The LinkedIn Code – Book Interview

The-LinkedIn-code-coverHeidi Cohen interviews Melonie Dodaro

Q: What’s your best piece of advice for readers looking to improve their marketing?

I’m a big believer in following a 3-step process to improve marketing – education (you don’t know what you don’t know), creating a written plan (have a daily/weekly task list), implementation (nothing happens without this step).

Q: What was the inspiration for your book?

LinkedIn is very different from Facebook, Twitter and other social networks and people are often confused by it. Every day I received numerous questions about how to use LinkedIn. I wrote The LinkedIn Code to provide the education people needed to not only use this platform for lead generation but also show them how to do so efficiently and effectively as well as providing them with an actionable plan they could use to implement it to get real results.

Q: What is the key concept behind your book?

There’s really three concepts behind my book:

  1. Lay the foundation for success with a great LinkedIn profile
    have a strong and clean linkedin profile
  2. Understand what to do and what not to docreate-compelling-content
  3. Create a lead generation plan that can be implemented in as little as 15 minutes a day.

Through all my work with entrepreneurs, professional service providers and sales teams, I’ve found these are the key things they need to know to actually use LinkedIn to generate more leads, prospects and clients.

Q: What do you want readers to take away from your book?

I want them to understand that they don’t need to be techy or a marketing genius to leverage the power of LinkedIn. It’s an easy platform to learn and a powerful one to build relationships on with a targeted audience.

Q: How do you describe yourself professionally?

I’m the no-fluff social social media professional. I show people and organizations how to leverage LinkedIn and social selling to boost visibility, credibility, attract new clients and increase revenue.

Q: What are 1-3 books that inspired your work?

My three favorite business books are Influence: The Power of Persuasion by Robert Cialdini, Start With Why by Simon Sinek and eMyth Revisted by Michael Gerber. They all cover different aspects of business that are so important.

Influence: The Power of Persuasion really helps you understand marketing at a deeper level – what works and what doesn’t and why. Start With Why helps you understand how to differentiate yourself in a crowded marketplace and how to create your messaging to fit the right types of clients you’d like to attract.

The third book, eMyth Revisted, is terrific at helping you to understand the need for systems and processes and how to create an efficient business model. Each of these books have inspired me in my career, my book and my online courses.

Q: What is the biggest challenge that you’ve had to overcome in your life or career?

I’ve had many personal challenges, especially growing up. One big one was that I had never met my dad, I only knew his name and this left me always questioning my identity. Who am I? Fortunately, that all changed on June 2, 2015 when I launched a Facebook campaign to find him, which went viral and received international coverage. I was able to find my dad in only 72 hours.

melonie-and-dad

It was the best day of my life! Here’s just a sample of the media that picked up this story: Huffington Post, ABC World News, CTV News, Global, The Globe and Mail, The Toronto Star.

Q: What’s something unusual or fun that most people don’t know about you?

My long lost dad turned out to be a rock star in the 70’s and 80’s and also a model and in many movies. He now does Elvis impersonations for charity and is a huge Elvis fan, so much so that he named my younger brother and sister…get this…Elvis and Priscilla.

Q: Is there a piece of content, a social media campaign or a marketing campaign that you worked on that you’re particularly proud of?

The social media campaign I am most proud of outside of the one I mentioned in the last question is the one I used to launch my book, which resulted in my book hitting #1 in 12 categories and in three countries (US, Canada, UK) on launch day. This was all done without any paid ads.

the-linkedin-code-on-amazon

Q: Is there anything else that we haven’t covered that you’d like to share?

I want to end with one final piece of advice, this applies not just to LinkedIn but really all social networks. “Don’t just collect connections…build relationships!”

Melonie DolaroContact information

Happy Marketing,
Heidi Cohen

Heidi CohenHeidi Cohen is the President of Riverside Marketing Strategies.
You can find Heidi on , Facebook and .

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