Welcome to episode 210, I’m back after a very restful week in the sun in Cape Verde and was surprised to see very little news about LinkedIn circulating the internet over the last couple of weeks so this is going to be a shorter than normal episode.

  Interesting Stuff I Saw This Week

Actually not interesting at all! I got back from holiday to an email inbox that could only be described as GDPR hell! A plethora of emails asking me to read a new privacy policy (necessary but annoying) combined with a series of ‘Do you still want to hear from us’ followed by ‘Are you sure you want us to go?” emails encouraging me to opt-in to future emails. I’m not expert but I thought the idea of GDPR was to reduct the number of emails?!! I guess we may feel the benefit in the longer term. I have to say (again not from any position of expertise) that these people who are sending out ‘opt-in’ emails seem to be doing unnecessary damage to their business by culling lists they have built up over years.

Here is a post I published this week on the subject, which generated quite a debate!

Another example of scammers using LinkedIn in this article. This really highlights the need to be a bit more careful who we connect with, for everyones benefit.

LinkedIn Announces New Sales Navigator Capabilities

Is It Time To Re-think How We Use LinkedIn To Win Business?

LinkedIn has made it much harder to direct people to your own website. A client recently told me that their website referrals from LinkedIn were down by 50% over the last year! Increased legislation regarding data privacy and email marketing (such as GDPR) is only likely to increase.

What is wrong with using LinkedIn to gain greater visibility to generate more business. If LinkedIn goes away, we just move with our audience.

I’m not suggesting we move away from email lists but I do think the ‘build a platform’ with the intention of building a list methodology might be worth challenging today. Is it still as relevant?

Michael Hyatt’s Platform book influenced me years ago and it’s still mostly relevant but I now question the ‘don’t build your brand on someone else platform’ philosophy.

Could it be time to focus more of our time on interacting with people on LinkedIn via posts, articles and groups rather than relying on building email lists?

The ‘passive income’ model is a myth. Everyone I know who makes decent money online does it through lots of hard work.