Generating Leads with your Personal Brand ft. Eddie Shleyner

Copywriter (and really-good-newsletters sender) Eddie Shleyner got more than 600+ comments on 9 LinkedIn posts. The amazing response he received is because of the quality and consistency of his posts on LinkedIn and his growing personal brand.

He didn't stop and celebrate there. He did something far more useful with it. We'll get into it later in the blog.

But first let's get some definitions out of the way. You can skip ahead if you're a pro.

What is UGC?

UGC or User Generated Content is...exactly that. It can take the form of people mentioning in their discussions online, creating content about your brand or as a result of a campaign that you're running.

Brands commonly run campaigns to source UGC.

They encourage people to send in pieces of content by sometimes incentivizing them with a price.

Often they'll encourage entrants to use certain hashtags so it's easier to track the campaign.

You can find some great examples of UGC here.

Here's the problem though: it's not easy for small businesses to encourage User Generated Content. They don't have the power and audience that big brands have to kickstart a trend.

That's where Personal Brands come in.

Why is a Personal Brand important?

In the context of LinkedIn, small businesses don't have the commanding presence when they're starting out. Even if they post content regularly, going from 0 to 1000 followers is difficult, especially because your content reaches at most 10% of your Company Page followers.

That's why small businesses are heavily reliant on the people running them. If people know the CEO, they can put a face to the name, they find it easier to trust and support their business.

So smaller businesses, agencies, solopreneurs find it easier to reach an audience when they post through their personal LinkedIn profile.

Strong Personal Brand + UGC = Magic

Eddie spent some time creating a personal brand that people recognize. His business Very Good Copy has become synonymous with his name.

Because he creates good content consistently (his weekly email newsletter + his LinkedIn posts), the organic response is great. There's a lot of UGC eg. people reshare his content, quote him, and tag him.

And even though that's great for visibility on LinkedIn, engagement or interaction isn't an end in itself. Top of the Funnel leads, on the other hand, are.

So Eddie planned and posted 9 copywriting tips on 9 consecutive days, asking people for their tips for copywriting at the end of each post.

These were 600+ pieces of User Generated Content (UGC), and User Generated Content is the Bitcoin of digital marketing. Don't quote me on that.

So he went through the comments carefully, picked out 271 very good ones, and organized them into sections and created a lead magnet!

He promptly called it Wisdom of the Crowd (and it's a really good read!)

Reeling in them leads

He then posted about it on LinkedIn, asking people to like, comment and connect with him to receive the Micro-Course. 1500+ people proceeded to do so.

That's 1500+ Top of the Funnel leads for no cost at all.

That's very goo-excellent.

Want to work on your Personal Brand?

This is the part where I promote our business. Eddie's strategy with Wisdom of the Crowd demonstrates how your personal brand can help you and your business.

We at Willow can help you build your personal brand on LinkedIn. With an endless stream of content relevant for you and post ideas, you'll never have an excuse not to post consistently. And with a consistent stream of posts, your audience will find it difficult to forget you. Let us show you around.