Podcircle Podcast

This week, Kyle and Mickenzie continue their series on LinkedIn by welcoming Kristin Cummings, the founder of Virtual COO, to discuss her strategic use of LinkedIn for personal and business branding. They explore how consistent engagement and authentic storytelling can amplify your presence and attract clients. Kristin shares her journey from zero to over 8,000 LinkedIn followers, the importance of supporting others on the platform, and practical tips for optimizing your LinkedIn profile. Whether you're a business owner or a podcaster, this episode offers valuable insights on leveraging LinkedIn for growth.

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Kyle Cummings
Mickenzie Vought

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00:00 Introduction
01:21 Introducing Kristin Cummings
02:23 Kristin's LinkedIn Journey
04:23 Finding Clients and Networking on LinkedIn
07:43 Optimizing Your LinkedIn Profile
09:29 Balancing Personal and Business Pages

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Creators & Guests

Host
Kyle Cummings
Kyle Cummings is the CEO and Founder of Podcircle, a podcast production agency who partners with New York Times bestselling authors, Fortune 500 companies, entrepreneurs, influencers and everyone in between to produce high-impact podcasts.
Host
Mickenzie Vought
Mickenzie Vought is an expert podcast content strategist. She is also the Producer and Co-Host of the Living Centered Podcast, a leading emotional wellness podcast.
Editor
Podcircle
Premium podcast services for busy people and organizations. Visit Podcircle.com to learn more.

What is Podcircle Podcast?

Finally there’s a podcast for podcasters. Each week, join hosts Kyle Cummings and Mickenzie Vought as they share the knowledge and expertise they've gained from years of launching, running, and promoting successful podcasts. Whether you're an aspiring podcaster or you've already got hundreds of episodes under your belt, these conversations dive into the topics that matter to every podcaster — from marketing and growing your podcast, to recording equipment and best practices, monetization, cutting-edge tools, hiring help, and much more.

Kristin Cummings:

I've just found that LinkedIn gives back what you give it. So if you're on there supporting other people, commenting on their things, liking their things, like, it is the cheapest and easiest way to support your friends because a like on their post gets them more eyes. And so the more you're giving, the more people are willing to give to you when you do a launch. The other thing is, obviously, and I know you guys talk about this, but if you're going through the work to make a cast episode, you're writing out, you know, hopefully your content, and you've got a lot of other content that you can use in story form on LinkedIn. Mhmm.

Kristin Cummings:

So it's not just the videos or the images. You can also obviously pull from it and use it in so many different ways.

Kyle Cummings:

Welcome to the Podcircle podcast where we bring practical tips and insights for every podcaster.

Mickenzie Vought:

Whether you're just getting started or you're already a seasoned podcast pro, these episodes dive into all the things that matter most to you. So today we're bringing you another episode all about the power of LinkedIn. So make sure you checked out the first two episodes where we talked about how to utilize LinkedIn both for your personal brand and to grow your podcast. Also, make sure that you're subscribed to our channel on YouTube if that's where you get your podcasts because we post all of our episodes and additional YouTube shorts. So follow along with this episode and catch up on past episodes.

Mickenzie Vought:

So let's jump in for a Podcircle first. We are bringing on an outside expert to help us, and we thought we would bring someone in that we both really enjoy and who has worked hard over the last couple of years to consistently show up and build her LinkedIn presence. So, Kyle, who are we introducing today?

Kyle Cummings:

Yeah. This will be an easy one. I have it on my wife, Kristin Cummings. Again, we've been talking about LinkedIn lately, and I can't talk about or think about LinkedIn without thinking about Kristin because she has really worked hard to grow her presence on there. So I thought, okay.

Kyle Cummings:

Mhmm. We're talking about how LinkedIn can grow your podcast. Why don't we just zoom out a little bit and get some practical tips just on growing a LinkedIn following in general as I think for people that are, you know, Mickenzie and I are very much in the business podcast space.

Kristin Cummings:

Mhmm.

Mickenzie Vought:

I don't

Kyle Cummings:

think that you can have a business podcast without leveraging the power of LinkedIn to grow your podcast, but also just build your business, in general. So welcome, Kristin, to the pod.

Kristin Cummings:

Thank you for having me. It's good to be here.

Kyle Cummings:

Yeah. So give people a little bit of your background just with LinkedIn in general. I'll go ahead and tell people, I think I knew knew you when you had 0 LinkedIn followers, and now you have over 8,000. You hit some big milestones this year. I remember at the beginning of the year, you're like, my goal is at the end of 2024 to have 75100 LinkedIn followers, and I think you just blew past that like a month ago, and we're only halfway through.

Kyle Cummings:

So just give us a little bit of just kinda broad background with your LinkedIn journey.

Kristin Cummings:

Yeah. I definitely undersold myself on my goals this year, but, I feel like like most of us have had a LinkedIn for a really long time. Like, after college, somebody told us we should all get one, so we signed up. Yep. And we made profiles, and then we occasionally got on to look for jobs.

Kristin Cummings:

3 years ago, when we were making a lot of big leaps at the same time, I left my job I had been at for 9 years, started virtual COO of my company. We left to travel full time. I just sort of on a whim, honestly, decided to tell the story on there. It is a much more written driven platform than some of the others. So I was sort of writing out, like, hey, I quit my job without a plan and it resonated with people.

Kristin Cummings:

I did not go into it with a plan. I'll be honest and say that. But it just felt like timing wise, I was leaving. I was starting and looking for client work and why not try on LinkedIn. So I started telling the story of what I was doing very much in real time and it was like a fun outlet.

Kristin Cummings:

I found it to be very supportive. Unlike other channels where you may not get a lot of feedback when you post, I found people to be really kind and, like, tell their stories of quitting a job without a plan, starting a business, you know, giving advice, sending messages. And I met kind of through friends of friends a few of my first clients that way, so I just kept it up. And now we're 3 years later, I've kind of had some ebbs and flows with it, especially being on the road Mhmm. But really decided this year that I wanted to focus on putting a lot of attention there, which is why I've blown past my goal by June.

Mickenzie Vought:

That's incredible. Like, the goal you had for 12 months, you got in 6. That's really, really awesome. What when you say you have found clients there, what has that process looked like and kinda how does your strategy of just telling your story resonate on LinkedIn?

Kristin Cummings:

Yeah. Early on, I always tell folks, like, when you're first starting, a lot of your early clients are people that you know or people that, you know, who introduced you to people. And for me, putting my story out there on LinkedIn was a way that I kind of told everybody in my network about what I was doing and I didn't have a huge network at the time, but it flagged some folks who were kind enough to make introductions for me. So those early clients were all referral based. Most of the folks who have been clients since then, honestly, have been loose referrals, friends of friends, but I have found posting on there keeps you front of mind.

Kristin Cummings:

I have people who turn up and say, hey. I know this company who just lost their COO. I I'm introducing them to you, and it just tends to feel like the more you put yourself out there, people make those connections for you.

Mickenzie Vought:

And even that word networking, it kind of I think a lot of us maybe get a bad taste in our mouth, And I know you to be someone who is very genuine in how you connect with people. So how have you kind of traversed that? And have you found LinkedIn to be a place where authenticity kind of wins out more than maybe some of the other things we might associate with networking?

Kristin Cummings:

I mean, like anywhere else, I feel like there's fluff on LinkedIn and there are people who have grown their networks through being loud and kinda like icky, but there's a lot of folks who I found are just like small businesses, solopreneurs, and they are on there because they want to genuinely build up and talk about the thing that they're doing. They may be scared to do it, but they're, like, here I am. And that platform seems more supportive than some of the others, just my own personal perspective. So for me, networking on there has felt like low risk. Like, you show up at an event or you, you know, start making videos on TikTok, it feels a little more, like, out there.

Kristin Cummings:

So for those of us who might be introverted, it feels like low risk. You can talk about what you're doing, meet other people who are doing the same, and hopefully grow your network.

Kyle Cummings:

Yeah. I'm curious what you like, what advice you would give for, particularly for business owners that have podcasts that are trying to figure out how to leverage LinkedIn. I guess, what have you seen work well and maybe what, you know, what haven't you?

Kristin Cummings:

This probably mirrors what we see in life, but I've just found that LinkedIn gives back what you give it. So if you're on there supporting other people, commenting on their things, liking their things, like, it is the cheapest and easiest way to support your friends because you a like on their post gets them more eyes. It's similar on all platforms, I guess, in that way. But especially on LinkedIn, the way I understand it to work, it's like if you go on there and you like your friend's comment or your friend's content, then more people are seeing it. And so the more you're giving, the more people are willing to give to you when you do a launch.

Kristin Cummings:

And so I feel like that's one way. It's keeping your face in front of people. The other thing is obviously and I know you guys talk about this, but if you're going through the work to make a podcast episode, you're writing out, you know, hopefully your content and you've got a lot of other content that you can use in story form on LinkedIn. Mhmm. So it's not just the videos or the images, you can also obviously pull from it and use it in so

Mickenzie Vought:

many different ways. She's speaking our language, Kyle.

Kyle Cummings:

Oh, no kidding.

Kristin Cummings:

Seen your podcast before.

Mickenzie Vought:

Yeah. I think it's kind of interesting, and I know early on, you kind of made some intentional effort when you decided to lean into the space to kinda optimize your profile and get really strategic and how you were talking about your business even from like, the moment someone sees you or takes that next step to maybe someone that they know that know someone that knows someone liked your stuff, and then they end up on your page. What were some of the tips that maybe you would give us about optimizing your profile once you get someone to go from their feed to your profile in particular?

Kristin Cummings:

So I think the best advice I've read on this is to treat your profile like your own mini sales page. So when somebody shows up, be selling them one thing and make it really clear what they're supposed to do next because they may come just to check out you know, they saw your content, they click on it, make it really obvious. So, like, all the links should go to a call with you and and be, you know, one CTA. So use your header for that. Use your tagline for that.

Kristin Cummings:

Use your featured section. I read a lot. I think early on people were using their featured section to showcase, like, posts that went viral, then that's something I used to do too. Like, oh, look at this post got 800 likes. Okay.

Kristin Cummings:

Well, it was a post about, you know, how I made tea instead of charging my client for that time. It had nothing to do with what I was doing in business. Like, there's no real reason for that to be featured. So I ended up taking all those down in my featured section is all about ways you can get in touch with me and that's it. Very easy, very simple, and very directive like, you've read my profile for some reason.

Kristin Cummings:

If you wanna take the next step, here's, you know, maybe 2 or 3 options, but not 10 options, not more content, just a few ways you can get in touch with me.

Mickenzie Vought:

I love the simplicity of that. And the other curiosity I have is you said you started virtual COO 3 years ago. Do you also have a virtual COO page in addition to your Kristin Cummings page? And how do you balance those 2? We talked a little bit about it in our first episode, but I'd love to hear from you.

Kristin Cummings:

Yeah. So I do have a virtual COO page, and I do tag it. So anytime I talk about my business, I tag it, and I find that naturally it gets followers. I personally have gone all in on my own personal brand page. I have felt like it is more, like, approachable.

Kristin Cummings:

It's person to person contact versus if I'm posting content from my company page, it's a little, little just less approachable. People are not commenting as much. They may like it, but it's not as much engagement. So I tag that page a lot. It has grown somewhat organically.

Kristin Cummings:

When I created it, I, you know, made a fun announcement. Every now and then, talk about it or put a post there. But I really have focused on growing my own page and then linking back to it.

Mickenzie Vought:

That's great advice.

Kyle Cummings:

What do you think is the value? Because you've had so much success building your personal page. What would you say is the value of a of a business page or a brand page?

Kristin Cummings:

I still think there's value there because when you I always just think of it. This is such simple marketing, but what I do when I go to look up a company, which is I might see them as a person and then I go click on their company profile and it adds that trust. It builds some trust. It builds their expertise. There may be slightly less personal but more professional like versions of a case study or, you know, I think of it as showcasing what they actually do.

Kristin Cummings:

So for me, although mine is probably not a perfect example of this because I don't focus on it as much, but I still feel like it adds that value of, like, a legitimate company. You can see other people who are following it. You can see maybe an example of their services. So for that, I think there's a lot of value.

Mickenzie Vought:

Yeah. And I like the idea that if you are an organization that has a lot of employees, then if you've got your business page, you can really activate your employees to talk about you and to kind of be mouthpieces and representation for you in the same way that you are for your brand. Think it's just continuing to make advocates of your employees, and then you can kinda point back. So that's really cool. Absolutely.

Mickenzie Vought:

As we are rounding out this episode, I think what you are bringing for business owners is so important and needed in this space, especially for those who are kind of on the front end of that growth. And so I wonder if you could tell people where they can find you and how maybe you see virtual COO partnering with them.

Kristin Cummings:

Yeah. Of course. So my favorite place to talk is on LinkedIn, actually. Kristin Cummings, and it's Kristin with an I n, which feels, important to me.

Kyle Cummings:

N with a k and not a c h.

Kristin Cummings:

Yeah. That's true. But that's where I like to talk to people. That's where I like to meet other business owners, business leaders, podcasters, and I'd love to chat there. That's also where I talk a lot about what I do at Virtual COO as a fractional COO and have a fun August challenge coming up anybody wants to join.

Kyle Cummings:

Well, thanks for joining us, from the room over, and I really appreciate your expertise. It's been really fun and just cool to see how you have so intentionally grown that LinkedIn audience and that you just the way you just share your knowledge and expertise and just our life, our our two and a half years on the road, I think was a big a big inspiration for for people. It was it was fun to see people reach out to you and just be like, how, you know, how do we do kinda what you and your your small family did? So cool how you nurtured that and, honestly, just the dedication of just posting. I mean, for how many for how long did you say I'm gonna post every day?

Kristin Cummings:

This year, when I really said I wanna double down on this, I started in January and said I'm gonna post every day for 3 months as an experiment to learn, like, what days are best for me, what days I get best response, what days, like, my people are on there and we're talking. And so I did every day for 3 months. My network grew a lot during that time, and I did learn a lot about what works for me, what doesn't. Some people love weekends. I did not love posting on weekends.

Mickenzie Vought:

I I love the testing.

Kyle Cummings:

Yeah. Totally. And, so thanks again for joining us. I know this is kind of a LinkedIn heavy podcast, but, if you have any questions or you're thinking about starting a podcast, maybe you're a business owner, maybe you're finding this on LinkedIn because we'll certainly post it up there, and you would have some conversations around what podcasting can do for your business and your brand, I would love for you to reach out. You can either if you're finding me on LinkedIn, I'm at Kyle Cummings, or you can find the Podcircle page, or you can simply email me at kyle@podcircle.com, and we'll see you next week.