Quality NOT quantity — vanity likes are a waste of time, aim for the right kind of engagement eg a video testimonial from a client explaining exactly why it was a good experience. Asking for help and insights on a business related topic is also a good start so long as you’re not blatantly selling on your posts.
As part of my series of interviews about “How to Use LinkedIn To Dramatically Improve Your Business”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Joyce Ong. Joyce is a Singapore-born business owner living in London. She runs Marketing Tech, which provides online digital transformation courses, and provides design, development of websites and apps, as well as marketing consultancy to SMEs to help them grow. Joyce has a lifetime of marketing/project management experience working for Corporate brands, sits on various eminent London committees as a marketing expert, and is a regular speaker in the City. Her insights are featured in technology and business publications. Topics of interest: digital transformation in SMEs, her transition from a Corporate Expat to Business Owner.
Thank you so much for doing this with us, Joyce! Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?
I’ve always been a marketer in my previous jobs and when I transitioned from a corporate career to running my own business, I was in for a rude shock. Instead of having resources handed down to me, I found myself having to start from scratch and do almost everything myself
Things I took for granted such as building my own website, setting up a mailing list, answering enquiries before I even served my first customer were part of the job of running a startup.
From then on, I realised without making use of the available technology, I would never have been able to run my own business on a shoestring budget. My passion is marrying both marketing with tech, not just any tech but technology that could help small businesses.
Hence my business, Marketing Tech, was born.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started this career?
Once I did a talk for startups at a business hub in London and although 25 registered for the talk, only 2 showed up. Then one person had to leave for some reason and I was left with one attendee at the talk! The organiser felt so bad about it he dragged in a member of staff who pretended to be running a startup and asking loads of questions which, thankfully, kept me going till the end. I only realised who he was, after my talk. Moral of this story: do not attempt to organise a free workshop when the Football World Cup is on!!
Which social media platform have you found to be most effective to use to increase business revenues? Can you share a story from your experience?
LinkedIn, it’s a good search engine for professionals and business owners
Let’s talk about LinkedIn specifically, now. Can you share 5 ways to leverage LinkedIn to dramatically improve your business? Please share a story or example for each.
- Use it to make useful connections eg research people before chatting or meeting them
- Grow your audience by sending an invite to connect after a call / networking / meeting / online lead generation. Personalise your invite by making a reference to where/when you connected. The more connections you make, the more connection requests you’ll get so you’ll find it easier to build your network as you go along.
- If you’re a B2B business, no LinkedIn messaging sequence can replace a call or meeting. Best approach: build real relationships using LinkedIn as a research and messaging tool, with the ultimate aim of taking the conversation offline.
- Quality NOT quantity — vanity likes are a waste of time, aim for the right kind of engagement eg a video testimonial from a client explaining exactly why it was a good experience. Asking for help and insights on a business related topic is also a good start so long as you’re not blatantly selling on your posts.
- Above all, test and if it doesn’t work, stop doing it eg. avoid LinkedIn bots, even though you may use it just for automating LinkedIn connection requests. You’ll run the risk of having your account restricted by LinkedIn.
Because of the position that you are in, you are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
I would love to talk about how we can transition from a corporate career to a business owner and why it’s never too late, with a bit of planning
Some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them 🙂
Seth Godin (marketing guru) or
Russell Brunson (online marketer extraordinaire)
Thank you so much for these great insights. This was very enlightening!
