Postbag

via Beth Kirk: Loving the informed podcast! I have a question around the proactive use of DMs to build relationships on LinkedIn. Do you have any top tips for people with established audiences please?

— Look for opportunities to start conversations: birthdays, job changes

— Look through your network to find key referral partners and potential clients, then scour their profiles and content for anything that could start a conversation

— Don’t jump in out of the blue with a sales message. That will look like a campaign. Be more human!

— If there’s any sign that the other party might be open to it, use a voice note or even a video note to further humanise. I get great response rates.

via Espresso+: Does anyone get high levels of impressions with comments as a company page?

via Espresso+: How to be found through ChatGPT?

via Espresso+: Does an emoji in the Name field lead to spending one day in LinkedIn jail?

Engagement pods

Pods are unholy alliances of LinkedIn users who are trying to artificially boost their posts’ visibility in the LinkedIn feed. LinkedIn are trying to crack down, with a new video about this by Gyanda Sachdeva, a VP of Product Management at LinkedIn.

Thanks to an update from Tony Restell, UpLift Live26 speaker, who got this direct from LinkedIn:

Any profiles or companies you come across that are selling fake engagement services, please report directly via email to [email protected]

Thanks to Mark Williams for his kind farewell newsletter.

• Profile verification: to verify or not? (see more)
• Post timing: when is best to post?
• Recommendations: should they be up to date?

Everyone is talking about algorithmic bias against women. I’m going to investigate.

A couple of text-plus-image posts:

• Changing the skin tone in emojis
• “Quiet Piggy”

Starting a post with a short bit of quoted text often seems to get me good engagement, as per the second example.

Why put a date and time stamp on posts? I wish LinkedIn would do something about this.

This feels a bit meta but here are some things related to the development and marketing of the podcast:

• There’s a new page at espirian.co.uk/informed
• There’s a new banner image as part of my rotating Premium banner
• I’ve invited 250 people (the monthly limit) to follow the company page
• There were ~1000 downloads for episodes 466 & 467 – thanks!

The first episode of the new-look show took me 6 hours to record, edit and produce last week.

• How do you manage lots of ongoing DMs?
• How much should we care about algorithms?
• Downgrading desktop features

Why not refresh your About statement with some icebreakers? Pick 3–5 conversation starters and drop them into your profile so that people doing their research can say something interesting to you.

Free LinkedIn members can now send only 3 free personalised invitations per month – there are 5 quick tips in the show for how to get around this very annoying limitation.

This is the new-look Informed podcast, all about LinkedIn best practice, hosted for the first time by John Espirian. 

There’s a quick backstory of the handover from the show’s creator, Mark Williams, to John, and then on to listener questions in the Postbag.

Postbag questions

• Can you deactivate a company page without closing your personal profile?
• Can you talk about visibility being down on LinkedIn?
• Should we invest time in making newsletters, livestreams and videos on LinkedIn?
• How are comment impressions gauged and are they a useful metric?
• Is post boosting a good idea?

Generative AI data training: how to turn it off if you don’t want to give your data to LinkedIn for free.

Microsoft’s 2026 Q1 results are out, with some nuggets about LinkedIn growth.

Links

• Growth stalling post 1
• Growth stalling post 2
• LinkedIn membership growth tracker
• Ryan Roslansky on LinkedIn’s results
• Book a consultation with John
• Espresso+ community

My final ever episode. I have made the decision to retire, which means no more LinkedIn™️ training or LinkedIn™️ at all so the podcast needs to be handed on to someone else.

Mentioned in this episode:

This show was created by the original host of the show, Mark Williams.

This week’s topic was inspired by a post I didn’t even read!

I only caught a glimpse of it in my feed, but the headline or hook must have stuck in my brain and started to evolve into an idea for a podcast episode. It’s not the first time that’s happened—and it definitely won’t be the last.

Chances are, it’s happened to you too, even if you didn’t realise it.

That inspiration came from just one impression out of almost 20,000!

• Impressions to irrelevant people don’t matter so long as there are enough relevant ones.
• It can be argued that nobody is completely irrelevant anyway… you just don’t know!
• Content topic is critical to attract attention of the right audience

So are impressions really a vanity metric?

To hear all my thoughts on this subject plus the following topics, click on the podcast link below.

Also covered:

• A profile feature makes a welcome return
• Video posting advice from LinkedIn™️...and it's actually quite good!
• New video trends feature
• Is spam getting worse?
• Premium free trial rules tightened
• Post of the week
• An announcement about the podcast

Mentioned in this episode:

This show was created by the original host of the show, Mark Williams.

We often come across people on LinkedIn™️ who look interesting and produce content we find valuable...so we follow or connect and over time we feel as though we get to know them better.

But do we REALLY know them?

Interesting People interviews are designed to reveal more about the background, personal lives and characteristics of some of our favourite people on LinkedIn™️.

Lea Turner is known for her openness and authenticity so it was a challenge to get her to reveal something we hadn't heard before...but she is most definitely very interesting!

Mentioned in this episode:

This show was created by the original host of the show, Mark Williams.

The only dedicated LinkedIn™️ conference in the UK enters its second year this week. I won't be able to attend but they have a stellar line up of speakers so I asked John Espirian to come on the podcast to give us a glimpse of what in person and virtual attendees can expect.

Plus:

• The challenge of keeping up with AI!
• AI video is getting better but it's not fooling me yet
• Exposing automated AI comment cheats (idiots)
• Two new features
• A new video newsletter from LinkedIn™️
• What happened to the mobile video feed?
• This post made me laugh
• Post of the week

Mentioned in this episode:

This show was created by the original host of the show, Mark Williams.

So, the world's largest online business networking platform has decided to invest in offline networking? LinkedIn's new experience centre, in London is a bit more than just about networking but it's an interesting new development.

That plus:

• Can you simulate the engagement of a LinkedIn™️ post?
• New profile feature
• Embedding posts
• Do screenshots boost a posts reach?
• Are Russian comment bots infiltrating LinkedIn™️?
• The LinkedIn™️ DM privacy case has been dropped...but was it baseless?
• Post of the week

Mentioned in this episode:

This show was created by the original host of the show, Mark Williams.

In this episode of the Informed podcast I argue that thoughtful and considered commenting is the single most effective action that anyone can take on LinkedIn™️ - that's a bold statement but one I really believe to be true.

That plus:

• Boobgate!
• New Newsletter analytics
• Feed sorting removed
• New feed sort tab being tested
• How to spot AI comments
• How LinkedIn™️ influence user behaviour
• Post of the week

Mentioned in this episode:

This show was created by the original host of the show, Mark Williams.