Informed: the podcast for LinkedIn® users

LinkedIn is changing rapidly!

This week I focus on 9 important changes LinkedIn have made since the last episode.

1. New design for WVYP
2. Articles saving on desktop
3. Group posting from Homepage
4. New free premium trial offer
5. Articles 'series' pilot scheme
6. New setting to make 'Follow' the default on your profile
7. LinkedIn update 'Feed ranking optimization'
8. Less information on LinkedIn emails
9. Pilot test for the reintroduction of LinkedIn events feature

More information at http://linkedinformed.com/episode228

Mentioned in this episode:

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

This week I interview Kurt Shaver from Vengreso about the challenges of social selling and using LinkedIn in a corporate environment

Mentioned in this episode:

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

A couple of weeks ago I had a very interesting conversation with an experienced LinkedIn user about native video posts. They post regularly and get fantastic results but they have yet to do a video post. When I asked them why they couldn’t really answer. We explored this in more detail and agreed that it came down to two main factors;

1. Technical barriers
2. Concerned that others would think they look stupid

This troubled me but I put it down to an isolated experience, then last week I had almost exactly the same conversation with someone else! The final straw came this week when I delivered a follow-up training session and during my preparation (where I analyse the delegates activity since the last session) I discovered that, despite plenty of text and image posts, nobody had attempted a native video post.

I have covered video before but given the issues people seem to be having, I thought I would focus on this in this weeks episode.

Mentioned in this episode:

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

This week I respond to a post by Richard Moore about the apparent lack of 'Content Creators' on LinkedIn in the UK.

What exactly is he referring to and how do we define great content?

That plus a few interesting things I saw this week about LinkedIn.

More info at LinkedInformed.com

Mentioned in this episode:

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

Welcome to episode 224, this week I want to mainly focus on company pages. A feature of LinkedIn that I have often been very critical of.

LinkedIn have announced their Top Company Pages of 2018 list so I thought I would take a closer look at some of those companies to try to understand what benefit they are gaining from LinkedIn.

I also want to return to the new groups experience as I now have the new features and thought I would add some further thoughts and things I have experienced.

For the full notes go to http://linkedinformed.com/episode224

Mentioned in this episode:

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

Thanks for all your feedback from last weeks episode about a wishlist for the new design of groups, well we didn't have to wait long did we? Well, to be more precise some of us do need to wait longer (myself included) to be able to play with the new design but on Tuesday this week, LinkedIn started rolling out their long-awaited new design that they are hoping can reinvigorate this much-maligned area of LinkedIn.

More about new groups later but first.

Interesting Stuff I Saw This Week

Very little news about LinkedIn this week apart from the following article that I saw in multiple places

The US accuses China of 'super aggressive' spy campaign on LinkedIn 

  New Groups Design

I told you it was going to happen this week, didn't I?!

New groups have started rolling out and several people have been in touch to share their thoughts. I'm really frustrated to not be included in the early stages of the roll-out. I know these things are supposed to be random but I also know that they can add people to the rollout if they wish and it seems more than rude to not include people who have given up their time to assist with the evaluation of groups. Many people travelled to locations across the world to participate in the research that LinkedIn has undertaken at their own cost. LinkedIn have ignored many of these people and not included them in the early roll-out...Ignorance or incompetence? Probably a bit of both in my opinion!

Fortunately, my good buddy and fellow LinkedIn trainer Greg Cooper has got the new design so I called him up for a chat to get his perspective.

Here's what's new (so far)

• The design is a replica of the homepage feed
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• Access is still via the Work menu
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• 'Todays highlights' page has gone, replaced with your list of groups. This list can only be scrolled through and not re-ordered
• 
  
• Native video posts
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• Editing posts - you can edit posts that you've published
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• You can now manage your group from the main mobile app
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• You can still search for members by name and message them but no introduction of keyword search.
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• #communities are on the left, not sure how these fit with groups?
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• Announcements have not returned
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• Comments can be replied to in a thread
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• Images can be added to comments

The overall sense I get is that they are moving much control away from group managers. It would appear that the roll-out will be fast in that one internal staffer has stated that it will be completely rolled out this month

Mentioned in this episode:

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

Welcome to episode 222. I hope you find this episode enjoyable and informative.

LinkedIn have recently announced that their new re-designed groups section will be launched at the end of August It's taken them over 18 months including much user consultation to get to this point so we are entitled to expect something special.

As of the time of recording, nothing has transpired so I thought it would be timely to create a list of all the things that we, as users want to see and then we can compare it to what we actually get!

Mentioned in this episode:

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

Welcome to episode 221, after a weeks break while I was hiking around the Swiss Alps. If you have never been I would highly recommend it, as you can see below, the scenery is breathtaking!

Interesting Stuff I saw This Week LinkedIn Groups Announcement

Thank you for your continued dedication to your LinkedIn groups. As you know we are fully rebuilding Groups and reintegrating it into the main LinkedIn website and mobile apps. We are excited for you to experience the new version of Groups which will start rolling out to all members at the end of August. We've heard from many of you over the past year that boosting engagement and enabling vibrant discussions in your groups is important, so we've prioritized features that support this including:

Making it easier to access Groups right from the LinkedIn homepage and improving visibility of group conversations in the main LinkedIn feed Giving you the ability to manage your group on the go in the LinkedIn iOS and Android apps Helping you stay up-to-date on group activity through Notifications Enabling richer conversations with the ability to reply to comments, edit posts and comments, and post native video All of your groups will be migrated automatically and for the first time the full functionality of Groups will be available from the LinkedIn app and desktop experience. In the coming months you'll also see new and better ways to manage your communities on LinkedIn. In the meantime, we've streamlined some existing admin functionality that we want you to be aware of:

Moderation queues will be temporarily unavailable. We realize the importance of moderation tools and are working on rebuilding moderation functionality in the new version of Groups. This rebuilt and improved moderation queue will be available in the next few months. We are not planning to rebuild the auto-generated classifier queue. We encourage you to review any content in the queues and remove any members who continue to violate your group rules. Admin roles will be streamlined to just owners and managers. We heard feedback from many of you that current admin roles are confusing so we're simplifying to just owner and manager roles. Moderators will become regular members once this change takes effect. If you have moderators who you'd like to keep on as admins, please promote them to managers. Admin and auto-generated group emails (including digests, automated templates, and announcements) will be unavailable as we build better and more robust notification and communication channels. We have seen significant lift in engagement to Groups coming from notifications and believe that notifications will be an effective way for you to communicate with your members. There is no required action for this change but we wanted to clearly highlight it as we know many of you plan your email content in advance. We have many more updates coming and an engineering team dedicated to building admin functionality for Groups. We know your role as a group admin is integral to the success of your group, and we look forward to continuing to work with you as we build out the new experience. Thank you for your continued support in making groups on LinkedIn a trusted place to share knowledge and learn from other professionals. Visit the Help Center to learn more about the changes and stay tuned for more updates!

I'm not sure why people are kicking up such a fuss about this, LinkedIn are making it clear that these changes are mainly temporary, whilst they complete the implementation of a new Groups format. Let's hope new groups are something to be excited about it......I'm not holding my breath!

New Feature

Actually, it would be better described as an old feature that has been corrected!

This video post explains it;

LinkedIn Articles Formerly known as Published posts, long-form articles on LinkedIn were once incredibly popular with authors achieving phenomenal view numbers.

In more recent times, views have dropped significantly.

In this chat with Deepak, we explore why that has happened and debate with Articles are still worth writing and how often.

Click on the image below to view Deepaks full profile.

Summary of points covered;

Deepak is sceptical that posts and engagement generate business. He once did a post that attracted over 2 million views but didn't attract any leads from it whereas he gained business from Articles with significantly less views. FACT: Article views are actual clicks - Post views are merely page impressions (no guarantee it has been viewed) so you can't compare the two. Posts are more popular than articles due to a lower barrier on entry - both in terms of production and consumption. Articles have generated more conversions to actual business for Deepak because the reader is more engaged. The increased use of mobile has coincided with the decrease in Article views. Is it a coincidence or are mobile users less likely to read long-form content? Because of the lower entry barrier of posts, there are significantly more of them and this is bound to have a negative impact on Article views. Posts and Articles can and should work in tandem. In summary, posts establish and maintain rapport whereas Articles are more likely to establish credibility. Deepak believes that having a strong body of long-form content attached to your account can help with LinkedIn search optimisation. This is unproven but would make sense (less about keywords and more to do with LinkedIn recognising you as an expert). Articles have the advantage of a long shelf life although if you produce too many, they are almost impossible to find. The 'See more Articles from' section at the bottom appears to have no topic relevance, even when hashtags are used. The articles are just in date order. If you were to post long-form content on your website rather then as a LinkedIn article, it is more likely to rank higher for SEO. You could of course post on both! The case for writing more Articles is that you create a broader body of work, covering a wider variety of topics which gives you a greater chance of appealing to a potential customer. A strong body of work also shows the reader that you are serious about your subject.

I really enjoyed chatting with Deepak and I think he made some excellent points.

I'm unlikley to start writing an article a week but I can definitely see the beenefits more clearly now....I hope you can too.

Let me know your thoughts.

That's it for this week.

Mentioned in this episode:

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

Hello everyone and welcome to a new episode. This week I have had messages from several people about an article doing the rounds that details how the LinkedIn algorithm works – “Wow, that sounds very interesting” I thought….then I read it and felt somewhat cheated.

It’s not what it purports to be but I do think it’s worth covering so that will be the main subject for this week

Mentioned in this episode:

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

Hello everyone and welcome to a new episode. After two weeks of discussing Pods we are moving onto pastures new. This week I want to focus attention on the continued development of #LinkedInLocal with LocalX.

I was lucky enough to get to attend the launch party of LocalX in London recently and wanted to share my thoughts on this new initiative and also why I think LinkedIn have really missed an opportunity with LinkedIn Local.

More of that later but first…..

Mentioned in this episode:

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