Linkedinformed Podcast. The Linkedin Show

Welcome to episode 204, this week I want to return to the increasingly important subject of video, not just native video but the wider use of video on LinkedIn. No interesting news to report this week apart from a couple of changes to LinkedIn;   LinkedIn Updates LinkedIn appear to be trialling the compulsory use of hashtags in posts. Goof idea or not? GIFs have returned to LinkedIn! They are now accessible only in the Messages feature and interestingly via a 3rd party source called Tenor. This itself interests me as LinkedIn have shown reluctance to work with 2rd parties previously .(see emoji’s and video filters). Here is a link to the article. I’m a bit mixed up when it comes to GIF’s, in theory I shouldn’t like them as they are usually pretty stupid……but I keep finding myself using them so I think I’m going to have to come out and say it…….I’m a Giffer! New Profiles. As the roll out of the new profile design continues more information is coming to light (I still don’t have it). It would appear that Summar

Welcome to episode 203, after a weeks break for the Easter holidays we are back and this week I want to talk about engagement……quite possibly the single most important thing you should consider when using LinkedIn! Not much news since the last episode, apart from the following Interesting Stuff I Saw This Week LinkedIn Goes All-In on B2B Video I have mixed feelings about this, as you know I love video and the ability to post videos from a company page is a positive thing but then again, the people that manage company pages tend to be stuck in a mindset of promotion……so we can expect to see a lot of boring corporate, ‘look at how amazing we are’ videos….joy! In addition, the main reason LinkedIn have implemented this is to encourage companies to sponsor their video posts, which will also lead to more boring, non-engaging promotional videos. I still think video from a personal page is by far the best way to encourage engagement. It looks like LinkedIn have figured a way to work out what Chrome extension you

Welcome to episode 202, this week I don’t really have one main subject to cover but I guess the most eye grabbing headline is that LinkedIn have decided to re-design profiles….again! More of that later but to start with as usual…. Interesting Stuff I Saw This Week The Bible of LinkedIn Bollocks LinkedIn Top Companies To Work For - UK LinkedIn Top Companies To Work For - US LinkedIn Top Companies To Work For - Canada LinkedIn Top Companies To Work For - Australia How we created the 2018 LinkedIn Top Companies list LinkedIn Updates New Profile Design About a year ago, most people were seeing the new design for the first time, The basic (free) version of LinkedIn had a complete makeover including a new design for profiles…..and now they have decided the re-design profiles again!! Firstly let me make it clear that these new profiles are in the early stage of roll-out so very few of you will see this. I also don’t have this new design, the above screenshot was sent to me by my good friend and fellow LinkedIn Tra

Welcome to episode 201, this week I return to our normal format and the main subject is something that has been playing on my mind for a while, in some respects I think it can be the ‘elephant in the room’ for a social media or LinkedIn Trainer / Coach …..What do you do if your prospects are not socially active on LinkedIn or any social media platform? More of that later, but to start with…. Interesting Stuff I Saw This Week LinkedIn updates its Terms of Service in line with GDPR Microsoft Pix can scan business cards to your contacts, find people on LinkedIn A Tale of Two Cases: LinkedIn Postings as Solicitations LinkedIn Search Doesn’t Implicate FCRA, California Court Rules Introducing the LinkedIn Content Insights Annual Post of the week Actually this was from the previous week when the ‘beast from the East’ hit the UK. 1277 likes, 120 comments and a staggering 51,000 views for a native video is exceptional, especially from someone with just 679 followers! I also posted a video this week of a feature tha

Welcome to this momentous occasion and our 200th episode, this week I wanted to do something special to celebrate this landmark so rather than the normal format I am going to be covering the top five episodes (as defined by the number of times they were downloaded) out of the 199 recorded and published so far. I really love this show, it’s become my main form of content these days and the best way to keep people in touch and up to date with LinkedIn. It all started in November 2013 when I decided to finally give it a go and promised smells that I would give it 20 episodes and see whether it was worth continuing after that! To be honest….the number of listeners really didn’t justify the amount of time and effort it took me to put together an episode each week but I made the decision to carry on….mainly because I was having so much fun! So here we are, over 4 years later and with over 85,000 downloads we have finally reached our 200th episode. This podcast is really all about you, the listener so I thought it w

Welcome to episode 199. Well what an amazing response we had to last weeks debate with John Nemo about LinkedIn automation! One of the key points that came out of episode 197 is that myself and John have very different ways of generating business and many of you wanted to know more about my way of using LinkedIn to generate 95% of my business without the need to play the numbers game. So that is going to be the main theme of this episode. But first….. Interesting Stuff I Saw This Week Introducing Salary Insights on Jobs LinkedInfluence I received this question prior to last weeks episode and I thunk it hits on a really important question I enjoy John’s (Nemo) podcasts too and find them to be useful. He also believes in providing value which aligns well with your strategy and what I believe in. That said, on the providing value yet pushy scale, John is totally different from you which is why I appreciate your style a lot more.  The question for you though is how does one avoid being pushy like John, provides

Welcome to episode 198, this week I have a real treat for you! As I have mentioned previously, I wanted to revisit the controversial subject of LinkedIn automation. LinkedIn make it very clear they do not approve of the use of any type of automation bot as you can see in the image above which was received by someone after visiting just 100 profiles in a day…..but does that mean we should avoid them? Could they be a useful tool that help us become more productive and successful? I have thought about this a lot and my conclusion is that automation tools are a bad thing for all of us and the more they are used, the less effective LinkedIn will become. Darrel Griffin agrees But not everyone sees it that way…..enter John Nemo! John is a LinkedIn trainer and a big fan of automation on LinkedIn so I thought it would be fun to get him on the show and have a good old debate! We get into all sorts of areas during our discussion and I’m not going to even attempt to cover everything here, you will have to listen to the e

Welcome to episode 197, I’m back and it’s just me this week. Someone alerted me to a shocking issue regarding invitations to connect this week and it got me thinking about the ineffective way that LinkedIn introduce new features. It seems that introduce features on a slow roll-out and rely on their users to report issues…..but what if we don’t or aren’t able to spot a problem…….based on the evidence of this week, it appears that such issues just remain until someone does report it. …..and that is simply not good enough! More of that later but as usual I scanned the internet to find any interesting articles about Linkedin, I found a few but it has been noticeable this year that LinkedIn’s own blog seems to be focussed mainly on job seekers - very few LinkedIn users are looking for jobs so why are Linkedin writing virtually all their blog articles for jobseekers? So far this year on LinkedIn’s main blog 9/10 (and the last 9) have been jobseeker focused! Interesting Stuff I Saw This Week People Still Spend an I

Welcome to episode 196, this week I chat with personal branding expert Jennifer Holloway about the article that LinkedIn bring out every year highlighting the most used words in LinkedIn profiles. Click on the image above to view the full article Takeaways from our chat Some words (such as passionate) are overused in profiles without much thought going into whether they are true or not A better way to interpret this list is not to avoid the words as such but to demonstrate that you are ‘passionate’ or ‘motivated’ by the way you describe what you do. Let the reader make the conclusion themselves. Storytelling can be a great way to demonstrate qualities without having to directly tell someone you are an ‘expert, ’strategic’ or ‘creative’ Are you using a buzzword because it is one you commonly use or are you just falling into the trap of using it for the sake of it? Jennifers advice on writing a LinkedIn summary; Show credibility with hard facts Explain your personal brand by explaining what drives you and expla

Welcome to episode 195, I had planned to cover a different subject (The dangers of automation - let me know your thoughts on that!) this week but then I got an excellent voicemail question from Giles about the differences between following and connecting and decided to cover that subject in more detail. But before that…… Interesting Stuff I Saw This Week Find the Right Words to Land the Right Job More on this in next weeks episode! The Most Popular Jobs and Companies for College Graduates The top job is also the highest pay! ($95k) Insight Global - a fast growing IT recruitment business Why I changed my LinkedIn profile from Andrea to Andrew She was taken more seriously and less patronised when a man! The algorithm started suggesting connections to higher level men at well-recognised companies. Fascinating experiment …..could be worth a try! LinkedIn Updates Have you noticed the new font? Summaries and headlines may need to be adjusted. New changes to groups may be having some positive impact on groups One

Welcome to episode 194, this week I have a chat with my friend and fellow LinkedIn trainer/consultant Sandra Long about personal branding.   Interesting Stuff I Saw This Week LinkedIn Announce some changes to groups I have mentioned previously that I’m aware that LinkedIn are currently working on a project to improve groups and this week they sent out a communication advising of several changes that will happen soon. I think most people have been sent it but in case you didn’t see it; My thoughts; Accessing groups from the homepage is a welcome move but lets be clear, this is just a roll back to how it used to be! Including group conversations in the feed is also nothing new. This one concerns me in that most activity in groups is useless broadcasting as well as spam so this could actually be a negative thing for members homepage feeds! Posting videos is great news. No surprise either as it has been a success on the home page and the ability to @mention (assuming it works!) is a positive step. Retirement of

Welcome to episode 193 and a very happy and prosperous new year to you all. I trust everyone had a fantastic break over Christmas. Towards the end of last year I conducted a survey of LinkedIn users to see how behaviour had changed on LinkedIn. I had a sense that the results would be interesting……and I wasn’t disappointed! In this episode I will go through the results with you but before that…. Interesting Stuff I Saw This Week LinkedOut: The 7 Stages of Grieving a Breakup LinkedOut Update: what to do if your account is restricted? New LinkedIn Feature Invitation Sorting You can now sort your received invitations. This is probably only going to be useful for people that get a lot of invites or get behind with dealing with them but it’s good to see an improvement anyway. I think an additional catergory of “customized with a message” would also be helpful as, when I do have a lot to go through, I always prefer to read those with messages first. Magnet Posts It would appear that the ‘magnet’ post feature has

Welcome to episode 192 and a very merry Christmas to all of you. There has been very little news about LinkedIn this week but I did native the following two related articles; Interesting Stuff I Saw This Week What we got right — and terribly wrong — in our 2017 predictions The 50 big ideas for 2018 LinkedIn are, as always, keeping very tight lipped about their plans for 2018 so I thought it would be fun to take a stab at what I think the likely trends for LinkedIn in 2018 will be. LinkedIn in 2018 Increased use of #Hashtags. Hashtags re-emerged in 2017 but next year they will become mainstream and ‘trending hashtags’ will become an important feature that we will all be using extensively by the end of the year. Livestream Video. This one has been on LinkedIn’s roadmap for a while and I predict 2018 will be the year it is finally implemented. Native video will be fully rolled out by the end of the first quarter and I believe Livestream video will start to become a feature (mobile only) by the middle of 2018. A

Welcome to episode 191, this week I’m going to cover a topic I tackle almost on a daily basis at the moment…..How to know what subjects to post about on LinkedIn. But before I get onto that…… Interesting Stuff I Saw This Week The Crappy Handbook of LinkedIn Profile Pics LinkedIn Top Voices 2017: The must-know people inspiring today’s professional conversations Stay on Top of In-Demand Skills with New Notifications #LinkedInLocal I originally covered the LinkedIn Local phenomenon in episode 166 when I interview Erik Eklund who was a founding member of this movement along with Alex Galviz, Anna McAfee and Manu Goswani. Since then the founders have been joined by Ryan Troll and Brian Almeida to form an organisation that co-ordinates LinkedIn Local meet ups throughout the world. They have now set up a new website Click on the image above to visit the website If you are thinking of running a LinkedIn Local event in your area then take a look at the website to understand how you go about it. Please Do The Survey

Welcome to episode 190, it seems that many people are talking about the mysterious LinkedIn algorithm, myself included! I can’t believe how many of these people are still blaming the algorithm for the poor performance of their content, it’s not the algorithm folks, it’s your content!…… But before I get stuck into that, here are a few things I came across this week Interesting Stuff I Saw This Week People Are Flooding LinkedIn With Strange Stories. We’re Calling Them Broetry. 7 Next-Level Sourcing Tips From the Master, Glen Cathey Can Linkedin Save Slideshare? LinkedIn Plans Improvements, Including Changes To SlideShare New LinkedIn A.I. Is Now Judging Your Content. Sorry, What Content? Native video problems A number of people have been seeing error messages on native LinkedIn videos this week It would appear that simply refreshing your page often sorts this out, if not then try clearing your cache. Blaming The Algorithm I enjoy the challenge of ‘outsmarting’ the algorithm as much as anyone, more than most pr

Welcome to episode 189, not much news this week but I do have a couple of new features to share with you and a cool thing plus I feel the need for a rant!…..more later. Interesting Stuff I Saw This Week ‘LinkedIn degrees’ from global providers ‘could leave UK behind’ Russian accused of hacking LinkedIn, Dropbox to be extradited to US Oops: LinkedIn country subdomains SSL cert just expired   New Features Double tap to Like This new mobile feature is copied straight from Instagram and is definitely aimed at millennial who tend to move through their streams much more quickly and ‘thumb tap’ rather than finger tap as us ‘oldies’ tend to New Magnet Posts This feature is in the early stages of roll out so you may not see it yet but it’s a good one! When you create a post on a mobile app you now get the option to specify to send it to the homepage of (and potentially notify) followers who have specific skills - via a magnet icon. By tapping on the magnet below you are given the option to pick up to three skills. Th

Welcome to episode 188, this week I had some very sad news, one of the clipper race crew was swept overboard and tragically lost his life - devastating for his family and also extremely unnerving for all the other crews. I can’t begin to imagine how they carry on from this. It highlights just how dangerous this race is and impressed on me even more just what Brendan Hall had to go through when he won the race previously. Brendan incidentally released his new speaker showreel this week; I had an interesting chat with Stoke School student Tim Collins who has been using LinkedIn along with some of his friends recently and has been impressed with the authenticity and kindness shown to him by LinkedIn members……(give it time Tim!). You can hear that interview later in the episode but firstly. Interesting Stuff I Saw This Week Trends in marketing investments: LinkedIn starts to establish status? Women Are Reminding People That LinkedIn Is Not A Dating Website Following "Creepy" Messages LinkedIn pledges $10 million

Welcome to episode 187, this week we are back to the normal format after a few weeks of interviews. I would really appreciate your help with compiling a survey of how LinkedIn users have changed their behaviour over the last 12 months or so. More of that later but firstly…… Interesting Stuff I Saw This Week 60% users from Russia remain on LinkedIn after year of blocking Creating Your Resume Just Got a Whole Lot Easier with Microsoft and LinkedIn New Feature Active status is coming to your home page feed. We are used to seeing the green dots in messaging but they will soon be seen elsewhere on LinkedIn, which is a great move. There does seem to be some confusion as to what each one means so just for clarity; A green dot means that person is active on LinkedIn (desktop or mobile) A green circle (Jo below) means they have push notifications enabled on their mobile app. This will also show in profiles, here you can see that Kate (featured in episode 185) is not active but does have push notifications enabled on

Welcome to episode 186, this week I really enjoyed chatting with Leif Carlsen, A social selling expert and podcaster from Denmark. Leif and I chat about a range of things in the episode; ROI - Return on Investment It's difficult to measure Statistics are often merely a vanity measure Social selling will always be a ‘long game’ Some ways you can measure RIO; Post comments, likes and views in the feed InMail / message replies Profile views Invitations received True followers (followers minus connections) SSI (social selling index) Successful referrals The influence formula as discussed in episode 167 LinkedIn should be added as a lead source in your CRM The future of social selling Less about content marketing and more about engagement Sales people will need to grow their own following and influence Think of yourself as being a DJ Broadcasting to a wide audience of listeners The attributes of sales people will change; Less selfish, more motivated to help others Driven to help people even when there is no chance

Welcome to episode 185, this week I’m doing my annual ‘escape from the wet and cold of Britain’ week in Spain so I thought I would treat you to one of the most popular podcast episodes I have ever produced. I’m sure many of heard you have heard me talk about the florist from Grimsby who is killing it on LinkedIn….well this is the interview I did with her in May 2015 on a since retired podcast called Winbusinessin…..enjoy!