Informed: the podcast for LinkedIn® users

News

• LinkedIn finally bring their Jobs app to Android
• A member increases their profile views by 425%!
• LinkedIn settles battle over email invites
• A LinkedIn post gets 3.3 million views...and they are not an Influencer!
• Interesting new 'search relevance' feature added to LinkedIn Recruiter

Commentary

• The mystery of the 'Certified LinkedIn Publisher'.
• Brain De Haaf's profile and the Google search (below) that proves he did have the phrase in his profile
• Kathy Caprino's profile
• The Publishers group where my question has so far been conveniently ignored!

Questions

• I no longer receive an email from LinkedIn when someone accepts my invitation to connect. Has this feature gone or are my settings wrong?
• ANS = Firstly the feature does still exist, I received an email just this morning. Your settings may need re-adjusting and it might not be your fault as it appears that this settings has had a recent facelift! Go to Settings>Communications>Push notifications and make sure that the relevant box is ticked. Follow this by logging out, clearing cookies and then check whether it works the next time.  Failing that it's a case for the Help Center.

Mentioned in this episode:

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

News

• LinkedIn Expands Efforts to Help Colleges Keep in Touch With Students and Alumni
• JP Morgan episode 3! Another financial firm acts like a communist state!
• LinkedIn acquires employee referral software firm
• Champion puzzle maker creates a LinkedIn crossword.
• 53% of the top 250 LinkedIn posts are not from Influencers. Excellent analysis of the characteristics of a successful LinkedIn published post

Commentary

• Featured article: How do you find time for LinkedIn? 

Questions

• The new home page seems to be feeding information that I do not wish to see (connections, group posts etc). How do I switch this off?
• ANS = Unfortunately you can't, whilst there is a section in your settings to select what updates you see, it is clearly not working! The help center are saying it is a known issue. I suspect they completely forgot about this setting when they re-vamped the homepage. It is very frustrating because from I can see (which is harder with the new design) the number of views has plummeted as a result!

Mentioned in this episode:

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

News

• LinkedIn improve their sponsored InMail service
• The JP Morgan saga continues
• A new study analyses how 'happy' politicians are from their LinkedIn profile pictures

Commentary

• Florist posts an image update that goes viral
• Two ways of searching that are outside of the commercial use limit;
• Alumni search
• Field of study search
• LinkedIn appear to be testing a new way of customizing invites
• Read this article about social selling and let me know what you think. I think this sort of attitude will lead to sales people getting left behind, the changing nature of sales needs to be embraced.

Questions

• How do you convert a personal profile which has been created with a company name into a genuine personal profile without losing the connections.
• This is a situation that I have experienced previously and you have to be very careful in how this conversion is handled. Here is my recommended process;

1. 
   
2. Download the connections of the company account.
3. 
   
4. 
   
5. Change the name of the company account to the same name of the personal account you wish to transfer the connections to.
6. 
   
7. 
   
8. Approach LinkedIn (help center) and explain that you have two profiles and you wish to merge the connections into your main account.
9. 
   

• 
  
• Andy Headworth asks if there are any examples of employees who are currently being forced to hand over their account or change their profile by their employers. If anyone is in this situation please get in touch - confidentiality assured.
• 
  

Mentioned in this episode:

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

News

• An insight into LinkedIn's mobile strategy
• JP Morgan's global Head of Technology has sent out a memo advising staff to make their profiles sparse of information to prevent Recruiters from finding them on LinkedIn.

Commentary

• Who has the keys to your profile? Add multiple email addresses to your LinkedIn account to prevent your employer from hijacking your account when you leave.
• Two ways to post updates with links and images.
• Post from a company page where status updates have not changed and like or comment on it from your own account.
• Paste the link into the normal update box but make sure that there is no gap between it and the previous word, then attach your image.

Questions

I am in the top 5% of profile views in my network. Is this important?

ANS = Yes, profile views are a form of engagement and engagement will help to get your updates seen by more people.

Mentioned in this episode:

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

News

LinkedIn pay a measly $1 compensation to users who had their password stolen.

Company pages get a new feature - notifications.

A bank is accused of asking it's employees to limit the information in their profiles so that they won't get headhunted.

Company sue former sales employee for taking LinkedIn contacts with them and lose because the contact list was “easily discoverable through public sources” and did not involve a lot of effort to compile, it would therefore not be considered a trade secret. Quite right to! This article can be found here but warning - its a subscription site (with a free trial).

Sex offender nearly gets into trouble for using LinkedIn.

Commentary

Follow up to my piece about LinkedIn ads last week. Carl sent in this funny screenshot which shows how the algorithm picks up words and feeds 'relevant' ad's to you!

Could LinkedIn be considering 'retiring' groups - My prediction is that groups could be gone by the end of this year.

The new homepage design hints that status updates (with links) are something that LinkedIn also wants to get rid of. The pattern LinkedIn normally demonstrates is to make a popular feature less useful/easy to use before 'retiring' it.

Questions

Where can I see how many views my updates have been getting?

ANS = You can't! The new homepage design has removed this feature. Sometimes you can see the stats for your last update. This is in the top section of your homepage but only occasionally shows and can't be manually found - you just have to wait for it to appear!

Mentioned in this episode:

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

All about LinkedIn ads, plus other topics.

Mentioned in this episode:

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

News

LinkedIn deliver impressive results for Q4 2014 as detailed here in their official announcement. They have grown membership to 347 million users and revenue for Q4 was $643m, a 44% increase on the same period last year and a total turnover exceeding $2.2b for 2014. Some of the more detailed commentary about these figures can be read here.

LinkedIn launches the volunteer marketplace in the UK.

LinkedIn further restrict their api making it almost impossible for anyone to develop apps that allow us to use LinkedIn in new and innovative ways.

Commentary

I finally got the new home page today and I totally hate it! The major issues seem to be;

You can't post a link into the text with an image status update (the workaround is to use the comments section)

You no longer see the performance of your previous updates, only the most recent.

There is no easy way to see how many connections you have.

On the plus side.............oh, nothing! 

Have you considered using a showcase page for search optimisation purposes? When the basic search is used the algorithm sorts results into categories including one for showcase pages.

How long should a podcast be? Is 30 mins about right or do you think you would prefer a shorter one (15 minutes). Let me know at [email protected]

Questions

Should I put the letter MBA after my name in my LinkedIn profile?

ANS = Yes, if that is what feels right for you. It is not against the rules and it may ensure you feature in recruiters search results. It is against the rules to put any other keywords in your name field although many people do it and the search algorithm does seem to like finding words in the name field.

Mentioned in this episode:

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

News

• The LinkedIn Connected app comes to Android
• LinkedIn have started suggesting downgrades to premium account holders - very odd!
• Princes Trust uses a fake homeless person profile to highlight homeless teenagers to potential employers. What are LinkedIn going to do about fake profiles?
• Creddle is a new CV / Resume maker from your LinkedIn profile
• View Art Flater's profile - go on, I dare you!
• Strong Q4 results expected from LinkedIn which are likely to boost other social media stocks. As mentioned I recorded this episode earlier in the week than normal. Since this the Q4 results have been published so I will cover those in more depth in the next episode.

Commentary

• Blogging for the masses - the effect of LinkedIn publisher. With 1 million posts and more and more users starting to publish posts could LinkedIn publishing be the tool that makes blogging mainstream? In my opinion there are approaches to publishing depending on your objectives;

Objective is to build your personal brand within your market / community. LinkedIn publishing is ideally suited to this.

Objective is to guide people towards your website in order to build and monetize your following (online business). In this case the best tactic is to use a published post as a teaser with an incomplete post that includes a link to the complete article on your site. A good example is this post from Will Broome (the CEO of London launch who I am featuring in my new Winbusinessin serial podcast)

Questions

With linkedin asking us to post more, two questions:a) Where do we get cheap/free non copyright photos, or does everyone turn a blind eye? I think not!b) What is the etiquette on quoting sources? I have seen so many posts ( not yours) just quote/cut and paste chunks of others work with it looking like their own.A guide to posting without getting sued for plagiarism or copyright infringements! 

• ANS = Using images is critical if you want your updates or posts to get noticed but using sites like Google images does not ensure that you are not breaking a copyright. The image depositories that I use are as follows;
• 99c - Low cost, royalty free images (such as the one used in this post)
• Canva - A design creation site that also includes a good selection of images. Images cost $1 with many of the designs free.
• Photodune. A much bigger selection of images but more expensive ($3-5 on average).
• Depositphotos. Similar to above but can be cheaper if you are prepared to buy a bundle of credits.
• The etiquette on using sources is that if you quote directly from an article you should include a link to that article, if your piece has been inspired by reading another I think it is less important but still an option. Blatant plagiarism is obviously wrong but it does happen. I personally don't waste any time worrying about it though.

Please feel free to let us have your views on this subject.

Mentioned in this episode:

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

News

• NY Times offer 16 weeks free online access to LinkedIn premium members. Is this is sign of things to come?
• Condoms designer gets a breakthrough via LinkedIn
• LinkedIn's job search app comes to the UK
• Another new rival to LinkedIn, this one is French and called Amplement.
• Belgium TV network 'stalks' people on LinkedIn to publicise its new TV series.
• Top San Francisco venture capitalist backs LinkedIn saying "Its not a human resources company, it's a data company". Quite right too!
• New YouWorth app uses LinkedIn skills to estimate your worth in the job market 

Commentary

• Recruitment company does tracks clients new connections and triggers a sales lead alert.
• LinkedIn may be introducing new Temp/contract features to profiles.
• New website launched for LinkedIn users who want to grow their business.

Question

• When is it appropriate to hide your connections?
• ANS = Rarely in my opinion! Just because you are connected to someone doesn't indicate that you are doing business with them, most sales people would aim to connect with prospects not just customers. So why hide them? The one exception to this is Recruitment companies because of the confidential nature of their role. 

Mentioned in this episode:

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

News

• LinkedIn for blue collar? I think this is great news and fits with my idea of 'LinkedIn Local'.
• Shapr. A new rival to LinkedIn? I don't think so but it does look interesting and solves the issue of keeping in touch with your closest contacts.
• 6 lessons we can take from the best company pages of 2014.
• Its that time of year and when the dreaded 'Top profile buzzwords' article comes out. Journalist's love it...I think its tosh!

Commentary

• Anonymous viewers. Universally unpopular but does it really matter?
• Why I advise against reciprocal recommendations

Questions

• Showcase pages vs affiliate company pages: what are best practices? Is it worth investing time and effort or will they end up going away like product pages?
• ANS = An affiliated page is a company page that can be affiliated to a parent page. This can work for subsidiaries or acquired company's and might be useful when a division/subsidiary wants to have its own unique set of Showcase pages. Showcase pages are designed to create follower communities that are separate from the overall company followers, this works well when you wish to build a community around a brand or product type.

Mentioned in this episode:

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