Informed: the podcast for LinkedIn® users

In this show I talk about how we can all benefit by being more 'sociable' on LinkedIn but first, lets cover this weeks newsNews    LinkedIn group ownership protected in US legal case    Strange LinkedIn profile phrases spoken by actors in this video    LinkedIn invitations 'reason' can be seen after all, it's in the archive folder!    LinkedIn Stock rallies this week.    LinkedIn's weird New York office    Does this new LinkedIn group indicate that groups are safe for now?    Glitch alert! Viewer numbers are not showing in LinkedIn posts    Are LinkedIn disconnecting us? Let me know if this has happened to you.    Customized invitations are now seen on the mobile app, but still not on the desktop shortcut.screenshot2015-06-03_07-36-07_am.pngCommentary    Are you being 'sociable' on LinkedIn?    A recent survey conducted by Pew Research Center found that only 13 percent of LinkedIn users engage with the site on a daily basis.    What holds us back from engaging with people? I believe everyone will get more out of LinkedIn when we can all 'ease up' and start chatting to each other more.Questions    Will purchasing premium accounts for our staff allow us to retain ownership of their accounts if they leave?        ANS = No! This is not possible with any level of LinkedIn premium or corporate account. LinkedIn Recruiter does allow the retention of messages but never connections. My advice is to ask departing employees to download their connections for retention by the company, that way both parties get to keep the data.

Mentioned in this episode:

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

News

• Senior LinkedIn Executive hints at why superusers are being ignored by stating they are "making products universally usable regardless of ability"
• Report claims that Twitter is now the number one social media tool for sales people - I really doubt it!
• LinkedIn engineer states "We have to constantly re-iterate the recommendation process and make sure that our members always get relevant results by analysis of various user statistics" in this interview. I wonder what those statistics are?

Commentary

The Ingredients of a great post:

• Topical subject
• Eye catching headline
• Striking header image
• Ask a question
• Alternative answers work well
• Tagged for a channel
• Keyword rich (channel keywords)
• Quote others (link to their profiles)
• Link to your website
• Send it to individual connections and ask them to comment
• Reply to all comments and try to keep the conversation going
• Share on other channels
• Re-share later (if still relevant)
• And finally....luck!
• 
  

Here is a link to Greg Coopers article on LinkedIn published posts

Questions

I used to see when my connections made new connections in my home page stream. Where has this gone and how do I switch it back on?

ANS = I don't know where they have gone, I am still seeing them from my connections (not all as this is related to their settings) but the setting to adjust what you see in your stream has annoying disappeared so you can't do anything about it!

Mentioned in this episode:

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

News

• CEO's prefer LinkedIn & Twitter. In fact LinkedIn is the outright winner really!
• Why Asia matters for LinkedIn
• Unfortunate names on LinkedIn!
• LinkedIn are now restricting group messages to 50 a day.
• Hilary Clinton signs up to LinkedIn but hasn't put skills in her profile - sensible lady!
• Indian woman 'outs' LinkedIn sexual harasser
• Commentary
• This week I interviewed a florist from Grimsby about how she has had success with LinkedIn for my other podcast Winbusinessin and she revealed several real golden nuggets.
• I recently put some LinkedIn profile autoview services through their paces and my conclusion is that they have a part to play in how we use LinkedIn. Services mentioned were;
• Autopilot
• Dux-soup

Mentioned in this episode:

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

News

• Published post sharing via 3rd party apps appears to be broken, links go to main Pulse page.
• LinkedIn announce Economic graph challenge winners.
• LinkedIn stock drops to $193
• Keen computer gamers are getting information about future game titles from LinkedIn profiles. This article and this one are two separate examples.
• Jeff Weiner admits "We are sending some members too many emails"!

Commentary

• Posting articles and links in LinkedIn groups is not effective unless you are actually creating a discussion. People are treating groups as poster boards for 'interesting' articles but all that does is lower the amount of interaction and provides no benefit to the person that shared the link.
• I was shocked to see these stats recently;
• Article 1 - 348 views - 41 LinkedIn shares
• Article 2 - 162 views - 302 LinkedIn shares
• When I explored this in more detail it turned out the the vast majority of the shares of article 2 were people sending the post to multiple groups (each one counting as a separate share). Clearly these group shares were simply being ignored!

Question

• How can I get notifications about a specific person? I want to know when specific connections of mine post updates, articles and share/comment on others?
• ANS= Unfortunately you no longer can, 3rd party sites such as Zapier and IFTTT used to do this but LinkedIn no longer allow access to this information.

Mentioned in this episode:

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

News

• LinkedIn imposes a limit of the number of group messages that can be sent.
• Confirmation that the commercial use limit on search is not just the amount of searches but also the number of profile views.
• Groups lose stats feature but gain a new 'about' page which includes the members section.
• 27,000 US intelligence staff on LinkedIn revealed in a recent report.
• LinkedIn introduce 'who's viewed your posts' feature.
• LinkedIn celebrate their 12th anniversary by featuring members stories, I especially enjoyed this one.
• India surpasses 30 million LinkedIn members
• LinkedIn's share priced dropped below $200 last week and still remains weak.

Commentary

• This new web product claims to assess someone's personality from their LinkedIn profile. It sounds crazy but my experience is that it is amazingly accurate! Here are the results for me

Question

Why do some people put their name in their professional headline?

ANS= This allows people to be able to see your full profile even if they are outside of your network. When you search for anyone by name you can always see their profile but when you search by keywords you can only see up to your 3rd tier.

Mentioned in this episode:

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

News

• The LinkedIn advertising hack that gained a company $100,000 funding for a penny!
• LinkedIn Announce their Q1 results. Financial analysts are OK with the results but hate the revised prediction for Q2 and shares plummet!
• Sponsored update advertising grows by 40% and the number page views grows at impressive rate again.
• LinkedIn hints that the Lynda.com acquisition will result in 'cross selling models and integration'. What exactly will this mean?
• So this is why LinkedIn bought all those copies of Reid Hoffman's new book

Commentary

• LinkedIn published posts desperately need a 'read it later' feature. We all lead busy lives so the chances of having the time to read a long form post when we see it are limited. Perhaps a feature similar to Twitter's 'favorite' link would be the easiest option. At the moment I suspect we are kidding ourselves if we believe the 'read' numbers as people who have actually read the post.

Question

• This week's question comes from Carl, it's more of a point/commentary than a question but a really interesting one; Hiya Mark,I was just thinking about LI buying Lynda, and the imminent arrival ofFacebook at Work.If LI wanted to go mega they'd be tackling this by looking at systems like Slack https://slack.com. This would really get them into companiesby becoming an actual part of the employees daily workflow, which iswhat I'm betting the FB at work thing will aim for. Right now, LI isstill broadly seen as the thing you use when changing jobs (rightly orwrongly).We all know how big mobile is now, and how it's just getting bigger eachday.Slack has massive take up and is really well respected. The need for LIto get a better collaboration tool will come soon anyway, 4G is here nowwith rich services growing daily.  We're about to be hit by the wave of"realtime videoisation" - all apps will be able to use it (its in thenext Android SDK) - think Twitters Periscope, which I know you love, butfor any app. And obviously phone/video calls. Right now, how can a LIuser call another LI user? Use their phone number. That's 3G and earlier- old style GSM. This next IP-only system allows username to usernamecalls within a closed system, such as LI, FB etc - and its much morethan a traditional phone call.
• ANS = I totally agree with this. LinkedIn challenge is to combine moving with the times and giving users a really valuable tool with protecting members from spam - unwanted messages and calls. To be honest though I suspect this is way beyond their capabilities at the moment. I have unofficially heard that they are already really struggling with mobile as it is so this seems a bit of a stretch for them! Perhaps this is inevitable outcome of rejecting partnerships with 3rd party developers? Opening up the API provides so much opportunity for innovation but LinkedIn are closing down their API and trying to do everything themselves.

Mentioned in this episode:

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

News

•  LinkedIn applies for a patent to check the accuracy of facts and statements in profiles.
•  LinkedIn spends $500,000 on buying Reid Hoffman's new book.
•  $115,000 are donated to a local teen centre
•  America's three most hated companies;  Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn!
•  This Chinese article about fake accounts is a timely reminder to us all.
• Are you frustrated with the commercial use limit on search?The following searches are all "free" and do not count against your monthly allowance
• Alumni search
• Field of study search
• Connections network search
• Tagging
•  Are InMail responserates dropping?

Questions

How do I post a job on LinkedIn for free?

ANS = There are four ways in which this can be done;

•  A job discussion in a relevant group
•  A personal status update
•  A published post
•  Company page update (pinned to the top)

Mentioned in this episode:

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

News

• Yahoo Mail Contact cards
• Key senior executive leaves LinkedIn
• Update on the Lynda.com deal
• LinkedIn launch their new corporate Elevate product
• LinkedIn are top payers!

Commentary

• Tip - This is what to do if you can't save a 2nd tier to contacts
• Keywords in name fields. It works from an optimisation perspective but it is still against the rules.

Question

• How many different type of emails do LinkedIn send you and how can you stop them?
• ANS = There are 20 different types of emails (excluding group emails) which can all be controlled from within your settings. Go to Communications> Set the frequency of emails.

Mentioned in this episode:

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

News

• Character from Ex-Machina film has a LinkedIn profile - even though she is a robot! Update since recording - it looks as though this profile has been taken down.
• If you have a really good post that you believe should be featured in a channel on Pulse then you can try tweeting @linkedinpulse to ask if they can help to get it promoted.
•  Lynda.com is acquired by LinkedIn for $1.5billion!
• The Mashable article about LinkedIn's acquisition of Lynda.com
• Jeff Weiners post about the deal
• Lynda Weinmans post
• Viveka Von Rosen's profile

Commentary

• Sponsored updates appear to be an attractive option as opposed to normal adverts on LinkedIn but there is a downside!

Mentioned in this episode:

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

News

• I had a reply from the person whose published post achieved over 3 million views and she doesn't know why it was so successful!
• LinkedIn acquire Refresh
• LinkedIn's April fool joke
• University offer premium accounts to 1000 students
• The latest big thing in social media? Periscope is a live video streaming app from Twitter and it is amazing!

Commentary

• Interesting article that lists 10 LinkedIn invitation templates. Some are pretty cheesy and I would always suggest writing your own but these may help get you started.
• Tip: Consider contacting some people who have viewed your profile. I saw a potential prospect had viewed my profile and as a result of contacting him I have generated some new business.

Questions

• I keep seeing this nonsense on my LI feed. This and various other mathematical questions  trying to get a million 'likes'. I generally only see them because one of my contacts comments. To me they have no place on LI. But why do people do it and is there a way to stop it?
• ANS = I think they create them to gain a high number of views but to what end? More damaging though is the people who participate, not realising that they are annoying their connections who may well hide their future updates as a result. My advice - if you enjoy quizzes, do them but don't post your answer on LinkedIn, no-one will think you are clever - quite the opposite!
• I am an employee of a company which has changed  its name and email domain.  I was requested by a colleague to join LinkedIn over a year ago and so I did the email I registered was my old one.Anyhow I keep getting emails from prospective employees linked to my profile and when I click on it from my work email is says access denied. So we have been blocked off.  I now don't know how to get back in I don't know which email to use and when I try both domain & opal email is says invalid email.  I want to now log in my same profile by setting it up with my personal email can u help with this?
• ANS = A real complicated mess isn't it and LinkedIn are partly responsible for this. The simple way to avoid such problems is to list all your email addresses under one LinkedIn account.

Mentioned in this episode:

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