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Look, you can take all the expert advice there is on LinkedIn out there and still fail. Wait, huh? Yep. You can optimize your profile, drop new demos, and churn out value posts until the cows come home, and still high-value clients will ignore you. When it comes to LinkedIn for voice actors, what everyone says is working for them at face value is exactly the thing that could be sinking them. If you're struggling to get momentum on LinkedIn, it's not just you. And here's what really happens when you treat LinkedIn like some sort of gig vending machine rather than the relationship building platform that it really is. Now, before we get rolling this week, we've got our free resource of the week, our free source of the week. And this week, it's our invisible funnel flow chart. It's how savvy voice actors thrive by building real relationships rather than chasing algorithms. It's a free download. And it's available for you now in the show notes and in the description below the video. Now you've heard it a thousand times. Upgrade your LinkedIn profile, add a professional headshot, sprinkle in the right keywords. Now, that advice, and honestly, I give it myself, is quite frankly the low-hanging fruit, the bare minimum. Because having a rock solid LinkedIn profile is like having a great business card that just sits on your desk. I see so many talented voice actors with really great resumes, great credits, obsessing for weeks over their LinkedIn profiles. They have great about sections in their profiles. They have links to solid websites with really good demos, really solid stuff. They post consistently and yet all they have to show for it at the end of the day is an occasional inquiry and really just dozens of connection requests from other voice actors who, at the end of the day, cannot hire them. They're doing everything Right and still getting nothing out of it. Sound familiar? Sure. Regular posting keeps you visible, but if all the engagement you get amounts to nice job from other voice actors, then you're just living in an echo chamber. You're not posting for the people that can actually book you. You're posting for the platform, and that's not going to get you very far. Now there's a distinction here about LinkedIn that I think most people miss. Clients, producers, Casting directors can smell desperation a mile away, like a drop of blood in the ocean for a shark. And too many voice actors use LinkedIn as some sort of cold calling platform. And they pound out instant messages in LinkedIn that reek of hire me, please. But decision makers didn't sign up for LinkedIn to get spammed. They use it for genuine connection and real industry insight. Clients don't want to be somebody's quick sale. They want to get to know you, like you, and yeah. Trust you, people aren't scrolling LinkedIn actively shopping for the next voice actor. They're there to build real connections. So if you can position yourself as a solutions provider and not just some other yokel looking for work, you're gonna stand out more. But if you sound like everybody else, I'm a versatile voice actor ready for any project. You're boring and forgettable. Use LinkedIn to position your unique value proposition, your unique niche. Whether it's medical narration, indie video games, or explainer videos for SaaS startups. People hire specialists, not generalists. And if your positioning is weak on LinkedIn, that not only makes you invisible, it could be actively damaging your career. LinkedIn membership estimates at the time of this video hover around 1.3 billion members, but only about 310 million log on every month, and only about 135 million log on daily. And that gap means that your LinkedIn messages are going to no one in a timely manner three quarters of the time. LinkedIn is great for finding decision makers. It's lousy for reaching out to them. And here's the other distinction that makes a huge difference. LinkedIn is not a great communication platform. It's for filtering for those decision makers, and then once you find them, having the conversation elsewhere. Voice actors with great Client rosters that have a lot of high-value partnerships, they're not living in the DMs, guys. They use it to identify the decision makers, figure out exactly who needs their kind of voice, and then they switch to direct, personal, relevant outreach through email. Why? Because email is where the decision makers are active. Period. Producers, agency folks, production managers, voice buyers of all types use email. To make those final decisions. LinkedIn messages get lost, ignored because the person didn't log on, or filtered out. But a well crafted, personalized email that provides relevance and value and maybe even references a prior LinkedIn connection or post That's goal. Now let me tell you about Kara. Now that's not her real name, but she's a part-time voice actor that I know. And she was to fire off a minimum of about a dozen LinkedIn direct messages per week, and the result was crickets. Then she tried a different approach. She identified three production companies that she wanted to work with. Instead of sending them a pitch, she just started commenting on their posts thoughtfully. Genuinely no sales pitch, just genuine curiosity, genuine encouragement. After about a week, she got a comment back from a producer that she had commented on about an upcoming production project. So Kara sent a brief emphasis on brief, polite email, not asking for work, just saying how much she admired the project. She asked a smart question in the body of the email and she just dropped a link to her corporate narration page. Couple months later, after a little bit of friendly back and forth, Kara gets an audition. And as luck would have it, it was for a corporate anthem. She booked it, and it paid her more than her prior three corporate narrations combined. It wasn't luck, guys. It wasn't something that fell upon her. It was something that she created through patience and relationship building and the courage to just be herself, to just be human. Genuine conversations are what set you apart, especially in an era of AI. Instead of dropping links to your website and your demo landing pages, odd nauseum, ask real, genuine, curious questions. Show up with insights about their industry and their problems and challenges, not your agenda. Congratulate people you'd like to work with on their achievements. This isn't being manipulative, guys, it's just how pros build trust and build relationships long term. Now while we're at it, let's do our own little version of Mythbusters, shall we?

Myth number one: 6:50

posting more means more work. Nope, quality beats quantity. A handful of meaningful conversations or posts with targeted decision makers is worth way more than 30 generic posts nobody ever reads. Myth number two, more LinkedIn connections means more gigs. Nope. A collection of 5,000 voice talent agents. Casting directors, random marketing people means nothing if they're not engaged. Curate your network on LinkedIn intentionally.

And myth number three: 7:20

LinkedIn is just for big shots. Absolutely not. Do you think they'd have 1.3 billion members if they were only for big shots? Smaller studios, independent game developers, smaller boutique marketing agencies, they all spend time on LinkedIn. But the difference is they expect a LinkedIn connection to feel more like a real human interaction and not like a telemarketing call. And to get that connection, that's best done through email. Now here's a smart LinkedIn workflow for voice actors. Number one, yeah, it usually does. It starts with research. Use keywords relevant to the niches in which you work, like explainer, video producer, e-learning content manager, etc. And make a short list of target contacts. Next, connect. With context, if at all possible, reference something that provides context, like a post or a comment or a project that they talked about. And please avoid the would love to connect drivel. Number three, engage publicly, but warm up privately. That means react and comment on their public content. Not like an obsessive psychopath. You're not a stalker, but you do want to come off as a supportive follower. Number four, move it to email once they're warmed up. Once you build some rapport on LinkedIn, then take that conversation off LinkedIn. And reference it in your email. And number five, nurture, don't nag. Regularly provide relevance and value. Share relevant content and why you're sharing it. Celebrate their wins or provide some other sort of useful resource. Instead of, hi, I'm a professional voice actor. Here's my demo. I would love to be considered for your next project. Try something like, Hi Bob, I saw your post on LinkedIn about the campaign you did for brand X. You struck a tone that felt genuine and warm, and that's something I try to do in my own corporate narration. Check out my demos at my website URL. But building your brand doesn't stop at your LinkedIn profile. Yes, you need a solid LinkedIn profile, but clients are not sitting around considering who has the best formatted headline. They want to see that you're credible, professional, and easy to work with, with genuine reactions and posts. More importantly, a clear professional story that shows you're actively involved in their world and understand their challenges and pain points. Not just stalking them for gigs. So on your profile, instead of listing every project, list what you learned from each one. I.e. narrating this medical explainer taught me a lot about technical language and how to narrate it. That kind of stuff builds depth and it attracts the right kind of conversations to you. Remember those numbers? Only one in ten LinkedIn members log in daily. If you're relying on LinkedIn DMs, then that painstakingly well-crafted DM LinkedIn message might be read months or even years from now, if at all. Email lands directly where decision makers are actively working and living in their email inbox. Want to stop failing and start winning? Grab a pen. Six steps. Number one, audit your profile. Make it about how you help. Not just who you are. Number two, research your prospects. Find the people that you want to work with and that you can help. What do they struggle with that you can solve? Number three, be human first, talent second. Comment, question, encourage, but do not pitch cold. Number four, move the conversations to email. That's where real business gets booked. Number five, follow up consistently, but not constantly. Balance persistence with patience. Relationships take time to build, guys. Don't be a stage five clinger. And number six, and maybe most importantly, keep learning. Track what works and track what doesn't. And don't be afraid to ask prospects for feedback. You don't need to out-shout your competition on LinkedIn. You need to outconnect them. The voice actors who level up from part-time to full-time or part-time to more part-time work or level up in any way, they're not living in the direct messages on LinkedIn, guys. They're just not. They're building targeted, real, genuine relationships and then moving those conversations to where the business actually gets done, and that's an email. LinkedIn is just the start. Don't get hypnotized or enthralled with huge numbers and vanity metrics. Focus on the few done very well. Those relationships will transform your career. So if you're ready to get out of your own echo chamber and start booking bigger, better, more consistent gigs, start building real relationships on LinkedIn now. If you found this video helpful, this podcast episode helpful, please like, subscribe, share on YouTube. If you listen to us on the audio podcast, thanks. We'd really love a follow, or if you'd be so kind even to leave us a review, especially on Apple. That would be super helpful. Help us find a lot of other voice actors to help. The more we share opinions, strategies, tactics, and ideas, the better, stronger industry we're gonna have for everybody, our clients and prospects included. Thanks so much and we'll see you back here again real soon. Take care.