Informed: the podcast for LinkedIn® users
John Espirian
"Informed" is for you if you'd like to understand more about how LinkedIn works so that you can be an effective user of the platform.
It's hard to know whom to believe with so many self-appointed gurus out there telling you the latest hacks for going viral and earning 7-figure deals. And even LinkedIn's own publications often don't speak to the reality of using the platform.
But for those who see past superficial promises and sanitised reports, this podcast provides evidence and thoughtful opinion. With a track record of more than 10 years of sensible, no-nonsense advice about honest best practice for LinkedIn, Informed is a trusted source of insight by many thousands of regular listeners.
The show was created by Mark Williams, who's affectionately known as "Mr LinkedIn". Mark retired in late 2025 and handed over the reins of the show to John Espirian, the relentlessly helpful® LinkedIn nerd. John is a LinkedIn trainer and consultant, the founder of the Espresso+ community, the creator of the UpLift Live conference (the UK's original event dedicated to LinkedIn best practice), and the author of the personal branding handbook Content DNA.
John's reputation is for getting to the point and for not being a salesy douche canoe, so you can expect short, sharp episodes with zero ads or sponsored slots. This also is NOT an interview show, so if you've read this far then please don't pitch yourself for a guest appearance. However, you're welcome to get in touch if you have a LinkedIn question you'd like John to cover on the show. (To do that, search for the "Informed podcast" company page on LinkedIn and send a message.)
This podcast is not affiliated with, endorsed by or approved by the LinkedIn® corporation. John Espirian is an independent trainer and does not work for LinkedIn® – while it would be great to have LinkedIn's endorsement, the show's independence from the corporation means you, the listener, are never fed an airbrushed political spiel.
It's hard to know whom to believe with so many self-appointed gurus out there telling you the latest hacks for going viral and earning 7-figure deals. And even LinkedIn's own publications often don't speak to the reality of using the platform.
But for those who see past superficial promises and sanitised reports, this podcast provides evidence and thoughtful opinion. With a track record of more than 10 years of sensible, no-nonsense advice about honest best practice for LinkedIn, Informed is a trusted source of insight by many thousands of regular listeners.
The show was created by Mark Williams, who's affectionately known as "Mr LinkedIn". Mark retired in late 2025 and handed over the reins of the show to John Espirian, the relentlessly helpful® LinkedIn nerd. John is a LinkedIn trainer and consultant, the founder of the Espresso+ community, the creator of the UpLift Live conference (the UK's original event dedicated to LinkedIn best practice), and the author of the personal branding handbook Content DNA.
John's reputation is for getting to the point and for not being a salesy douche canoe, so you can expect short, sharp episodes with zero ads or sponsored slots. This also is NOT an interview show, so if you've read this far then please don't pitch yourself for a guest appearance. However, you're welcome to get in touch if you have a LinkedIn question you'd like John to cover on the show. (To do that, search for the "Informed podcast" company page on LinkedIn and send a message.)
This podcast is not affiliated with, endorsed by or approved by the LinkedIn® corporation. John Espirian is an independent trainer and does not work for LinkedIn® – while it would be great to have LinkedIn's endorsement, the show's independence from the corporation means you, the listener, are never fed an airbrushed political spiel.
Episodes
Mentioned books
Oct 19, 2019 • 57min
New Features for Pages
Welcome to episode 266. So the time has finally come, I’ve been waiting in nervous anticipation for this for months and finally, LinkedIn have announced their new company page features. It, therefore, makes sense to focus on them this week although I will also continue with the series on LinkedIn settings.Mentioned in this episode:This show was created by the original host of the show, Mark Williams.
Oct 12, 2019 • 1h 6min
How To Go Viral On LinkedIn
Welcome to a new and special episode on LinkedInformed. A shift from the normal format, this week I’m chatting with Scott Millward, the Marketing Director of Matt Burton Associates. Scott only started posting on LinkedIn in February 2019 and in a matter of months he was producing posts that went viral. How did he manage to do that so quickly? Prior to our interview I checked back and counted the average engagement he received on his last 10 posts; Reactions (Likes etc) – 1289/post Comments – 193/post In this fascinating interview, Scott reveals the techniques he has utilised to gain this level of success – enjoy!Mentioned in this episode:This show was created by the original host of the show, Mark Williams.
Oct 5, 2019 • 1h 4min
Settings 3 - Privacy part 2
Welcome to this weeks fill of LinkedIn news and information. In this episode, I continue to cover Privacy and settings but before that……. Interesting Stuff I Saw This Week A LinkedIn Video Experiment: Does Native Video Drive Reach for Salespeople? LinkedIn Announces Updates to Talent Solutions: Benefits for Recruiters Best of LinkedIn Pages 2019: Nominations Are Now Open! For the rest of the notes go to http://linkedinformed.com/episode264/Mentioned in this episode:This show was created by the original host of the show, Mark Williams.
Sep 28, 2019 • 1h 1min
Settings Part 2 - Privacy
Welcome to LinkedInformed 263. This week I continue with my tutorial on settings with probably the most important section of all - Privacy But before that... Go to http://linkedinformed.com/episode263/ for the full notesMentioned in this episode:This show was created by the original host of the show, Mark Williams.
Sep 21, 2019 • 1h 6min
Settings & Stuff
Welcome to episode 262, I hope you had a great week. I thought I would cover a more educational topic this week by going through a very important but often ignored part of LinkedIn – your settings! Once I started recording I realised this was far too big a subject to cover in one episode so I will break it down across 3 or 4 episodes. This week I’m covering the Account settings. Also covered; The Linked Inn in Grimsby Have LinkedIn dumped one of Sales Navigators best features? New features (they don't all work properly) New items in our feeds Why do Document posts achieve higher views? Post of the week Are hashtags really worth bothering with? Mentioned in this episode:This show was created by the original host of the show, Mark Williams.
Sep 14, 2019 • 60min
Has Long Form Content Had It’s Day?
Hello and welcome, I’m back from my week away in San Francisco and I can tell you that my Find Nearby experiment yielded zero results! I had it on the whole time I was there and I checked it several times in busy places but never once saw anyone nearby! How disappointing! This week I want to return to Articles which we have covered recently but a listener highlighted an Article on LinkedIn about long-form content and I really felt I should counter it with a different perspective. Firstly let me be clear……I definitely don’t believe long-form content is dead or even dying, I just think people need to recalibrate how they use it. Anyway more of that later Continued at http://linkedinformed.com/episode261/Mentioned in this episode:This show was created by the original host of the show, Mark Williams.
Aug 31, 2019 • 1h 5min
When is it OK to copy content?
Welcome to episode 260 which has been inspired by two separate incidents that occurred this week. Firstly I had a session with a client who was really struggling to come up with ideas for content – I recommended she should start by using other peoples posts as inspiration to create similar posts. Secondly, a friend found out that someone had been copying his content – word for word, A clear example of plagiarism. This got me thinking about the differences between the two and where the line of acceptable practice sits. More of that later…Mentioned in this episode:This show was created by the original host of the show, Mark Williams.
Aug 24, 2019 • 1h
Engaging Your Followers
Welcome to episode 259. It’s great to have followers but to increase the visibility of our posts we need to get more of them to engage. This isn’t just about what we write but also about how we treat our followers, especially new ones! This week my main focus is on my new (and not fully tested) engagement blueprint. I have covered elements of it before but the extra part that I want to focus on in this episode techniques to get our followers more engagement.Mentioned in this episode:This show was created by the original host of the show, Mark Williams.
Aug 10, 2019 • 1h 3min
Likes vs Comments
Welcome to episode 258. We all know that post engagement is crucial for you to become visible on LinkedIn but not all ‘engagement’ types are equal. We know shares are pretty useless to you but what about Likes and Comments. Which one is best? Following some interesting research I saw this week, I thought that would be an interesting topic to explore.Mentioned in this episode:This show was created by the original host of the show, Mark Williams.
Aug 3, 2019 • 60min
Where is all the great content?
Welcome to episode 257 where this week I want to cover a really important aspect of using LinkedIn in a productive and successful way… finding great content! As usual with LinkedIn, we have an algorithm that makes choices (often the wrong ones) for us but we can take actions to help us find and engage with the best content. Also covered in this episode; Main LinkedIn automation bot recommends it’s users to stop using it before their accounts get closed down! Another story about a fake account, easily created due to poor LinkedIn design that was used to con financial journalists A LinkedIn bug that allowed a fake job to be posted – CEO of Google! LinkedIn will be moving its servers to the cloud! Why is your post trending and is it something to celebrate? What exactly is a ‘Top’ comment? Do hashtags in comments count? Post of the week. A video post with over 350 Likes, 200 comments and over 17,000 views Question – Can you see the activity from someone from when they were blocked (after you unblock them) Mentioned in this episode:This show was created by the original host of the show, Mark Williams.
