Informed: the podcast for LinkedIn® users

Welcome to episode 199. Well what an amazing response we had to last weeks debate with John Nemo about LinkedIn automation! One of the key points that came out of episode 197 is that myself and John have very different ways of generating business and many of you wanted to know more about my way of using LinkedIn to generate 95% of my business without the need to play the numbers game. So that is going to be the main theme of this episode. But first….. Interesting Stuff I Saw This WeekIntroducing Salary Insights on Jobs LinkedInfluenceI received this question prior to last weeks episode and I thunk it hits on a really important questionI enjoy John’s (Nemo) podcasts too and find them to be useful. He also believes in providing value which aligns well with your strategy and what I believe in. That said, on the providing value yet pushy scale, John is totally different from you which is why I appreciate your style a lot more. The question for you though is how does one avoid being pushy like John, provides value like you both do, but also builds a solid bridge to the services that are provided by you and/or your organization. For example I have now downloaded and heard at least 20+ of your past episodes. I love them! I love your style. However I am not sure what you do besides some LinkedIn workshops which you have very briefly mentioned on your podcast. Of course I know I can go on your web site and find out, but isn’t that a lost opportunity? If I run into someone tomorrow that needs services you can provide but I don’t know about them, wouldn’t that be a loss for you?The reason I ask is that I have also approached my networking in person with the same mentality. I have for years provided lots of value to people in the business community here in Washington DC. They love me and the relationships are strong. But I am not sure most would know what opportunities to pass on to me. Of course that’s why I am getting more active on LinkedIn and working on content generation but also find somethings John talks about to be appealing. Eg automating messages to contacts...which add value and lead them to more ‘sales’ options. Anyway, just a thought about balance on the spectrum of ‘pushy ness’ and how you build an effective bridge to sales for people that see you as a credible resource So I thought it would be a good idea to go through my recommended approach to winning business on LinkedIn. Some aspects of this are not related to LinkedIn but nonetheless, very importantDefine your product or service and it’s target audience (customer avatar) Focus this down to something very specific - the more niche the better. Be brave - don’t worry your market will be too limited, the more niche, the better. Your most effective marketing tool is the quality of what you do. Spend time and money on; Personal development and training The best quality equipment Practice hard and perfect your product Innovate. Make your product unique in your market Put together a clear and thorough content strategy (not just limited to LinkedIn) Video Written Audio Images Get active on LinkedIn in the following areas; Topics - define five key topics that are relevant and interesting to your customer avatar. Search for people who are though leaders and experts in each of these five topics. Follow and in time, connect with them. Search for content in each of these five topic areas and follow anyone who is posting about these topics Engage. Like and comment on posts from 2 & 3 above. Jump right in and get involved. This will raise your visibility in relevant communities. Post. The aim of posting is to draw people into commenting - this is where the magic happens! Posts that resonate are often light natured (see image below).Go deeper. As you engage with relevant people (not just potential customers) selectively take it to the next level by suggesting meeting for a coffee or via a Skype/Zoom call. Your aim is to become well known as; Knowledgeable in your niche subject Interesting and thought provoking Helpful and generous A book you might find interestingMentioned in this episode:This show was created by the original host of the show, Mark Williams.

Welcome to episode 198, this week I have a real treat for you! As I have mentioned previously, I wanted to revisit the controversial subject of LinkedIn automation. LinkedIn make it very clear they do not approve of the use of any type of automation bot as you can see in the image above which was received by someone after visiting just 100 profiles in a day…..but does that mean we should avoid them? Could they be a useful tool that help us become more productive and successful?I have thought about this a lot and my conclusion is that automation tools are a bad thing for all of us and the more they are used, the less effective LinkedIn will become.Darrel Griffin agreesBut not everyone sees it that way…..enter John Nemo!John is a LinkedIn trainer and a big fan of automation on LinkedIn so I thought it would be fun to get him on the show and have a good old debate!We get into all sorts of areas during our discussion and I’m not going to even attempt to cover everything here, you will have to listen to the episode but in short;John believes In Permission Based Marketing. Contact people via direct message and ask them if they are interested. If they say “No thanks” then that is fine, move on. Most people are not active on LinkedIn so direct messaging has to be a numbers game. Automated of connecting and messaging saves you time and acts as a filter - eliminating those that are not active or not interested. In not wasting time with ‘Tyre (tire) kicking people, it’s better to focus on those that are likely to buy. If LinkedIn is ruined by automation then so be it, people will move to another platform and we can follow them there. Quote “Marketers ruin everything” - Gary Vaynerchuck Whilst LinkedIn are not supportive of 3rd party tools, they are mainly against scraping tools, not automation.I believe Visibility, reputation and relationships are the key to winning business. By putting your time an effort into engagement on LinkedIn via Posts, Articles and comments (not direct messaging) you also filter out those that are not active on LinkedIn When you play the numbers game you are likely to put many more people off than you attract, this is damaging to you in the long term although may be more rewarding in the short term. I will help anyone, including so called ‘tyre kicker’s because I believe that ‘giving’ in this way will gain me more visibility and build better relationships - this strategy means that 95% of my business comes to me and I do very little traditional ‘business development’. Automation is a numbers game, for every 5 positive responses there are 95 negative, not all of these will be annoyed and very few will actually complain but a decent percentage of these become tired of being ‘hit on’ - no matter how politely it is done. LinkedIn has become an amazing business resource but automation will ruin it because these tools will be extensively used by people who misuse hem and this will result in the people we wish to do business with, switching off or even closing their accounts. We can’t afford to let LinkedIn deteriorate in this way. Using automation tools is highly risky, the chances of getting your account suspended are increasing all the time. LinkedIn are very keen to stop the use of automation tools, not just scraping tools. John referred to an article he wrote about his method which you can read here; https://www.inc.com/john-nemo/1-simple-strategy-that-will-skyrocket-your-engagement-on-linkedin.htmlI personally wouldn’t recommend that strategy……but that is entirely up to you!So what do you think?Please get in touch and let me have your views. Send me a voicemail or drop me an email to mark@linkedinformed.comMentioned in this episode:This show was created by the original host of the show, Mark Williams.

Welcome to episode 197, I’m back and it’s just me this week.Someone alerted me to a shocking issue regarding invitations to connect this week and it got me thinking about the ineffective way that LinkedIn introduce new features. It seems that introduce features on a slow roll-out and rely on their users to report issues…..but what if we don’t or aren’t able to spot a problem…….based on the evidence of this week, it appears that such issues just remain until someone does report it. …..and that is simply not good enough!More of that later but as usual I scanned the internet to find any interesting articles about Linkedin, I found a few but it has been noticeable this year that LinkedIn’s own blog seems to be focussed mainly on job seekers - very few LinkedIn users are looking for jobs so why are Linkedin writing virtually all their blog articles for jobseekers? So far this year on LinkedIn’s main blog 9/10 (and the last 9) have been jobseeker focused! Interesting Stuff I Saw This WeekPeople Still Spend an Insane Amount of Time on Facebook, But Trust it Much Less than LinkedIn Results from a report released by Business Insider I’m not sure how people it interpret ‘Safe to participate or post’ but LinkedIn was by far the most trusted with 48% of the votes (Facebook was 2nd with 24%). LinkedIn is clearly seen as more reliable for ‘real’ content and a place where you will get less abuse This is good news for LinkedIn ads Six Ways Millennials Can Take LinkedIn To The Next Level Interesting article, not just relevant to millennials Number 1 is ‘Make it fun’ - this is such good advice. Yuck! to CV style profiles! Activity (inc post searching) is great advice Number 6 (stop being cheap) is unrealistic and unnecessary for most Remember LinkedIn? A year on from the $27bn Microsoft takeover - was it worth it? Very little has changed on LinkedIn - as they said would be the case at the time of the takeover! LinkedIns revenue is growing ($1.3bn in the quarter) Microsoft say that LinkedIn is “performing better than we expected, and I think today we would even say it's a more strategic asset than we even maybe thought a year ago.”#LinkedInLocalI will be attending three Linkedin local events in the next month or so; Aberdeen 22nd February Manchester 14th March Warrington 15th March (this has changed from the 8th as stated in the show)The #LinkedInLocal concept is really taking off with an amazing 48 events happening in February and March across the world including Bristol, Leeds, San Francisco, Paris, Las Vegas, Edinburgh and Lahore to name a fewTo find an event in your area go to https://linkedlocally.com/explore/ Post of the WeekA great video post from José Chávez-Ruz that hits the mark for being relevant, interesting and highly shareable. New FeatureLinkedIn are improving the skills endorsements feature (mobile only at the moment).Now when you endorse a skill you are asked to grade the levelAnd then give it some contextIn addition you can now see the actual number of endorsements on mobile, rather than the previous 99+Will this make skill endorsements relevant? I very much doubt it - too little too late, endorsements are not taken seriously because previously they were too easy to give. Adding the extra steps to endorse does make them more credible but you can’t separate the new ones from the old ones! I personally think this is a tactic to stop those ridiculous ‘Auto-endorse’ bots that are becoming popular…….more of that subject next week when I will be debating LinkedIn automation with John Nemo. If you have any thoughts or questions about automation, please get in touch as soon as possible. Your Personalised mobile invitations have not been sent!I was truly shocked to find this out this week - thanks to an eagle eyed connection who spotted it. For years I have been encouraging people to personalise their invitations to connect on mobile by using the 3 dot ‘More’ menu rather than the blue Connect button. It would appear that this invitation (the actual invitation, not just the message) have not been sent!! I have no idea how long this has been the case……quite possibly since it was added as a new feature (years ago). The problem seems to be mainly on the iOS app although a few Android users are experiencing the same issue. You wouldn’t know there is a problem as it states the invitation has been sent but when you check your sent invitations, it does not show and I have confirmed on 4 occasions now that the recipient does not receive anything!! Outrageous!This is, I believe a direct result of LinkedIns ridiculous feature launch policy that appears to involve zero testing or quality control and relies 100% on the user reporting a problem……but what is the user is unable or highly unlikely to spot the fault?It’s time that LinkedIn stopped letting their members down and implemented a proper, thorough quality control testing procedure.Do you agree?“How do I stop those irritating badge posts from LinkedIn appearing on the left of my screen while I'm working? The ones which talk about how it bases choices it offers me on my interests or posts or some such nonsense. I've only really noticed them this week”ANSWER This would appear to be an early release of a new notification. It is not possible to stop these types of pop-ups but you can give feedback to LinkedIn that you find them irritating and perhaps they will think twice about rolling it out further.Mentioned in this episode:This show was created by the original host of the show, Mark Williams.

Welcome to episode 196, this week I chat with personal branding expert Jennifer Holloway about the article that LinkedIn bring out every year highlighting the most used words in LinkedIn profiles.Click on the image above to view the full articleTakeaways from our chatSome words (such as passionate) are overused in profiles without much thought going into whether they are true or not A better way to interpret this list is not to avoid the words as such but to demonstrate that you are ‘passionate’ or ‘motivated’ by the way you describe what you do. Let the reader make the conclusion themselves. Storytelling can be a great way to demonstrate qualities without having to directly tell someone you are an ‘expert, ’strategic’ or ‘creative’ Are you using a buzzword because it is one you commonly use or are you just falling into the trap of using it for the sake of it? Jennifers advice on writing a LinkedIn summary; Show credibility with hard facts Explain your personal brand by explaining what drives you and explaining your values Give the reader a ‘relationship hook’ - something about you that reveals your personality and allows for a more personal connection. LinkedIn profile headlines are still the most keyword sensitive part of your profile but only jobseekers need to be highly focused on profile optimisation. Never make personal statements without answering Janet Morans questions ‘So What and Says who?!’ A good technique to use if you are struggling to write your profile summary is to get a friend to write if you - this won’t be what you will use but it can really help to get you started. Thanks again to Jennifer for her time and ideas. You can find out more about her from her LinkedIn profile (link in image above) or by going to her website https://www.jennifer-holloway.co.uk/This weeks question comes from Mahan Tavakoli“Hi Mark, I am a newer listener to your podcast and really enjoying the content and your style.  So much so that I have downloaded all available past episodes from ITunes and going through them one at a time. Anyway, I have a question and not sure if you have addressed this before or not.  If it fits what you are looking to cover on the Podcast, I would love to hear your thoughts about it.  I am writing a series of articles (on leadership and organizational development).  Should I first publish them on LinkedIn and then on Medium and put on my blog… or should I publish them elsewhere and post links in LinkedIn or is an all of the above strategy viable?   Most of my target audience is on LinkedIn but want to know your thoughts about best approach to a blog posting strategy.”   My advice is that you are probably best posting your content as an article and on your blog at the same time. Your latest Article becomes a part of your profile and has a longer shelf life than a post. You will need to promote your article via engaging and interesting posts - not just ‘have a read of my article’ - try to introduce the subject matter and ask questions to start a conversation. You can refer to the article with a link but the post needs to resonate with people in its own right. Never try to promote your external blog via LinkedIn, it simply won’t work as the algorithm will suppress the distribution of any post containing an external link.Mentioned in this episode:This show was created by the original host of the show, Mark Williams.

Welcome to episode 195, I had planned to cover a different subject (The dangers of automation - let me know your thoughts on that!) this week but then I got an excellent voicemail question from Giles about the differences between following and connecting and decided to cover that subject in more detail.But before that…… Interesting Stuff I Saw This WeekFind the Right Words to Land the Right Job More on this in next weeks episode! The Most Popular Jobs and Companies for College Graduates The top job is also the highest pay! ($95k) Insight Global - a fast growing IT recruitment business Why I changed my LinkedIn profile from Andrea to Andrew She was taken more seriously and less patronised when a man! The algorithm started suggesting connections to higher level men at well-recognised companies. Fascinating experiment …..could be worth a try! LinkedIn Updates Have you noticed the new font? Summaries and headlines may need to be adjusted. New changes to groups may be having some positive impact on groups One manager reports a 10x increase in engagement Unfortunately the changes seemed to have messed up all other notifications! You can now see your own activity in one click, rather than having to go to your profileLinkedIn are clearing ‘moving the furniture’ on desktop at the moment, so many things are not working - especially @mentions and notifications. I also found that only half the comments on one of my posts were showing when I checked on mobile. Suggest you keep an eye on mobile at the moment until things settle down. Connecting and FollowingAs I mentioned, this subject was instigated by a question I received from Giles; Definition: Following someone means that you could see their content and activity in your feed (articles, posts, shares, likes and comments). You can follow anyone on LinkedIn provided their setting allow this.You can follow up to 5000 people who are not your connections. To follow someone simply click on the 3 dot ‘More’ menu at the top of their profile or look for the Follow button on the Activity section of their profile.ConnectingA connection is a follower and someone you follow by default. You can unfollow a connection at anytime from the ‘More’ menu. You are allowed up to 30,000 connections.The difference with a connection is that, as well as their activity you are able to see and filter their connections (dependant on their setting), send messages and see their full contact info including their primary email address.Now to Giles questionFirstly let me address the question of blocking.This is the only way you can prevent him from following you He will not be alerted to being blocked He will then not be able to find you on LinkedIn, or vice versa The bigger question is whether a competitor following you is a problem or not?What harm can come from him seeing your activity - assuming you are not giving away commercially sensitive information? Following you may make him realise he is way behind and may, in some way intimidate him. A greater threat would come if he started commenting and engaging with your postsThis brings up a wider point;The ethics of competition on LinkedIn;Is it ethical to provide advice and demonstrate your knowledge on a competitors post? Should you ever ask for a competitors view via an @mention?When to follow and NOT connectA complete stranger whose content you find interesting A competitor A prospect or intermediary who you wish to engage withObviously 1 and 3 may be pre-cursors to connecting.Following has been around on LinkedIn for years but still most people just connect, it’s beginning to be understood better but we still have a way to go. When I talk with people who are more familiar with other social networks, I explain the mechanics of LinkedIn as being like a blend of Twitter, where you follow and Facebook where you connect (friend). On LinkedIn you can do either! This weeks question is also about following and comes from Nigel Willis Nigels first question refers to following Influencers such as Bill gates. Influencers have become known for posting some decent content but never engaging with comments, this somewhat flies in the face of the point of content in my opinion! I’m not surprised you want to unfollow Bill and as far as I know it will not cause you any issues with the algorithm. In terms of the second question. You can’t specify that you wish to see a certain type of content from someone that you are following but you can select to follow topics. Unfortunately LinkedIn do not allow us to see a list of Topics, we have to wait for them to suggest them although searching for content can often trigger the algorithm to suggest a Topic relevant to that search. You can also unfollow people to clean up your feed You can also search for content and follow people who write about subjects that interest you.Mentioned in this episode:This show was created by the original host of the show, Mark Williams.

Welcome to episode 194, this week I have a chat with my friend and fellow LinkedIn trainer/consultant Sandra Long about personal branding.Interesting Stuff I Saw This Week LinkedIn Announce some changes to groupsI have mentioned previously that I’m aware that LinkedIn are currently working on a project to improve groups and this week they sent out a communication advising of several changes that will happen soon. I think most people have been sent it but in case you didn’t see it;My thoughts; Accessing groups from the homepage is a welcome move but lets be clear, this is just a roll back to how it used to be! Including group conversations in the feed is also nothing new. This one concerns me in that most activity in groups is useless broadcasting as well as spam so this could actually be a negative thing for members homepage feeds! Posting videos is great news. No surprise either as it has been a success on the home page and the ability to @mention (assuming it works!) is a positive step. Retirement of the iOS Groups app. I’m not sure how this will improve the use of groups….taking away an app is not exactly moving forward! You have always been able to access groups from the main app anyway (Android users have always had to do it that way) Maybe LinkedIn felt it was necessary to release this information now in light of the recent Facebook summit where groups were mentioned but I have to say, these changes are somewhat underwhelming! I’m sure this is really just the start of the groups design. I’m disappointed because I felt they needed to scrap groups altogether and start again from scratch. Getting members back engaging in groups is going to be very hard because most members have just written them off. LinkedIn quote: “Additional notifications, groups posts in feed, video posts, @mentions and replies to comments have been announced because those are the items for which we have a decent sense of the timeline. But it is definitely not an exhaustive list of the work we're doing to improve Groups” Let’s hope that the next announcements are more exciting! Personal BrandingThis week I had a chat with LinkedIn expert Sandra Long. Personal branding was one of my predictions for 2018 covered in episode 192 and a subject I believe to be very important to all of us. I even covered it briefly in the first ever episode of LinkedInformed when I introduced ‘Personal Branding for Brits’ author Jennifer HollowayKey takeawaysTom Peters article The Brand Called You which is still just as relevant today as when it was written in 1997! Social media really allows us to craft an image that we want to portray. This has many advantages but also creates an authenticity challenge. Social media has blended our social and professional lives. This creates a question as to how ‘open’ we want to be with business contacts about our personal lives. 40% of people don’t know how to describe what they do…and those are just the hard facts, never mind describing your character! The best way to describe what you do is to be very specific - broad, ‘jack of all trades’ profiles rarely work for you. In terms of character - what makes you unique? You can display this information in a variety of different sections of your LinkedIn profile. It can help to define a ‘persona’ when writing your LinkedIn summary - Sandra’s book gives plenty of persona examples and has a list of questions that can help define your persona. This also impacts corporate brands as many organisations are now realising that they are in reality, a collective of many personal brands and this can be a very powerful. It is however really important to be authentic to your own brand and this needs to align, for the most part with the corporate brand you are representing. Your activity on LinkedIn should also be in line with your brand. If your brand is genuine then this should not be difficult! It’s often a good test on whether your brand image is right. Posting should never be self-promotional. Thought leadership, being helpful and contributing to the LinkedIn community by developing conversations is the best way to ‘stay on brand’ - your profile should clearly explain what you do. Final word from Sandra: Take the time to really think through who you are and your ‘brand elements’ before you start to write your profile Mentioned in this episode:This show was created by the original host of the show, Mark Williams.

Welcome to episode 193 and a very happy and prosperous new year to you all. I trust everyone had a fantastic break over Christmas.Towards the end of last year I conducted a survey of LinkedIn users to see how behaviour had changed on LinkedIn. I had a sense that the results would be interesting……and I wasn’t disappointed!In this episode I will go through the results with you but before that…. Interesting Stuff I Saw This Week LinkedOut: The 7 Stages of Grieving a Breakup LinkedOut Update: what to do if your account is restricted?New LinkedIn FeatureInvitation Sorting You can now sort your received invitations. This is probably only going to be useful for people that get a lot of invites or get behind with dealing with them but it’s good to see an improvement anyway.I think an additional catergory of “customized with a message” would also be helpful as, when I do have a lot to go through, I always prefer to read those with messages first. Magnet Posts It would appear that the ‘magnet’ post feature has been improved in that you no no longer need to have any of the skills you specify in your post - as previously covered in episode 189, this makes much more sense! Thanks to Jillian for the heads up on this I still don’t have the feature but if you do and have been using it, I would love to hear how well it has worked for you. Interesting PostThanks to Carl for sending this one in.This is actually pretty easy to do yourself, but only if you have access to a Sales Navigator or Recruiter account. For some reason the url’s on those interfaces ignore the customised version and show the original source url with your number in itThe 2017 LinkedIn User Survey ResultsWe had 780 responses in total, thank you to everyone who took the time to complete the questions. One of the questions asked for the date you signed up to LinkedIn…one person apparently signed up in the year 1800! This individual apparently signs into their account on a weekly basis but has only managed to amass 8 connections in all that time - in addition they have 0 followers so presumably all 8 connections have chosen to unfollow them!! Fortunately this was the only spoof entry we received.The average number of connections was 2178 The average number of followers was 2748We had five people who had reached the maximum 30,000 connections.The highest number of followers was 205,000 (11,658 were connections) and equally impressive was someone who had 165,231 followers including only 1903 connections!As for the rest of the questions, the full results can be seen below;Mentioned in this episode:This show was created by the original host of the show, Mark Williams.

Welcome to episode 192 and a very merry Christmas to all of you.There has been very little news about LinkedIn this week but I did native the following two related articles; Interesting Stuff I Saw This WeekWhat we got right — and terribly wrong — in our 2017 predictions The 50 big ideas for 2018LinkedIn are, as always, keeping very tight lipped about their plans for 2018 so I thought it would be fun to take a stab at what I think the likely trends for LinkedIn in 2018 will be. LinkedIn in 2018 Increased use of #Hashtags. Hashtags re-emerged in 2017 but next year they will become mainstream and ‘trending hashtags’ will become an important feature that we will all be using extensively by the end of the year. Livestream Video. This one has been on LinkedIn’s roadmap for a while and I predict 2018 will be the year it is finally implemented. Native video will be fully rolled out by the end of the first quarter and I believe Livestream video will start to become a feature (mobile only) by the middle of 2018. As with Native video it will take a while for users to figure out the best way to use Live streaming so I don’t expect it to have a big impact in 2018…but it will start to roll out. More spam. As the number of users increase and spammers (not just cowboys but also the uneducated) start to realise that they risk big fines due to the GDPR legislation (effective from May 2018). LinkedIn messaging and InMail will become a more widely used tool for spammers. LinkedIn Hangouts. #LinkedInLocal will continue to grow and people will start to see the benefits of meeting their connections face to face…but not every business operates locally so LinkedIn will respond to this need by introducing a live video hangout feature - this will use the same platform as Livestreaming and be closely linked to the New groups feature. New Groups. I know that LinkedIn are working on a complete re-design of groups and this will be implemented during 2018. Expect to see something completely different - possibly even renamed and rebranded that will include the hangouts feature mentioned above. Increased Engagement. This was the big surprise of 2017 and LinkedIn users will continue to learn that broadcasting content without attracting comments is a waste of time. Expect more and more comments on posts and articles as content producers get to grips with better quality (engaging) content. Engagement Analytics. Following on from the increase in engagement I predict that 3rd party tools will appear that allow you to find and assess people based on their comments and Likes as well as their content. Voice commands. 2018 will be the year of Alexa type voice controls everywhere and it will become so mainstream that LinkedIn won’t be able to resit getting involved. We could see voice commands on the mobile app such as “search for marketing managers in Birmingham, united kingdom” or “accept my new invitations”. Personal Branding. This will become more important next year and more and more people move away from corporate employment and become self-employed experts in their field. Another possible trend is that corporates may move away from ‘enterprise/corporate brands and encourage employees to develop their personal brands on behalf of the company. LinkedIn Stories. Stories are big on Snapchat and Instagram and are now becoming more popular on Facebook. LinkedIn have a long tradition of adopting popular features from other social media platforms and I see stories as being no different. Native video, text and image posts can be combined and collated into stories. Expect to see this as a new feature in the second half of 2018.Please note that ALL the above predictions are total guesswork on my behalf. I have no inside knowledge on what might actually happen! What do you think of the above predictions? Can you think of others?Thanks to everyone for contributing to the 2017 LinkedIn User survey.I will compiling the results in January and expect to announce the results on either the first or second episode of 2018.If you didn’t get time before, way not help out now by taking a few minutes to answer the questions below;That’s it for this week and for this year!We will be back with the first episode of 2018 on January 13thHappy ChristmasHappy Christmas to you all, enjoy the break, open time with your families and switch LinkedIn off for a week or so!See you next year.Mentioned in this episode:This show was created by the original host of the show, Mark Williams.

Welcome to episode 191, this week I’m going to cover a topic I tackle almost on a daily basis at the moment…..How to know what subjects to post about on LinkedIn.But before I get onto that…… Interesting Stuff I Saw This WeekThe Crappy Handbook of LinkedIn Profile Pics LinkedIn Top Voices 2017: The must-know people inspiring today’s professional conversations Stay on Top of In-Demand Skills with New Notifications #LinkedInLocal I originally covered the LinkedIn Local phenomenon in episode 166 when I interview Erik Eklund who was a founding member of this movement along with Alex Galviz, Anna McAfee and Manu Goswani. Since then the founders have been joined by Ryan Troll and Brian Almeida to form an organisation that co-ordinates LinkedIn Local meet ups throughout the world. They have now set up a new website Click on the image above to visit the websiteIf you are thinking of running a LinkedIn Local event in your area then take a look at the website to understand how you go about it.Please Do The Survey! And if you have done it….please share it widely!I was aiming to get to 1000 responses by Christmas but at the time of writing, I’m still below 500! It has been much harder than I expected to get people to complete this short (5 mins) survey but I really feel we need to get at least 500 to make the results viable.So please share the link http://bit.ly/Linkedin2017 with your LinkedIn network, Twitter and Instagram followers and Facebook friendsIf you haven’t yet done the survey, here it isThis weeks question also forms the main topic for this week;I hear you talk a lot about techniques for posting which is very useful but my problem is ‘what’ to post about. Any tips?I get asked this question so much and I also regularly have to tackle the subject when I am working with customers that are currently posting promotional content.Here are my guidelines; The McFly Syndrome - It’s all about you…STOP SELF PROMOTING! This includes talking about events you have organised, new members of staff or awards you have won. You might not see it as such but others only see this as self promotion. These posts are OK occasionally but need to dominated by less selfish content. Understand your relevant followers. You don’t need to ‘speak’ to all your followers but you must focus on gaining a deeper understanding of what interests your followers; > What motivates them > What frustrates them > What worries them > What excites them > What content do they read? > What sort of posts are they Liking, Sharing or Commenting on Experiment with different subjects. What works and what falls flat. Try not to make too many assumptions and judge by results. People on LinkedIn are much less ‘stuffy’ than you think! Try people orientated content and use stories where possible. Think about light, fun subjects as well as subjects that people are likely to have strong opinions about. The ‘gold standard’ measurement is comments.These guidelines refer to content rather then technique. You can learn more about technique, plus some other content tips in episode 178Mentioned in this episode:This show was created by the original host of the show, Mark Williams.

Welcome to episode 190, it seems that many people are talking about the mysterious LinkedIn algorithm, myself included! I can’t believe how many of these people are still blaming the algorithm for the poor performance of their content, it’s not the algorithm folks, it’s your content!……But before I get stuck into that, here are a few things I came across this week Interesting Stuff I Saw This Week People Are Flooding LinkedIn With Strange Stories. We’re Calling Them Broetry. 7 Next-Level Sourcing Tips From the Master, Glen Cathey Can Linkedin Save Slideshare? LinkedIn Plans Improvements, Including Changes To SlideShare New LinkedIn A.I. Is Now Judging Your Content. Sorry, What Content? Native video problems A number of people have been seeing error messages on native LinkedIn videos this weekIt would appear that simply refreshing your page often sorts this out, if not then try clearing your cache. Blaming The Algorithm I enjoy the challenge of ‘outsmarting’ the algorithm as much as anyone, more than most probably but I really think that people are getting a bit carried away with it’s importance.Let’s be clear - Content will always be king!I recently came across this post from someone complaining that the algorithm favoured posts over Articles - the argument seems to be that he spends longer crafting an Article so the algorithm should reflect that…..what?!!I checked back and he hadn’t created any posts linking to this article so how did he expect people to find it? It’s also worth noting that Article ‘views’ are not the same as post ‘views in the feed. All the algorithm does is reflect what it sees as being interesting and engaging amongst LinkedIn users. Yes it initially decides how many people see a post and that is important but that alone won’t ensure many people see your content - the most critical factor is how people react to it and for that to happen you need to write interesting content. Interesting does not equate to ‘interesting to you’ or ‘appropriate for LinkedIn’ it means it need to resonate with your followers. Do you know what resonates with your followers? Maybe you do but you don’t ‘approve’ - well thats up to you but don’t blame the algorithm, blame your followers….or dare I say it….take the blame yourself!My observations are as follows; People prefer short form content on LinkedIn People don’t always want to talk about business, lighter subject matter is surprisingly popular Posts are seen on our home page and with one click that does not require opening a new page we can read more…that is just more user friendly Posts should gain the attention of a reader within the first 3 lines - the spacing argument is not proven and makes no sense to me. It just needs to be long enough to trigger the ‘see more’ and good enough to motivate someone to click on it.So rather than blaming the algorithm, perhaps it’s time to start taking notice of what your followers really want and providing them with that? Competition Winner In episode 181 I interviewed PR expert Janet Murray and she kindly offered a free 60 minute PR strategy call with a lucky winner of a free prize draw.This was some weeks ago but the responses have been dripping in ever since so I haven’t made the draw until now.And the lucky winner is……..(drum roll)Mark Barlow from Dirty Marks Cleaning services. Mark runs a window cleaning service as well as being an online marketing strategist!Mentioned in this episode:This show was created by the original host of the show, Mark Williams.