.' Like, who knows? Or people were thinking that. So I accepted everyone. The typical response to that is, 'No. Don't accept everyone. You should spend time vetting everyone and should be people that you would do business with and would hire you, and this and that and this,' which I always say, I don't entirely disagree with that, but, like, that's where you are today. Right? I have clients that I still have and that I had, but then worked with and didn't work with again for whatever reason that I connected with in 2017 that were in my network just sitting there as consumers saying, 'Man, I've been seeing your content for years. I had no idea you did this and that. Can we have a call?' Mm-hmm. But who can predict that? Right? I mean...

Mark Evans: Yeah.

Michael David Chapman: How do I look at your profile and say, 'Oh, that's gonna happen with Mark in 2025?' So it's a painful thing because it takes a lot of time to vet a profile.

Mark Evans: Right.

Michael David Chapman: And especially if you're a skeptic like me, it's like, 'Okay. Oh, wow. Another coach.' And I'm beating coaches up because I am one, right? Yeah, I don't hate coaches. I am one, right? I'm looking for the synonym to replace that word. I think if I come up with a word, I'll be rich. There's a lot of reasons why you shouldn't, and there's some reasons why you should. If it's just about the numbers, then, yeah, go right at it. But at the end of the day, it's a whole lot easier to accept one than it is to disconnect from someone. And just the basic functions on LinkedIn, accept versus, you know, disconnecting, is easier versus harder. Awesome. I really didn't give a good concise answer to that, but, you know, do what's right for your business now and what you can, you know, or what you're doing as a professional. A lot of people still keep it close to the vest. I used to say, 'Connect with everybody, blah, blah, blah.' But as I've looked at it, I know some of that's not entirely right.

Mark Evans: Well, you have been a fantastic rapid-fire player, so thank you for that. And one final question: Let's talk a little bit about your story. You spent a lot of years in B2B sales before jumping into LinkedIn in 2017. Curious about what you were thinking. Why LinkedIn? You know, what were your thoughts in terms of using the platform? Provide some insight into how your business has evolved and grown over the past four years.

Michael David Chapman: Yeah. I'll tell you one thing. I'll start with that first person more back. One of the things we haven't done is embrace the traditional approaches to scaling. I mean, I had the blessing or the opportunity to work close to individual owners, specifically the last one I worked with and saw what it looks like firsthand to not be the business owner, but to see business owners are driven by scale, scale, scale. Again, nothing wrong with that. However, for me, I saw some of the downside and dark side of that, you know, we could go into if you want. And so that's had a profound effect on me on continuing to stay, what's the word, close and maybe, can I use the word faithful to some of my why that I found in 2017, which was, listen, one of them was, 'I'm not gonna take the work if I can't work close to my kids, both geographically and emotionally.' I don't do the work. Mm-hmm. The geographical point speaks for itself. I wanna work from home until my oldest is old enough. And unless I could work from home, you know, with a company, fine, too. But the emotional part is just taking on good business. I mean, it's one thing when you're a business owner, you have no business. You sort of gotta take this. I get that. But there's something that's happened. I think the decision to, you know, say no to relationships that are obviously not a good fit no matter what the pay is from a contract perspective has, you know, that decision's been honored. It's allowed me to create the life for my kids that I couldn't do before, not just financially, but to be here.

Mark Evans: Mm-hmm.

Michael David Chapman: To be here and then to be able to cut work on and off. Why did I do that? I didn't plan on doing that. I quit a job in 2017 that was toxic. It was a huge step of faith because, yeah, I did the total opposite of some other people in my life who were like, 'You're crazy. I mean, you're a single father. You have four kids. You just come out of a marriage. You cannot quit a job without a job,' and that's exactly what I did. It was, and it took me about a year to get there. So, for me, the reason I did is I just wanted... there was something in me that I can't entirely explain that. I didn't wanna look for a job on its time. I'd always done that. I just... it wasn't like that to, you know, I'm not casting shade on that. But for me, it just was this place you get to where you're like, 'No. I'm gonna do it different.' You know, something else is calling me, and that's exactly what it was. I got on the platform. I mean, like the first week, I got on the platform to look for a job. I just saw the feed, and I was like seeing all these, you know, there were some pretty what are now big names putting out this, like they were all pulling from Peter Drucker and, you know, leadership, 'Good to Great,' Jim Collins. I'm like, 'Oh, man.' Like, I've got, and I had, like, I had written on my phone. I have a newer phone now. But in the cloud, I had 2,000 to, I don't know how many, it's about 2,000-plus journals that I had written about the loss of jobs, the loss of a child, two marriages, moving four times, growing up fatherless. I had all these journals. And so I didn't start sharing the journals while I was looking for a job, but I started to share some of the learnings while I was looking for a job. And it just took off. I mean, I remember December 2017. I remember a May, 700-character post. A bad day was anything less than a...

Mark Evans: 100,000 views. They were... Wow.

Michael David Chapman: They were handing views, yeah. They were handing views out, and this was right about the time, I think, video came out. You could do video. This is way before live, but you could do a native video. I wanna say October... yeah. I wasn't doing any video yet, but I was just doing heavy text posts under 1,300 characters, sometimes one-liners. And I just took off, and I was like, 'Hey, maybe,' you know, started getting some coaching business, started working with guys on men's issues. Then I started something, 'Hey, can you show me how to write content? Can you do this? And how does LinkedIn work?' And I was like, 'Oh, I'm not about to be a LinkedIn coach, expert guy, whatever.' That, I mean, I don't have that. I've done my best to, like, not have that there. Again, there's nothing wrong with that. But, you know, I've seen the ugly side of that where people really push that and oftentimes, not always, sometimes don't know what they're talking about. So it just evolved. At some point, you know, I met my now business partner who was doing direct outreach with no automation for clients, and we just put those two services together in 2019. So it just evolved. I mean, it could have been anything. It could have been consulting. It could have been anything that would have allowed me to stay close to my kids, be near my kids geographically and emotionally. It could have been anything. It could have been, you know, working in a brick-and-mortar. It just didn't work out that way.

Mark Evans: Just as a note to people who are listening to this conversation, and you may be curious about how Michael and I connected, it was through a comment. Somebody posted something that both of us recognized as so self-promotional. It was outrageous. So I commented on it. Michael commented on it. He sent me an audio message. I sent him an audio message. One thing led to another, and here we are talking to each other. We have a personal relationship, and I think that's the power of LinkedIn. That's the power of comments and being engaged on the platform. You know, it's amazing to talk to people from around the world who are so good at what they do and have such great insight. And I wanna thank you for coming on the podcast and really offering some great insight and some guidance on how to use LinkedIn and how to get the most out of the platform. One final question: Where can people learn more about you and Leading Social?

Michael David Chapman: Yeah. We're at LeadingSocial.com or just, you know, my... I put David. The reason people say, 'Why did you use your middle name? Isn't that the guy that shot Lennon, Mark David Chapman?' I always get that from the trolls or whatever. I said, 'No. Put the word David in there because typically automated bot outreach doesn't drop the middle name.' They haven't figured out that because nobody would call me that. So I'm Mike. Only my mother calls me that, usually when I'm in trouble. So Michael David Chapman on LinkedIn or LeadingSocial.com is the best place.

Mark Evans: Thanks for listening to another episode of Marketing Spark. If you enjoyed the conversation, leave a review, subscribe via iTunes, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app, and share via social media. If you'd like to learn more about how I help B2B SaaS companies, such as fractional CMO, strategic advisor, and coach, connect with me on LinkedIn or send an email to Mark@MarketingSpark.co. I'll talk to

Michael David Chapman: you next time.