LinkedIn® is the only professional social media platform and the largest professional networking platform in the world. They have over 1 billion members many of whom are decision makers. Most of their users are in North America, followed by Asia-Pacific, Europe, Latin America, the Middle East and Africa.
I love it!
I connect with so many interesting people there like Debbie Saviano who’s a LinkedIn® pro.
I want to learn how to maximize my LinkedIn® potential and thought some of you might want to as well. I’m always better at telling other people’s stories than my own. Maybe you feel the same?
I’m convinced Debbie Saviano’s valuable knowledge of social media can help many professionals, especially those who over 50, who want to learn how to best showcase their value and experience as they pursue their second and third acts.
Debbie calls LinkedIn a ‘Virtual Golden Rolodex’.
And She Says…Your Headline is like Gold!
(She knows what she’s talking about because ‘Her Headline’ is what attracted me to her!)
“LinkedIn gives you 220 characters to do a headline. That headline should speak to who it is you want to talk to. Is it someone to hire you?”
“Is it someone to buy a product? Are you for a service? Who are you speaking to? That’s what that headline should say. And this is probably the goal to the whole thing I’m sharing. When you comment, engage on someone’s page on their feed, the first line of your headline shows up.”
“And I will tell you, probably 70% of my employment, if you will, comes from people reaching out because they saw me somewhere. Because what you want to do is you want people to come to you. They see you comment, they see your picture, they see the first part of your headline, and mine is about LinkedIn, and it says that you want them to click back on your profile. From there, that’s where you can sell them. That’s why you’re the best person for them.”
“So that headline is like gold. It’s gold.”
As soon as Debbie Saviano and I spoke on the phone I could feel her similar upbeat good energy (and loved her similar name LOL) I invited her to come join my radio show and share some knowledge.
Debbie feels strongly that each person has unique abilities and in today’s disruptive environment the playing field has expanded – affording countless opportunities for the assertive professional AND that there are a multitude of avenues on how to accomplish this.
She is a seasoned wordsmith and content strategist who can help you clearly show WHY YOU! Especially if you believe that what you do can truly help others, but you are stuck on how best to do that.
Her background is in Education, with a minor in Psychology and along with a deep understanding of the digital landscape she offers a unique perspective.
HER SPECIALITIES ARE:
• Digital Space
• LinkedIn
• Books In Bites Newsletter (LinkedIn)
• LinkedIn LIVE • Let’s Talk
• Course Creation
• Leadership
• Entrepreneurship
• E-Commerce
• Mentor
• Business
• TV – Media
• Education
• Career Professionals
• Entrepreneurs
• Product Development
• Communities
• Non-Profits
You Can Reach Debbie Saviano at debbie@debbiesaviano.com
Meanwhile you’ll get some good professional social media advice in this podcast of my live conversation with Debbie Saviano on The Debbie Nigro Show. If you’d rather read than listen the transcript of the audio is below.
The Debbie Nigro Show airs 11-12 noon EST on WGCH. Tune in live from anywhere on WGCH.com. If you’re in the NY/CT area turn the dial to AM 1490. Podcasts after on DebbieNigro.com.
Website: debbienigro.com
LinkedIn: Debbie Nigro
Instagram: @therealdebbienigro
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheDebbieNigroShow/
X: @DebbieNigro
AUDIO TRANSCRIPT:
0:00:00
And now, back to the Debbie Nigro Show.
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0:00:07
I’ve just come to realize that Debbie is like a legendary name and I’m all of a sudden meeting all these other Debbie’s and not all of them have the same spelling. We didn’t want to know anything about that Debbie Hurricane because she was giving us
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0:00:20
all a bad rap, that D-E-B-B-Y, but the D-E-B-B-I-E girls, I’m like so attracted.
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Anyway, hi guys, I’m Debbie Nigro and I’m going to introduce you to Debbie Saviano from Irving, Texas in just one second. Let me give you a little kind of heads up on why she’s here. I use LinkedIn, I have a profile. And I’m noticing that more and more people are connecting with me on LinkedIn lately, because of how I can’t
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0:01:00
add the content I post. What I do is I take the interviews from the show that I do with interesting people. And besides packaging them up and putting them up on all the major podcast platforms, I also share it on LinkedIn, if it’s a business story, professional story, and a lot of other interesting people are connecting back with me as a result, right? Wanting to be on the show, and I’m like, I don’t know how to use, I hope I’m using this
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right. I want to do more with LinkedIn. There’s 900 million+ users there. It’s the only professional social media platform. A lot of decision makers. I love it.
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I connect with interesting people like Debbie Saviano, and I invited her because she’s an expert at LinkedIn, an expert at social media, and I thought she could help me and you guys learn how to maximize its potential, especially now, and I notice this a lot, a lot of people over 50 wanting to learn how to showcase their value and their experience because they’re pursuing their second and third acts, and it’s not simple, you know, at a certain age and time. So, anyway, Debbie.
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0:01:59
Hello, my friend. How are you?
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0:02:02
I told everybody you were babysitting for the dog in Chicago.
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0:02:05
I am, I am. We flew in last night and the DNC is here so there’s a few people in Chicago.
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We’re not out.
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0:02:11
So that’s helpful. We’re here to babysit Willow. So we’re excited. And the weather, 30 degrees cooler than at home in Texas.
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30 degrees!
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That’s a big, big swing. Yeah, that coming to Chicago during the convention, that was a lot. I’m sure that everything is packed and you know it’s busy there.
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It’s busy.
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It’s busy. You’re a better woman than me to fly to babysit the dog, but I know you’re a good…
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We love Willow. Yeah. We enjoy it. We love Willow. It’s fun. So yeah. So pleased to be here. Thank you for having me.
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0:02:39
Oh, you’re my kind of girl. Your words on your… and how you presented your profile on LinkedIn drew me to you, okay? Yeah, in a very big way. It’s no surprise, since that’s what you do for a living, is tell people how best to use that platform to draw people in, and the kind of people they want to draw in. So tell a little bit about your background. I know you were a school principal for a while.
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I was. My first career, I like to say my first career, because you just said second and third action. My first act, I was a school principal, which I love, love, love, and phenomenal memories, and I’m so pleased I did it. But when I retired from that, and I always joked, Debbie, you can retire young, you should quit when I did it. I knew I wanted to be an entrepreneur, but I wasn’t sure how. So I spent two years, and keep in mind, this is over 10 years ago, and I spent two years
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learning everything I could on social media, everything. But I came from a different perspective because of my education background. And so I started doing LinkedIn and I did it based on knowing how people learned to read, knowing what keeps people engaged on a page, because that was my background, right? Well, people started reaching out to me. And I’ll never forget the first guy. He says, can you do for me what you’ve done for you? And a light bulb
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went off. I thought, oh my gosh, this is what I can do. And that’s how I started a LinkedIn profile. So it’s been a great ride ever since. I’m so fortunate and blessed I get to do it because I love doing it. A lot of us have trouble telling our own story if you will. Oh my gosh. You hit a really interesting
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point for me personally too. I can tell everybody else’s story and I’m horrible at telling my own.
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Exactly. You would think that. Yeah, but that’s true. I mean because we’re taught to be humble, which we are humble, but at the same time LinkedIn is the only platform people go to and expect you to sell yourself because they’re there Debbie for a reason. They want to know why you. They want to know can you solve their problem. If it’s an employer looking for an employee, if it’s someone looking for a product or a service, they’re there with an intent. Why you? And so they want you to tell that in your profile. And LinkedIn, which I’m a huge
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advocate for obviously, but they do a phenomenal job of providing all the different information for you to put in there. And so taking advantage of a complete profile, and I work it every day. I mean, obviously, that’s what I do. But even if you just got your profile set up and didn’t work it every day, just to have that, there’s like a digital resume. It’s a digital resume, so people can find you, to your point earlier.
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0:05:04
Yeah, okay. So two things we’re going to talk about, the resume in 2024 and LinkedIn, and what should be there in terms of trying to get people to do business with you. So for example, I have a profile. People say they like my profile, but I
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don’t ask for anything. And I guess I let people read for themselves whether or not I can solve a problem for them. But do you redo people’s LinkedIn profiles and why you versus artificial intelligence that said, we can do this for you?
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Right.
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0:05:37
Well, that’s an interesting question. My son and I, we had a great conversation last night about AI. So first of all, yes, that’s what I do. That’s what that guy did that time when he reached out to me. I redesigned people’s LinkedIn profiles because I’m able to do the research and tell their story in a way that’s selling them but not salesy. Great. Because people want to know, as I said, why you. And so what the future will hold, Debbie,
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0:06:01
and honestly, I have no clue. I mean, I don’t know, AI is going so fast, that could very well, and that’s a good point. I always tell people, you should look at what you do and say, will that be there tomorrow based on this, this, and this?
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0:06:13
Because, for example, when I started doing profiles, I had to hire a graphic designer to do my banners because I didn’t know how to do it. However, when Canva hit the field, that day, and I was paying $500 a banner, which was ridiculous, but anyway, I was,
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I could do it myself. So all those people who I had paid and hired in the past, I didn’t need anymore because of Canva. So to your point, I don’t know what will happen with AI, but right now that’s what I do.
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You want to hear something weird?
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I’m going to link to the profiles.
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Yeah, just as a sidebar, I happen to, I pay for chat GPT, the monthly fee, so I don’t feel guilty asking them to do a few things for me. But just for fun, because I never did anything graphic. I’m not a graphic girl.
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I threw in the instructions to make a logo, and it came back. I was blown away, like blown away. But it only lets you do a couple of those. But anyway, let’s stick with you. So yeah, somebody would get in touch with you.
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0:07:05
You would redo their LinkedIn profile. How else can you help somebody?
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So a couple of things. Another thing that I do, basically three things. One is the LinkedIn profiles redesign. Secondly, I do courses and different things where people can buy those and do it themselves. And to be fair, my preference is to teach someone else
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how to do it because you want to be able to manage that yourself. Some people are so high profile that that’s just not worth their time and energy because they use their skills on something else where they bring in their money.
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So the third thing is that I manage some people’s accounts for them. I white share for them. Just like you have white labels for products, I call it white sharing. So those are the three things that I do.
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But I really prefer for people to get the courses, the templates, the tutorials, and to then teach themselves how to do it, which is what I did.
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0:07:50
Okay, stop there. Because then they can always manage it. You say one of the things you offer is course creation. Okay, example, I was thinking, oh, maybe I should turn my book into a course. Is that what you’re referring to?
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0:08:01
It can be any of that. So I have in the past, I’ve done them through the years, like a course on how to teach you how to do your own LinkedIn profile. I’m working on one right now, how to do book launches. And so I’ve got a whole library, if you will, of information that people can purchase at very reasonable costs to do things themselves. Because again, we all want to learn, we all want to grow. And
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again, that’s my background. That’s my background education. Yeah, I’m looking at your specialties digital space LinkedIn books in bytes newsletter
1
0:08:30
What’s that on LinkedIn? Oh, that’s interesting because to our point earlier I had a book I have a books and bytes newsletter, but about two months ago I changed the name the curiosity corner because I wanted to change I didn’t want to just do books I wanted to do other things because we’re all curious by nature as Einstein would tell us and so I’ve kind of evolved that and so I need to go in and change that.
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You need to go change that.
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It’s a problem with the shoes.
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There you go, I’m helping you out.
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It’s still there, but it’s not evolved it.
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Don’t feel bad. I honestly, when somebody else looks in, they see things sometimes that your eye does not see on your own page. I’ve told people with very professional websites, did you know that word’s misspelled?
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And it’s been there like for four years, no one noticed the word was misspelled. I was at a golf putting place, what do you call it, driving range the other day and I walked and I go and there’s a sign, I go, does anybody notice they spelled that wrong on the sign?
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Like how long it’s been here? Yeah, more than one spot.
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0:09:23
Well, we see what we think we’re supposed to see, so we have to use our, for people who do proofreading, they do it a different way because our brain tells us we’re seeing what we’re supposed to see. And we look at so many words and so much information today, it’s even more true today.
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Absolutely.
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But as far as the, you want me to tell people a couple of things they can do for their profiles?
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Yes, that’d be great.
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Take away. So the first thing is you want to think of, and to your point, LinkedIn, people there with a business mindset, never forget that as a business mindset. So LinkedIn, they allow you to change your URL. When you sign up for LinkedIn, they give you a URL, it’s got your name and a bunch of numbers. You can personalize that. So the first thing is you want to go in and do that. Nudge nudge Debbie. Wow. Who knew Debbie? Who knew? But that’s my point. People are just busy doing their J-O-B. They don’t think about all these things but you know that’s what I do.
Think of your profile as a digital handshake. When you’re meeting someone, what’s the first impression? What do you want people to remember about you? So, when they see that profile, what do you want them to see? You want to capture their attention. And you can do that with your banner, which speaks, you know, some of the messaging, if you will.
You want your banner to speak to what you do. You want your profile picture to speak to who you are, and it should be professional. And it can be a variety of things. Like for you, it’d be fun maybe with a microphone or
something because of your interviews and your show, but a profile picture.
You want a complete profile. Not to say it should be done overnight, but you want to take advantage of the space that LinkedIn gives you to tell your story, why you.
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0:10:58
And then finally, this is one of the most important, your headline. LinkedIn gives you 220 characters to do a headline. That headline should speak to who it is you want to talk to. Is it someone to hire you?
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0:11:10
Is it someone to buy a product? Are you for a service? Who are you speaking to? That’s what that headline should say. And this is probably the goal to the whole thing I’m sharing. Besides the URL, on your headline, when you comment, engage on someone’s page on their feed, you’re the first line of your headline
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shows up. And I will tell you, probably 70% of my employment, if you will, comes from people reaching out because they saw me somewhere. Because what you want to do is you want people to come to you. They see you comment, they see your picture, they see the first part of your headline, and mine is about LinkedIn, and it says that you want them to click back on your profile. From there, that’s where you can sell them. That’s why you’re the best person for them.
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So that headline is like gold. It’s gold.
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I’m going to read yours, and what I love about yours, you’ve used stars and emoticons. You said, I can show you, Arrow, how to use LinkedIn to share your solutions and why you had to be seen and heard curiosity corner newsletter LinkedIn live let’s talk social media advocate course creator speaker it’s like all kinds of hashtags and things that catch your eye and you’ve got red and black and you’ve got the prettiest smile and the red glasses and a mug which has no message on it but it looks like uh it’s funny you say that because some people say
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0:12:24
that but do you have a message and sometimes I do use that picture with a message but it engages people in conversation because people say why don’t you have a message? Yeah, yeah. That wasn’t the intent but I’ve left it because of that.
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0:12:35
Right and it looks like a statement being made. I’m thinking I’ve got to get her mug and put my statements on those mugs. So there you go, you sparked a thought. But yeah, you really stood out to me. You have close to 10,000 followers on LinkedIn. Of those 10,000 people, have many come to you or are you going to them? How does the back and forth work in terms of connecting with people?
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Are you talking about just in general connecting?
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0:12:58
Well, yes, and when you have followers, right? So I know a lot of people, you said you’re proactive. Many people are proactive every day connecting with other people. And then many people also are, you know, on the other receiving end. So tell us about the 10,000.
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0:13:12
Right. So for example, the other day someone, and this happens all the time, someone does a post on someone, someone I don’t know. Chris Brogan did a post on someone, he named the person. Well, I went back and read this guy’s story, so fascinating. So I reached out to connect with the guy, the guy connected back with me. Always do a note, that’s another thing, make a note.
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Always do a note, a message when you’re reaching out to connect, a why, because that explains them why you’re wanting to connect with them, makes it more personal. You would do that in physical space, so you do it in digital space. So that’s one way. Secondly, if I’m watching a program or listen to a podcast or whatever it is, if I am enthralled or engaged by the person who’s talking, I reach out to connect with them. I even do that on TV shows. I’ll be watching a show, a
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documentary, and if someone’s on there as an expert, I’ll reach out. I would bet you 60 or 70 percent of those people reach back out to connect with me.
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0:14:02
Awesome. Well, you have been a peppy guest. I knew you would be and I’m really happy to know you and I’m happy to be sharing you with my audience, Debbie Saviano. Where can people find you, Debbie? They need help.
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0:14:15
Debbie Saviano, my name is everywhere. So if anyone’s listening, I mean, for the people who are listening, go to LinkedIn, connect with me, say you met me here on Debbie’s show and we’ll connect there. I would love to meet anyone and everyone who’s on your show and who’s talking and listening. Love it. Thank you so much, Debbie, for having me.
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Yes, similar energy and enthusiasm and very cool name, Debbie. Yes, of course. Debbie Saviano. Have a great day. Enjoy the dog. Enjoy Chicago.
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We’ll stay in touch.
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0:14:41
Thank you, my friend. Thank you, my friend. Have a blessed day.
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Take care. Take care. So there you go. That’s the kind of energy and the kind of people you can connect with on LinkedIn for business and help you get yourself further along where you’d like to be professionally. yourself further along where you’d like to be professionally.
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More to come here on the Debbie Nigro Show next.
Transcribed with Cockatoo
