would you like to elevate your brand on LinkedIn well recently I was awarded the top voice badge on LinkedIn and in this episode I'm going to share with you about how you can achieve your top badge too I will share with you how you can achieve the top voice badge as well as gold Badges and I'm going to share some of the strategies and tactics about how I got to the stage and how you can apply the same principles enjoy today's episode what is the top voice badge what is the different Badges and what what
is it all about so if you've already been doubling down on personal branding in 2023 now is the opportunity to really really stand out from the crowd and I now Gary vaynerchuk would probably kill me if I said this the aim of the game really is happy Friday everyone or whenever you're listening to this and uh looking forward to today's call because today's call is all about how you can achieve a top voice badge on LinkedIn okay I'm going to give you the methods I'm going to give you the breakdown of how I achieve my
top voice badge on LinkedIn and how you can too so welcome to the business strategist um super looking forward today because I haven't actually done one of these live sessions in ages but for you guys are listening to me live do me a favor use the hashtag Live use the hashtag replay of course uh that would be super super pumped now if you get some value from today uh what I was going to say to in the in the description notes below what you can do is you can um buy me a cup of tea
and a biscuit using the uh the URL below of course and you can follow me on the business strategist podcast which is over on Apple or on Spotify now if this is the first time that you're actually seeing me here on LinkedIn live please do me a favor follow and follow me and also hit that Bell notification in the top right hand corner so super excited about today so listen so today's show is all about how I achieved a top voice badge on LinkedIn and how you can too so let's go into the gist of
today's show right because um recently only two weeks ago of course uh I got awarded I got introduced to the uh top uh voice badge uh program on LinkedIn and so I want to kind of quickly share with you guys because there is a couple of programs over on LinkedIn so there are two types of badges on LinkedIn you've got what we call the top voice badge and then you've got what we call a gold badge right so again depending on what your specialism or what your topic is or what you like to talk about
it's going to depend on what badge you're awarded okay but one badge is much easier to get to than the other all right now I've been on LinkedIn for probably the best part of around since 2011 I think it is and it's taken me this long to get to where I am but let me give you so what is the top voice badge what is the different Badges and what what is it all about so the top voice badge the blue badge used to be what we call the influencer program and it it is By
Invitation Only so which basically means that LinkedIn then send you a invitation to join the program okay it is not something that you can apply or send in an application they see your content as valuable educational inspiring etc etc they invite you to the program so it's a very tightly knitted uh community and uh it's you know not everyone gets offered the opportuni so it's By Invitation Only from the LinkedIn uh guys head office um so that's the first first thing okay secondly there is what we call a gold badge program okay now that is
much easier to achieve and I'm going to share you guys um seven key practices about how you can achieve a gold badge on LinkedIn okay now why what's the pro what's what's the point in having a badge like seriously what's the point in having a badge on LinkedIn well first of all I talked a lot about on the podcast specifically around 2024 being the most important when it comes to personal branding so if you've already been doubling down on personal branding in 2023 now is the opportunity to really really stand out from the crowd one
of the great ways to do that is get by getting recognized on a platform like LinkedIn so one of the things that what tends to happen when your audience is looking to work with you to work with key problems Etc um is they are looking to see that you are who you say you are and there is a way and what I call the the currency of building trust right so trust is the number one currency of today so if they see you doing live if they see you doing content then they're going to trust
you there's going to be less sales objections and it's going to be easier to close leads and turn them into profitable sales effectively right so you've really got to kind of think to yourself you know how can you enhance your personal brand even more and so I've really given some really good tips and strategies on the podcast itself if you haven't followed the podcast by the way it's over on Apple on Spotify or any of your uh good podcasting stream platforms of course um go over and head and listen to the business strategist so that's
what the blue program is the blue program is By Invitation Only uh in order to do that and I'm just going to again share my experiences about how I got onto the program is literally by being consistent in the content right I'm not a big believer and I know Gary vaynerchuk will probably kill me if I said this but he seems to think that you have to be on to be on to really get some traction on link you need to be posting three times a day you need to be on every platform for me
I don't believe in that I believe in quality over quantity now for people that are not used to creating content it's extremely overwhelming and you might be might be in agreement with me but it's extremely overwhelming when it comes to saying okay you're going from you know publishing content on an ad hoc basis to doing three times a day on LinkedIn it's just not physically possible unless a of course you've got a uh unless of course you've got a team behind you right one of the things that I've done in terms of best practicing is
making sure that Monday to Friday or most days at least three to four times a week is putting out really good quality content so mixture of terasol a mixture of um just really good text with some images for example in that's going to be insightful that gives great opinion and just kind of like I found that doing even streaming as well once a week really really helps as well we're doing some testing on the streaming on the live stream as well so you know there's some different benefits here you can also play around with some
polls as well but carousels newsletters if you if you if you haven't already done that then do that one of the other thing in terms of best practices as well in order to make sure that you get badges as well is to make sure that your profile is optimized okay what do I mean by that so when you log into LinkedIn okay uh you'll see that if you have an Allstar Pro profile what that basically means is that your profile is completed 100% okay now what I would recommend you do and this is just something
that I would do for best practice is to look at people within your industry that's getting traction on LinkedIn okay and it might even be for people in your industry but look at people that have really good optimiz LinkedIn platforms you know what are they what are some of the words that they're using um what sections of that profile are they filling in one of the things that I found just kind of for Basics right making sure that you've got a profile picture is an absolute 100% must um a background cover which could just kind
of entail a little bit about what you do and also a really strong headline so I specialize in X without whatever it might be okay so you know I always found that by doing that really gives Clarity to the audience about trying to connect with you so they can resonate with you if that makes sense so those three are the absolute basics in and what are also you can do on LinkedIn as well is that you can put up to five keywords within your profile of what you specialize in I think for me it's like
strategy leadership uh entrepreneurship Etc so I I filled in five that's kind of very relevant to me you'll have five which is relevant to you okay so just make sure that you do that now I know that on pre podcast episodes I've done some stuff on LinkedIn optimization and about how you about going and do that what I would suggest you do is go to those podcast episodes and take a listen to one we did we actually we we did a great episode with Scott Aaron uh he's a big here on LinkedIn as well Adam
Honan based over at the Gold Coast in Australia he's a great guy to to also follow from a LinkedIn perspective but I've also done some solo episodes with regards to optimization on LinkedIn as well so make sure that you head over to over to Apple on Spotify and take a listen make sure you get your notebook and Pen handy and you know there's some great value boms from those so really really important so that is just kind of best practices when it comes to LinkedIn all right so that's the blue badge with cover the blue
badge it's By Invitation Only it's not something that you can apply for it's just something that you need to make sure that following the best practices Etc now the other thing that you can do actually depending on what your topic is or your specialism in you can actually create you can actually achieve a goal batch right so it could be for example if you're a lead generation expert right could be top lead generation expert if you're a social media specialist it could be top social media specialist for example if you are a speaker it could
be top motivational speaker whatever it might be okay whatever your specialism is okay so let me give you some best practice tips about how you can achieve a goal badge on LinkedIn because guess what that is that is as good as the blue badge all right let me give you some best practice and how do you go about doing it so the best way to achieve a what we call a light go gold badge um on LinkedIn is by going to what we call collaborative articles all right so you find these on LinkedIn profile through
certain keywords that you might follow so for example if you are in leadership for example there will be a collaborative article or topic should we say on leadership okay so find what those find what those topics are okay and what collaborative articles is they are AI generated articles that you can then give your opinions okay your epiphanies your stories your case studies whatever it might be to give the audience or the reader some insightful aha moments effectively okay so what was going to say to you don't go on to collaborative articles and Blitz it all
out you know and do like six 3 to six hours worth of contribution space it out you know space it out do a you know a couple of contributions every couple of days build it up and then when you uh when LinkedIn sees you as contributing in that particular topic or field for a set period of time and you're in the top kind of 5% I believe it is then they will award you with the gold badge and they will email you and say hey you got the gold badge congratulations now this is not for
life okay it is only for 60 days after 60 days if you have decided that actually you're not going to continue to contribute on collaborative articles you're not going to continue to offer Insight they will take it away okay um so you've got to continue to offer Insight you've got to continue to create content on LinkedIn because LinkedIn loves education uh and inspiring uh on uh organic content on on that on their platform effectively okay so let me give you seven best practices to achieve your goal all right your gold badge okay so first of
all choose the top voices skill there's loads of them listed in the collaborative articles okay so that's the first one number two contribute okay really important to contribute so you know pick a topic it could be anything right it could be how do you use social media to enhance your personal brand for example and it it break it into six sections and then offer some insight offer some uh offer your opinions okay so that's really really important um number three be real what does what do I mean by that so sharing your perspective is extremely
important but also use case studies and kind of give perspective right so what do what do I mean by that is it kind of May enhance when I say by be real it might be to share life experience don't hold back right don't feel like someone's going to copy you okay what you offer is completely unique it's completely subjective and I think it's extremely important to to do that number four contribute to others what do I I mean by contribute to others is basically like share and engage with what other people do okay very very
important um I always find when you contribute to others they'll support you in your cause as well very very important number five be consistent so being consistent you know Mark it in your calendars to say that you're going to do something isn't really going to take up a huge amount of your time in your day to contribute and and add your opinion to a collaborative article to others the aim of the game really is to make sure that you're insightful okay so when you're offering opinions when you're offering your um insights into what you do
in terms of the article whatever it is okay what LinkedIn are looking for is they're looking for people to click on that be insightful button it might be that you might want to you know send it to some interested parties that are following you on LinkedIn and say hey I just contribute towards this article I'd love to get your feedback on it right and if you come from from that perspective it's like okay well yeah I I I you know you you're getting people to click on the be insightful button so the more insightful that
you give to others the more that LinkedIn favors your platform all right so that's really important and number seven once you've got your gold badge ladies and gents shout out about it from the rooftops okay this is a big deal it's a really really really big deal all right so just to summarize in terms of the gold badge so the gold badge you achieve by contributing to collaborative articles okay so I hope that's been insightful and hopefully it's given you some ideologies on how you can achieve your badges on LinkedIn super important by the way
because like I said to you doubling down your personal brand is going to be the difference between you and the competition it's going to be the difference between what helps you stand out what it helps you to you know to to basically see you as the go-to expert in your industry okay and what LinkedIn does is when when you've achieved that badge they actually like to index your profile higher they actually like to Showcase you they sell you effectively okay because you're contributing it's a bit like being in a relationship okay the more that you
contribute the more that you get back okay and no it's not kind of an overnight thing right it takes time it anything takes time so you've got to have this expectation of you know being realistic and also kind of making sure that you haven't set your expectations so high that you believe that it doesn't work trust me this stuff works it really does work um so really really important so listen guys hope that you've enjoyed today's live show um first of all if you have got some value from today feel free free to head over
to buy me a coffee uh I think it's for buy me a coffeethe bus strategist you can buy me a tea and a cup of cup of and a biscuit as we like to call it in the UK if you got some value from today that helps goes towards our production of our podcast if you're not listening to our podcast by the way you're doing yourselves Injustice go over to Apple or Spotify right now go to the business strategist and listen to some of the episodes on there what you'll find is you'll find that there
are some mixtures of uh solo episodes and what we are actually starting to do now is we're having guests on on the show but they're actually strategizing mentoring and coaching me on my own business that can offer you guys Insight okay so it's a really useful um aha kind of uh session so we're beginning we're mixing that up on a weekly basis so hope that helps if if this is the first time you're listening to me as I mentioned to you do me a favor follow me here on LinkedIn if you like my content and
also click on the Bell notification in the top right hand corner you'll be able to see there's a little bell notification and that way you won't be able to miss out so guys listen hope today has been of use I thoroughly enjoyed hanging out with you guys remember if you're listening to me live use the hashtag live and if you listen to me uh the recording use the hashtag replay I would love to hear from you repost this or share this video uh offer a comment engage with me I would love to hear what your
thoughts are and if you are what was uh if you are a top voice on Lon I'd love to hear from you I'd love to follow you as well so and support your ca anyway listen enough from me thank you so much and hopefully we'll see you soon take care speak you soon
