Informed: the podcast for LinkedIn® users

News

• Facebook is still the top social network. This survey reported that only 13% of LinkedIn users visit the site daily in comparison to 70% of Facebook users.
• Scammers are using LinkedIn as a way of bypassing corporate spam filters.
• LinkedIn will be launching new intra-company communication tools. Is this a move to counter Facebook at work?
• Beware of phishing emails purporting to be from LinkedIn that are designed to steal your username and password. Always use unique passwords, I use 1Password to help me manage this.

Update

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• The new LinkedIn search restrictions and how to get around them. This is mainly an issue for recruiters because the commercial use restriction appears to be 40-60 searches a month. Two viable alternatives to upgrading your account could be;
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• 1 premium account per office (that everyone uses when needed)
• Google X-ray searching
• Premium accounts seem to have reverted to the previous options for some (including me!)
• How do you listen to the podcast? If you haven't already why not subscribe on iTunes? That way you will get each episode downloaded onto your phone/device automatically each week.

Commentary

• LinkedIn Recommendations - don't be such a cynic!

Questions

• Help, I'm stuck in profile edit mode!
• ANS = No you're not! This listener is referring to the new 'permanent edit' mode that LinkedIn recently introduced. You can view your profile as others would see it by clicking on the blue box at the top as seen below

Mentioned in this episode:

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

News

• LinkedIn announce that publishing rights will be extended to 230 million users
• Taliban leader lists 'Jihad' as a skill on his profile
• Dutch footballer Demy de Zeeuw promotes himself on LinkedIn as available for a new club.
• Football agent posts that he is looking for the next Xavi or Kroos, on his LinkedIn page!
• Main Story - LinkedIn change search result visibility again.

Commentary

My LinkedIn wish list for 2015

• Scheduling of status updates and posts
• Instant messaging via a Skype integration or LinkedIn own proprietary system
• LinkedIn message/InMail 'read' notifications
• Common meaning for simple words like 'views' for instance a post view being the same as an update view.
• The ability to share image based updates with individuals (see question below)Question

What is the best way to ask others to share my status update?

ANS = Rather than  putting something in the update or comments I would advise sending the update directly to those you know are most likely to help you. The video below explains how this is done.

http://youtu.be/itS21HbXAfs

Thank you so much for listening, I really value your support and interest.

As always I would welcome your feedback and questions.

Mentioned in this episode:

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

• The top 25 skills that got people hired in 2014.
• Bryan Mills (aka Liam Neeson) will endorse your skills if you win a contest! Interesting to see a major film studio using LinkedIn to promote its latest movie release (Taken 3) and even more interesting to that LinkedIn are completely fine with this!
• Could Viadeo be a viable acquisition target for LinkedIn?
• Tax inspectors in Turkey use LinkedIn to catch tax evaders

Commentary

• Do you want to find your 'future self' on LinkedIn? When you think about it you could and LinkedIn could make it even easier if they released tools to make it easier to predict your future based on real data from other profiles.
• Where is Jeff Weiner taking LinkedIn? I love this article and agree with the three areas that they believe LinkedIn is focussing its future on.

Thanks to my two wonderful kids James & Anna for 'volunteering' to be interviewed for this show!

Finally may I wish you a very merry and happy Christmas.

2015 is going to be a great year for LinkedIn and I look forward to sharing every moment of it with you.

Thank you so much for listening, I really value your support and interest.

As always I would welcome your feedback and questions. If you want to be on the show you can leave a comment by voicemail (right hand side of this page) or email me at [email protected].

Help me to promote the podcast

It can be difficult to get noticed in iTunes and one thing that can really make a difference is reviews. If you enjoy the show please take a minute to write an honest review in iTunes, it would be most appreciated.

Mentioned in this episode:

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

News

• LinkedIn have issued the following email to all premium members regarding the new InMail policy. This was originally announced to Recruiter and Sales Navigator users but as I suspected it is going to affect everyone (InMail is after all InMail!)
• LinkedIn Introduces a brand new design for their home page. My thoughts are that it looks very sparse (minimalistic) and has a 'mobile feel' to it - one of the main people involved with the design was Joff Redfern who is the VP of Mobile so perhaps that explains it. I don't like the intrusion of the very prominent 'Jobs you may be interested in' (see below) especially as this account (Colin) has opted out of this in their settings!

 In addition the difference between a status update with an image attached and one that simply brings an image across from a website link has increased making the attached image option much larger and therefore more effective.

Below you can see the same update done twice, the top one is via the paperclip 'attach image' and the second links to a webpage with exactly the same image.

LinkedIn Announce their top 10 company pages of 2014.

Update from last week

• New Profile Edit. Moving a current employment to the top of your experience section isn't that obvious! You need to hover over and grab the multi dotted line (see below). 

Question

Why are my status updates getting ignored?

Status updates can be a powerful feature when used correctly, here are my guidelines for effective status updating;

• Always use an image by using the paperclip link in the update box. This will make your images larger and that is the most important thing, people have to see an update in the first place so large, eye catching images work. The new homepage (as shown above) makes this even more important.
• Posting updates in isolation is unlikely to result in many connections seeing it. The algorithm seems to prefer showing your updates to connections whom you have engaged with on LinkedIn. This means that other activities - comments, likes, views, connecting etc all count.
• Avoid posting links in isolation. Make your updates more interesting by making a comment to introduce a subject and support that with a link (rather than just posting a link).
• Ask questions and encourage others to comment, this will help to spread your update beyond your first tier connections.
• Avoid too many promotional updates (including vacancies). Promoting is OK so long as its not your dominant activity, for every promotional update there should be another three that are providing interesting, useful information.
• Timing. Avoid weekends and mornings are better than afternoons. My experience has been that 8.15-9.15 aam works best for me but every market is different so I would advise you to experiment. I use Buffer to help me schedule some updates to ensure I hit the right time.
• Consistency. Regular updates spread across a week are better than a 'surge' of updates across one day. This happens because we are all busy and tend to update when we can rather than in a considered, consistent manner. I also use Bufferto help with this.

Mentioned in this episode:

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

News

• LinkedIn have changed how we edit our profiles. I have produced a very short video (30 secs) to demonstrate the changes
• It would appear that LinkedIn are testing a new way to invite from someone's profile (desktop app), this means that clicking 'connect' will just send a standard message. In order to customise the message you now have to hover over the disclosure triangle and select 'personalise invitation' as below

This has only been seen by a few users so far so is obviously in the early stages of testing.

• Nominate your best LinkedIn company Page of 2014
• 40% of LinkedIn users earn over $100k per year according to Comscore. This fact and many other come from this fantastic and well researched article on DigiDay.com. The article is about Dan Roth the Executive Editor of LinkedIn. I would recommend you read it.

Commentary

• A trip down memory lane. In the Digiday article they include an amazing link to a short piece about the start of LinkedIn posted on 7th May 2003 (2 days after LinkedIn's launch). The comments are fascinating and well worth a read.
• The ingredients of a Great LinkedIn Sales Message. Inspired by the research and analysis I covered in last week's show I thought I would have another crack at publishing a post on LinkedIn. My aim is to get into the Sales channel in pulse. In this piece I cover the 9 ingredients required in great sales messages on LinkedIn.

Question

• Thanks to Carl Whalley for this one; What value do group members see in these "read my blog" posts in groups? Since we don't always have the time to go into each and every one, generally a quick glance to see if it's on topic means it's likely to get approved. But do group members see them differently? ANS= I think if the 'discussion merely says "read my blog" then it isn't a great contribution but if someone makes a point and starts an interesting discussion about their (linked) blog piece then it is just as good as any other discussion. What do you think?

Mentioned in this episode:

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

All about LinkedIn best practice.

Mentioned in this episode:

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

News

• Jeff Weiner sells a fifth of his shares and nets a cool $10 million! You can read the detail here if you want to get green with envy!
• Facebook are rumoured to be planning a new 'Facebook at Work' service which could be a rival to LinkedIn. I'm undecided on whether this would be a good thing or not but I also doubt Facebook will follow through on it.
• LinkedIn launch a new 'Course Certifications' feature

Commentary

• Following an acceptance of an invitation to connect from a profile that didn't look fake (OK the profile picture is terrible but I've seen much worse!) I then received the following message;
• I'm not going to deny it, for a brief second my heart skipped a beat! Then I did a quick check on Google and found plenty of articles about a very similar email scam from a couple of years ago. I also asked a shared connection called Sam Hooper who replied with the following;

So it looks like I will have to wait a bit longer to find my multi millionaire benefactor after all......oh well!

I have reported the profile and message to LinkedIn, it will be interesting to see how long it takes them to take the profile down - the header image of this post is a link to the profile so you can check for yourself!

• I have been busy building a new website which is focussed on small to medium businesses and winning new business on LinkedIn. This site will also have its own podcast which will partly be information and guidance on how to use LinkedIn for business development and partly a 'LinkedIn Serial' story every other week. This has been inspired by the awesome chart topping podcast Serial as well as Start-up (both can also be found on iTunes). I have always been a big fan of storytelling as a way to educate and inspire so I am going to be following a journey where I interview, coach and help a team of relatively new LinkedIn users. I am really excited about this project and I will keep you informed.

Question

• This week's question was on voicemail and from Jennifer Holloway. In summary she wanted to know how to add an image to a status update instead of pulling the image from the website you are linking to.
• ANS = The secret is to paste in the link first and then delete the image by clicking on the X and then adding the image by clicking on the paperclip (see below)

Mentioned in this episode:

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

Google did not acquire LinkedIn in 2014 – but Microsoft did in 2016.

Mentioned in this episode:

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

This week we complete the interview with social selling expert Darrel Griffin (click on his picture below to see his LinkedIn profile).

Darrel's model for success is called SPEND (statistics, purchasing journey, Edelman, next generation & digital disruption);

statistics 

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• 92% of B2B buyers start their search online (Salesforce)
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• B2B buyers complete 57% of the buying decision before they are willing to talk to a sales rep (CEB)
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• 75% of buyers say they use social media as part of the buying process (IBM)
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• On average decision makers consume 5 pieces of content before being ready to speak to a sales rep (Chief Marketing Officer Council)
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• 82% of our potential customers can be reached via social media (B2B Sales 2.0)
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purchasing journey

edelman

Click on the image for more information about Edelman's trust barometer;

next generation

Here come the Millennials...

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• 50% of the global workforce by 2020
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• 75% of the global workforce by 2030
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“Social media is by far the dominant way Millennials learn about things online.” (SDL)

digital disruption

Digital Disruption: Unleashing the Next Wave of Innovation

By James McQuivey

Thanks again to Darrel for taking the time and for sharing his knowledge - very interesting stuff! If you want to get in touch with Darrel his website can be found here and on Twitter he is @darrel_griffin.

Thank you so much for listening, I really value your support and interest.

As always I would welcome your feedback and questions. If you want to be on the show you can leave a comment by voicemail (right hand side of this page) or email me at [email protected].

Help me to promote the podcast

It can be difficult to get noticed in iTunes and one thing that can really make a difference is reviews. If you enjoy the show please take a minute to write an honest review in iTunes, it would be most appreciated.

Mentioned in this episode:

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

News

Apparently Microsoft attempted to buy LinkedIn for $500m prior to their IPO in 2011 but decided the price was too high. LinkedIn would cost them closer to $35 billion today!

Sony have collaborated with LinkedIn to produce a business card reading app that synchronises with LinkedIn in the way that CardMunch used to. Does anyone know of any other apps that do the same?

LinkedIn have announced their 3rd quarter results.

332 millions users

90 million unique visitors

28 billion page views

45% growth in revenue

Analysts impressed with the results but not the outlook!

Commentary

LinkedIn have really been pushing skills again with this article being just one of many over the last few weeks.

I have been very impressed with Conspire, a new FREE service that allows you to manage your contacts by analysing your email activity.

You can now add attachments to LinkedIn messages.

Publishing on LinkedIn. Is it really worth it? As more people obtain publishing rights on LinkedIn, the number of views per post seems to be dropping for everyone and this makes me question whether they are still worth doing?

Chris Gaborit is just a normal, regular LinkedIn user who started publishing in May and achieved an amazing result with over 300,000 views of the above post (click on it to read the full post) but over the last couple of months he has seen his posts viewed less and less...this seems to be a consistent story for most people.

His average number of views per post has been the following since starting in May;

May 2014 - 54,911

June 2014 - 28,260

July 2014 - 6115

September - 418

October - 2696

Maybe we are better off blogging on our own websites and promoting these articles via status updates?

Question

Why are LinkedIn persisting with Skills & endorsements when everyone knows they are a joke?

This question really got me thinking and my conclusion is that the big data that skills give them is something they intend to monetise. Endorsements are merely a red herring designed to encourage us to add more skills to our profiles!

Mentioned in this episode:

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