Where Templated Posts Fall Short

What's in your LinkedIn Year in Review? This is LinkedIn's version of Spotify Wrapped.

Postbag

Should a CTA be included in the headline?

Caryn Yuen

If the CTA is very short and part of a reasonably short overall headline, then that’s OK. Headlines that are too long won’t be read by humans, and if the intention of the text isn’t clear to the AI-powered LinkedIn search, that could do you harm.

How to share achievements

Famey Lockwood

LinkedIn has a new template for an individual to announce an achievement – degree, certification, award, etc. While the post is flashy and eye-catching, the question that I have and don’t understand is where does an individual show the actual document for the achievement? If the document is posted as a comment, the document isn’t always viewed in the feed. In addition, a person can say they have an achievement without actually having the evidence. (I have seen an individual post she had a certification from an organisation that I belong to so I knew the certification did not exist.) So, does LinkedIn want us to say we have an achievement without showing the evidence? There’s too much room for errors.

Check out the Add profile section button on your profile, where you can add relevant items that work better than the templated LinkedIn post:

1. Licenses & certifications
2. Projects
3. Courses
4. Publications
5. Honors & awards

My LinkedIn Year in Review

1. Joined in 2008 (but I wasn't active until 2017)
2. Active for 344 days (most of us got the same)
3. Top 5% (again, most of us got the same)
4. Peak times 10am–7pm (yawn)
5. 1 certificate
6. 634 new connections
7. 1382 connections "on the move"
8. 10K+ profile views
9. 1708 searches completed
10. Most used Premium feature: InMail (no way)
11. 192 posts (public posts only – I've done way more private posts)
12. 9173 reactions
13. 7076 comments
14. 3796 new followers
15. 3300 comments on others' posts
16. 1025 reactions on others' posts (must be more!)
17. 18 reposts
18. Support was my most used reaction after likes
19. I was a "Catalyst" (I've heard of a couple of people with "Amplifier")
20. Gus Bhandal was the person I kept up with most

Make sure you back up your LinkedIn data from time to time. See Mic Adam's analysis of how he uses his data with AI: part 1 and part 2.