Informed: the podcast for LinkedIn® users

You can view Darrel's LinkedIn profile here

Darrel's Story

25 years in sales, mainly in the UK. Wine trade, screen printing and signage.

Moved to Perth, Western Australia in July 2012 - knew no-one!

Business Development Manager role for a signage contractor

Threw himself into LinkedIn

Annual target exceeded within 4 months!

50% of sales came via LinkedIn

Decided to aim to become Perth's social selling 'go to' guy

Launched Social4Sales - already fully booked until mid December!

Other links

Gary Vaynerchuck

Gary Vaynerchuck's books (my favourite is Crush it)

Gary's blog

Darrel's next door neighbour...as featured in the podcast!

Mentioned in this episode:

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

News

Another lawsuit is filed against LinkedIn and this one is just plain ridiculous! Apparently the ability to read someone's background and perform a few checks on LinkedIn when considering recruiting them violates a US law. Read the full story here. Has the world gone mad?!

LinkedIn plans to expand its publishing team. Its becoming increasing clear that publishing is a core focus for LinkedIn as demonstrated by their plans to open a major new office in San Francisco in 2016.

Jeff Weiner interview with Bloomberg

LinkedIn hits back and asks judge to dismiss the lawsuit regarding the email reminders sent to those who do not respond when an invitation to join LinkedIn message is sent to them. As opposed to the other lawsuit, I can't see how LinkedIn can defend this.

It looks like premium accounts may be about to re-vamped, effectively making them more expensive. The Spotlight premium account had a very short life - below is a reply from the help center on this matter.

Lets hope the 'test' fails then!

Tips & Features

You can now see personalised invitation messages in the quick menu by clicking on 'see all' (see below)

'Groups' has now disappeared in the reasons for inviting menu (see below). LinkedIn help center are claiming that this is a fault but I'm not convinced, lets hope so. In the meantime there are a few workarounds. Firstly there is the method using LinkedIn Contacts (2nd tier only) which is my favoured method - see here for a detailed guide on how to do this.  Or you can now customise invitations using a mobile app (not tablet) - scroll down to check out the show notes for episode 32 for instructions on how to do that.

Apparently a fault.....lets see!

New 'Actions' feature in the 'Who's viewed your profile' section. I have only just got this feature so have not really been able to understand its benefits but it seems like a good idea. Jo Saunders has published a more detailed post about it.

And finally the best article I read this week about LinkedIn was Data and the Power it Bestows by Raven Jiang. I'm not one of those people that worries about big data and security / privacy but I must admit that Raven puts a very interesting argument that the information we are providing to LinkedIn could be abused and they clearly 'hold the key' to its future access. 

Mentioned in this episode:

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

How to find anyone on LinkedIn, with Katharine Robinson.

Mentioned in this episode:

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

Searching for jobs on LinkedIn Update. Last week I talked about the 5 ways you can search for jobs but someone has revealed a 6th way - searching or browsing through updates in a company page

Some companies will have a specific 'careers' page on their company page (see top arrow) but you will also find jobs advertised in their status update stream (see bottom arrow)

News

New YOUniversity section which gives college/school students some great tools to help them select the right university for them.

This is divided into three integrated pages, lets look at each;

Decision Boards. This is the area where students can organise their search for the right course and university using a combination of organizational, social and insight tools.

Rankings. (See image at the top of the page) This is the most controversial element where universities are ranked according to the 'success' of their alumni with getting the jobs they wanted. There were only five careers listed when I looked but I am sure more will be added in time.

Finder. Simply enter your criteria such as career (ie law) and location (ie London) or/and employer (who you want to work for) and it will tell you how many alumni from each university achieved these goals.

Other news - SlideShare gets its first ever iOS app, I'm shocked they didn't have one already but it does look pretty good

Also LinkedIn is introducing a new 'Actions' section into the profile views section of Linkedin. I don't have it but Jo Saunders has written agreat post about it.

Searching. I'm still getting some odd results no doubt due to the new Galene search engine. My latest findings suggest that closeness in network has moved down the pecking order. What are your experiences of search, any different?

POEM

Actually maybe its not a poem, but amusing all the same! Thanks to Carl Whalley for sending it in;

Mark Williams has moved his mouse! Would you like to endorse Mark with his new skill: 'Mouse Moving", so future employers can help him use it to realise his full potential? An email from Joe Tester has triggered a Tweet which was automatically posted to his Facebook account and so in turn updated his Linked In status to "just doing my emails". Congratulate Joe now? It's been 2 years 3 days and 19 minutes since you first told us you're not interested in upgrading to a Premium Account. Would you like to upgrade to a Premium Account, and get more fantastic emails from us? Don't be left out - your network is talking about you behind your back - find out what they are saying about you with a Premium Account!Congratulations - you have been endorsed as a Turkey Sexer by Nettie Worker (LION 9999+ contacts!) HOT NEWS! All the LinkedIn directors have sold all their shares as they announce to the market the future looks brighter than ever.

Company Page Frustrations.  I got to see first hand just how hard it can be when trying to add images to company pages, merge profiles and create showcase pages (you can only create 2 each day - goodness only knows why!) and the interesting fact came out from LinkedIn admitting that the only browser LinkedIn is fully compatible with is Mozilla Firefox so I have started using it for all my LinkedIn activities and I must admit it is a pretty good browser and many activities do seem a bit smoother/quicker.

Question. How do you find the time to use LinkedIn effectively?

This is such a great question and not an easy one to answer as its something we all struggle with. My three tips are;

1. Schedule activities such as reading updates and posting.
2. Use mobile apps, the LinkedIn main one and the Connected app
3. Make your content engaging which allows your activities to be quick reactive things rather than having to spend time thinking of what to create and post all the time.

Mentioned in this episode:

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

News

• More shareholders sell their LinkedIn shares. Is this news anymore?
• LinkedIn state that Mozilla Firefox is the most compatible browser for LinkedIn and that they are not fully compatible with other browsers.
• LinkedIn make some changes to their terms of service this mainly relates to the ownership of published posts.
• InMail will be changing from 2015. LinkedIn are abandoning the 7 day guaranteed response policy and replacing it with a 90 day policy that allows you to get the credit back if the message is replied to. This may only apply to Recruiter and Sales accounts although the suggestion is that it applies to all InMails.

Special Offer

Want to find anyone and contact them for free on LinkedIn?

This pdf cheatsheet shows you how in an easy step by step guide

5 Ways to Find Jobs on LinkedIn

1) Jobs Section (nothing more to say!)

2) Job Discussions in a group (see below)

3) Recent activity of Recruiters (see below)

4) Search Published posts (see below)

5) Use the 'Find' function in your browser

BI Intelligence survey in the US reveals the following information;

• More people are on LinkedIn than Twitter
• LinkedIn's sweet spot for age is 30-49 years
• LinkedIn is the best social media platform to access over 50s
• More males were on LinkedIn 24% than women 19%

Mentioned in this episode:

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

News

BeLinked. The new dating app that allows its users to find suitable dates via LinkedIn profiles. This makes perfect sense for BeLinked but is this a good idea for LinkedIn?

LinkedIn Partners With Kaplan On 'Career Journey' Programme

Irish judge allows papers to be served via LinkedIn account.

Tips

Status updates gets 3x more views and comments when you post a picture as opposed to allowing a picture to show from a weblink. (see below)

The top update with an attached picture was posted at 8.45am on a Tuesday morning. The 2nd one with a link (containing the same picture) was posted at 8.45am the day before.

The top update with an attached picture was posted at 8.45am on a Tuesday morning. The 2nd one with a link (containing the same picture) was posted at 8.45am the day before.

Here are the view numbers for the Monday update (the one with a link, the bottom of the above two);

And here are the stat's for the one posted on the Tuesday with a picture attached;

As you can see there is a significant difference when an update has a picture attached, this must be down to the increased size and therefore it is more likely to get peoples attention.

You can now change a group name by as much as 20 times. You just need to ask LinkedIn customer services.

SWAM or MAG (Moderation across all groups) is currently running at 7 days so if you find yourself moderated you won't have to wait long for it to be lifted.

Listener question. Why won't LinkedIn allow me to invite my (3rd tier) ex colleagues to connect? Answer = If you search for them by name you will be able to connect. LinkedIn is trying to prevent you from connecting with people you don't know and have found by keyword or company employee searching.

Mentioned in this episode:

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

News

• DIALaBRAIN find an innovative way to use the media section of a profile (see below)
• LinkedIn Mobile (iOS & Android) apps now allow you to customize your invitation message. Its not very intuitive but at least it can be done! Here is how you do it (iOS)

1, Do not click on the link in the shortlist

2, Ignore 'connect' and click on the share link in the top right corner

Write your message.

Credit to Viveka Von Rosen for spotting this. Unfortunately this technique is not possible on the iPad app

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• LinkedIn shareholders sell off even more shares, including CEO Jeff Weiner!
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• Over 1 million jobs in the US are now being advertised on LinkedIn
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Advertising Update

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• Following my request last week I have found two examples of successful advertising campaigns. One was a small scale 'sponsored updates' campaign that cost £200 and achieved 25 downloads of a pdf report (I'm not sure I would be happy with that myself). The other involved a considerably greater spend of $25,000 but achieved a massive 1,761% ROI. This was a new membership campaign by the International Coach Federation in the US. The full report can be seen here
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The State of LinkedIn.

Do LinkedIn have their monetization strategy right? 

In this section I talk about one article which puts a case for why LinkedIn are an attractive investment versus another piece that claims quite the opposite! 

The second article can be found here but I must warn you that to read the full piece you will be asked to sign up to a variety of things you probably don't want so here is the most interesting bit;

Fundamental weaknesses

Before I get to LinkedIn's strategic failures, let me first point out its operating woes:

LinkedIn squeezed out only 1.6% in operating profits during its last twelve months vs. 5.2% during the twelve months ended at the end of 2Q 2013. To contrast its continued decline in operating margins, Facebook has achieved operating profits of 43% during its last twelve months.

LinkedIn's Premium Subscriptions conversion rate is consistently under .4%. That means that of the 305 million users (average during the 2Q 2014), less than half of a percent convert into purchasing LinkedIn's premium products. Premium subscriptions start out at $23.99 and approach rates of as high as $99.99. Assuming that the average premium subscriber pays $40/month, the conversion rate is an abysmal .29%. If the average user pays $35, the conversion rate would be closer to .33%.

In any case, the conversion rate declines if your assumption uses a higher dollar-per-month figure, which means that ~99.7% of LinkedIn's users see no value in Premium Subscriptions (not to be confused with Job Seeker subscriptions, which fall under Talent Solutions).

LinkedIn continues to spend heavily on sales & marketing to promote its products. In addition to salaries, benefits, travel, and employee incentives, sales & marketing expenses also include the expensive "customer acquisition marketing" spend. Sales & marketing expenses are expected to decline as a percentage of revenues at a company succeeding to sell its concept. Not so at LinkedIn. It spent 34% of revenues on sales & marketing in 1H 2012, 34% in 1H 2013, and 35% in 1H 2014.

........

.....User engagement is critical for LinkedIn at this point and will translate into a significant increase in share value. Without it, LinkedIn's operating woes will continue to exacerbate. Attracting users to a website where the only realistic option is to log in, update a profile, and check out a wall of static activities is a strategic mistake. Incentivize users to participate on LinkedIn and create an innovative environment for them to target corporations!

As is, the downside risk from slowing expansion through the sales and marketing strategy is significant and could continue to affect LinkedIn's bottom line. The firm's share price at $231 is not well supported as LinkedIn's strategic weakness in engaging users will eventually translate into heavier losses.

I think this is a fascinating argument and whilst I don't think LinkedIn should incentivise connecting, I do believe that a 100% free model where engagement is incentivised and highly read articles attract payments are excellent ideas that could solve the issue of poor advertising sales.

Mentioned in this episode:

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

News

• The way we receive invitation notifications has changed (see video below) I also mentioned 2 pieces of software to help with speedy messaging which were TextExpander for Mac or Phrase Express for PC.
• Feature retirement - InMaps is the latest to be culled. Unfortunately it is now too late to get your map as the site officially closed on 1st September. Here is a Techcrunch article with more detail.
• LinkedIn's new mobile app - Sales Navigator
• New feature - You can now export all of your historical LinkedIn data. Get your step by step guide on how its done by completing the form below; 

Name *

First Name

Last Name

Email Address *

• LinkedIn are considering easing their censorship policy for China. Article here
• 57% of LinkedIn users are 'engaged' Read more here
• 2 LinkedIn shareholders cash in by selling shares. Could this be a coincidence?

Tip

Jo Saunders has provided this weeks tip. How to withdraw a LinkedIn invitation.

Mentioned in this episode:

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

News

LinkedIn Settles Password Hacking Class Action Lawsuit for $1.25M The settlement terms provide that LinkedIn's paid users can submit a claim, but only if they declare that they read the privacy policy and were influenced by the company's statements about security. Between 2007 and 2012, LinkedIn garnered around 800,000 premium subscribers, who paid at least $19.95 a month for membership, according to court papers. But lawyers estimate that only 20,000 to 50,000 subscribers will be able to qualify for payments from the settlement fund. The US District court will hold a hearing in January to decide whether to grant the settlement preliminary approval.

Who's viewed your profile ranking adds a new 'professionals like you' section but the algorithm is far from accurate (see below)

• Public profiles get an update
• If you want to keep up to date with LinkedIn's constant changes, sign up here to receive an email notifying you of every relevant update.
• LinkedIn get us excited by releasing a new mobile app with the following in the update notes;

I mentioned several other podcasts during the show, here are the links to those shows;

• Smart Passive Income - Pat Flynn
• UK Podcasters - Mike Russell
• The Online learning podcast - John Colley
• Changeability - Kathryn Bryant
• Magician Business - Ken Kelly 

Mentioned in this episode:

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

Show Notes

• The UKPod14 conference was a great success and the keynote speaker was Jason Van Orden from Internet Business Mastery.
• This podcast is unlikely to be found on iTunes until we receive more 5 star reviews. If you enjoy the show please help out by submitting a review. This video explains how it is done.
• You can now subscribe to this show on TuneIn. Click here

News

• Deep Nishar resigns, read his announcement here
• Published posts get a makeover, see this example
• New free LinkedIn feature alerts service launched. Register
• What are you doing when you listen to the show? Darrel Griffin is doing his ironing!
• Tune in next week to hear the full story of the LinkedIn sex pest!
• Question: Why do people view profiles anonymously?

Mentioned in this episode:

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