Welcome to episode 111, more of the mobile dilemma later but I want to start with an ongoing issue that everyone seems to be talking about;

 

It’s NOT Facebook!

 

LinkedIn is clearly different to Facebook in that it is a business & professional network but it’s not different in that it is a network of people and it’s social!

Rather than complain about inappropriate posts wouldn’t it be better to pay more attention to those connections who are posting more interesting content and building stronger relationships with them?

I saw a comment this week which I thought hit the nail on the head;

 

How about you focus on what you do, what value you bring, who you help, who you identify, contact in an authentic not all-about-you-and-what-you-want way, meet in person, build rapport, work out how you might help each other.

The key is to understand, truly understand what you want out of being on LinkedIn (& out of Business/Professional networking in general) and then... realize it's all about people, other people.  Get good at researching using LinkedIn and 'what's in my feed' will be less of concern to you because that won't be where you find the value. The value will be in what YOU do.

 

Well said!

 

Interesting stuff I saw this week

 

• Lynda is now available on Apple TV
• Recruiters welcome updated LinkedIn Recruiter product
• LinkedIn passes 20 million users in China
• LinkedIn top execs harvest pay raises

 

I also came across this legend of business on LinkedIn this week!

LinkedIn changes

 

Some people are seeing the number of followers on profiles rather than connections, this might be an experiment, I don’t have it yet but it could just be in the early stages of being rolled out.

 

We can now ‘like’ comments in status updates

 

It is now possible to remove yourself from a group conversation in Messages

 

The Field Of Study search is being discontinued on May16th.

 

 

This weeks cool things is another free Chrome extension called Prophet.

This handy tool will often be able to locate the email address of people you find on LinkedIn.

 

AFQ

This weeks question came from James Muir regarding the issue of only seeing the last ten notifications.

 

James didn't specify whether this was a desktop or mobile issue, so I have answered both;

 

Mobile

 

I suspect this is what you mean as I only see the last ten on my app.

 

You can refine which updates you see in the app notifications in your settings, this is done as follows;

 

Go to the 'Me' section and click on the settings 'cog' as below;

Now tap on 'Communications' and select 'Push notifications' as below;

 

This will allow to reduce the amount of less important notifications appearing in your last 10. Alternatively, you can ensure that you receive emails to alert you (see desktop solution below)

 

Desktop

 

Firstly I am not experiencing the same issue on my account, I can see numerous updates going back weeks. This may just be that the changes haven't reached my account yet or it may also be a short-term glitch on your account. I know that contradicts what the help center told you but it won't be the first time they have given out incorrect information!

It is certainly worth logging out, clearing cookies and trying again. If you haven't already done so.

 

Secondly, there are a number of ways around this;

 

If you are mainly interested in responding to activity/comments on your updates and activity then you should be able to do this by viewing your activity. Go to Profile>Your updates - there you will see the last 2 weeks.

 

Alternatively, you could refine your notifications by unsubscribing to certain ones that are of no interest to you, this would mean that more of your important ones will show in the last 10. This is done by clicking on the 'x' in the top right of a notification.

 

Finally, you can compensate for the lack of notifications by adjusting your email settings

> Go to settings

> Select 'communications'

> Select 'Email frequency'

> Select 'Notifications'

> ensure 'Comments on posts you publish' and 'Summary of your notifications' are set to on

 

That’s it for this week, please feel free to get in touch if you have any questions you would like me to answer on the show.

 

Have a great week.

 

 

Welcome to a new episode. This week I thought it was time for a change in format and it's been quite a while since I did an interview so please let me introduce Rosie O'Hara.

Rosie talks about her experience of how the words we use (specifically on LinkedIn) can have a significant effect on how others react to us when we send invitations to connect and other LinkedIn messages.

Welcome to a new episode of the LinkedInformed podcast.

I seem to have had a frustrating week with LinkedIn - glitches and weird mystery settings have somewhat go in the way of productivity!

 

LinkedIn Typo’s

 

I was working with a client this week and spotted several spelling mistakes in their LinkedIn profile. This person is highly intelligent and definitely knows how to spell, The problem is they didn't take their time and pay attention to detail when writing their profile.

This got me thinking about how common this might be so I conducted searches for some commonly misspelt words and here are the results;

 

Mangers (Managers)

 

Here are the companies with the most Mangers!

 

Catagory (Category)

 

Beleive (Believe)

 

And then there are plenty like this!!

 

Seriously though, it’s obviously easily done. Check your profile carefully, double check it and then get someone else to check it!

You only get one chance to make a first impression with your profile, make sure it’s the right one!

 

The 5C Business Development System is now for sale!

….and for a limited time it’s discounted by a massive 63%!

 

I’m really proud of this course, I was looking at some of the earlier lessons and I actually started recording the videos 9 months ago! It’s taken a lot of work to get to this position and it doesn’t end here as I will need to update all the ‘settings’ lessons with the new design.

The 5C system contains 5 modules as below;

In total there are 65 videos covering every aspect of using LinkedIn as an effective business development tool.

I’m very excited to see how people react to this course and I hope you can take advantage of the limited time launch price (just £146 but only for the next 7 days, then it will be £396).

 

I am also giving away a free e-book to those who expressed an interest in the 5C System.

Click on the Image below to get your free LinkedIn toolbox.

 

 

Interesting stuff I saw this week

 

• Job seekers getting caught up in online scams
• Will This Year’s College Grads Job-Hop More Than Previous Grads?
• How dare you put that on LinkedIn!

 

Cool Thing

 

Typorama

Images are critical to the success of status updates so I strongly advise using images in the majority of your updates.

A fantastic tool that can help you produce great looking images is Typorama. I produced the image below in seconds as well as the main header image of this page.

AFQ

 

 

Question: LinkedIn has removed messaging someone before accepting their connection request. Apart from using InMail is there another way to send them a message before choosing to accept or not?

 

Answer: LinkedIn haven't actually removed  this feature but they have made it harder to find!

On the Mobile app you can only reply to a customised invitation

 

but on the desktop version you can reply to any invitation before accepting as follows;

1. Hover over the invites icon (top right) and click on ‘see all’ as below;

 

2) Now hover over the speech bubbles in the top right of an an invitation card and click on the arrow to reply

 

Now I have a question for you!

Whilst updating the settings lessons in my 5C training system this week I came across the following new setting in the communications section.

 

This is found under Communications > Basics > email frequency > Notifications

I have no idea what this setting controls! Any ideas?

I’m wondering if it might be notifications about people viewing my profile but if so it’s a very poor and misleading title!

I have asked LinkedIn and they seem stumped! Someone is running around trying to find the techie who wrote the code to get a definitive answer…..it’s been 3 days so far!

Welcome to a new episode of the LinkedInformed podcast.

I have had an exciting and rewarding week with the successful launch of mine you social selling and business development e-learning programme.

 

The 5C Business Development System is now for sale!

….and for a limited time it’s discounted by a massive 63%!

I’m really proud of this course, I was looking at some of the earlier lessons and I actually started recording the videos 9 months ago! It’s taken a lot of work to get to this position and it doesn’t end here as I will need to update all the ‘settings’ lessons with the new design.

The 5C system contains 5 modules as below;

In total there are 65 videos covering every aspect of using LinkedIn as an effective business development tool.

I’m very excited to see how people react to this course and I hope you can take advantage of the limited time launch price (just £146 but only for the next 7 days, then it will be £396).

I am also giving away a free e-book to those who expressed an interest in the 5C System.

 

Published posts lose view numbers….Does it matter?

 

I noticed this week a change to publish posts in both the main mobile app and the pulse app.

Publish posts are no longer showing the number of views in these apps.

 

Interestingly for now anyway, posts on the desktop version of LinkedIn are still showing view numbers

 

This got me thinking….. Does it really matter how many people view our posts? Surely a post that has a low number of views but a higher number of comments and likes is better than one with high views and low engagement?

Maybe this is where LinkedIn are going with this……. Or maybe it's just a glitch!

I think I would still like to see the number of views but I definitely think we should all be concentrating for more on engagement statistics.

I also refer to this is the AFQ section below.

 

Interesting stuff I saw this week

 

• LinkedIn Launches Private Cloud for Growth
• My name is Barbara Roberts but please call me Barbie!!
• Social media use and depression linked in large study
• LinkedIn has snazzy new offices in San Francisco (see pics below)

 

Cool Thing

 

Profile views extension

Especially useful if you are notion a premium account but you are also able to see past 90 days so potential of use to premium members as well.

And of course, it’s free!

AFQ

 

Question: How do I get more views of my published post. I am averaging about 100 per post which doesn’t seem very much.

Answer: Firstly referring to my point earlier, views are not the key measurement to worry about - the aim with content is to develop relationships and trust and this is largely done through engagement (comments).

That said, you need the views to get the engagement so here are my thoughts;

Getting more views involves a planned 'marketing' exercise that should look something like this

• Make the post engaging. Ask questions to encourage comments and always reply to any comments, this helps with distribution. - Don't rely on notifications to get views.
• Always post status updates to promote your post, ideally using a large, attractive image. (type the update, paste the link to the post then delete the link with the thumbnail image and add a large image (quite possible the same one) in it's place. This will be 5x the size of the thumbnail.
• Repeat this status update across several days and at different times.
• Sharing OPC (other people's content) allows you to share more of your own. If all I see from you is (perceived) self promotion then I switch off, if however 60% of what I see (your updates) is OPC and clearly helpful to me then I will take more notice of your own content.
• Be persistent, views take time to grow - overnight success is rare and mostly luck.
• Make sure your follower settings are set to 'everyone'

 

In summary, posts need to be widely distributed via a series of status updates plus Twitter and Facebook posts if appropriate.

It’s been a very quiet week for LinkedIn, no news to report whatsoever, the bickering about Facebook type posts and inappropriate content continues of course but to be honest, I’m really bored of that now!

LinkedIn have been sending out a survey which suggests that they might be considering having adverts in groups, not display ad’s but in the stream of ‘conversations’ - please no!

We finally have new settings!

The only news of any note is that the new settings design has finally arrived in my account, I’m going to write a full report that will be sent to subscribers of my LinkedIn updates service this weekend so if you haven’t already signed up, now is the time to do so!

The 5C Business Development System is now for sale!

….and for a limited time it’s discounted by a massive 63%!

 

I’m really proud of this course, I was looking at some of the earlier lessons and I actually started recording the videos 9 months ago! It’s taken a lot of work to get to this position and it doesn’t end here as I will need to update all the ‘settings’ lessons with the new design.

The 5C system contains 5 modules as below;

<add 5C banner image>

In total there are 65 videos covering every aspect of using LinkedIn as an effective business development tool.

I’m very excited to see how people react to this course and I hope you can take advantage of the limited time launch price (just £146 but only for 7 days, then it will be £396).

Just click here for more information.

 

Social Selling & LinkedIn.

 

Standing out from the crowd is increasingly difficult these days…on and offline and especially on LinkedIn….have you seen just how much ‘stuff’ appears on your homepage?!

 

I believe the key to standing out involves 2 things;

 

1. Highly visible posts/updates. Using images is no longer a desirable action, it’s absolutely essential if you want people to see your updates. My two favourite tools are Wordswag for mobile and Canva for desktop. Images are much bigger (and therefore more effective) when added directly into Linkedin rather then via a 3rd party app/site like Buffer or Hootsuite.
2. Credibility. This will only be gained through the quality of what you do and what you share - content is critical to building credibility on LinkedIn. Do you share great content? Do you create useful, interesting content? Even if an update grabs my attention, I rarely read it unless it is from someone I trust to only produce or share great content.

 

Once you have gained views and reader you will gain more followers and most importantly you will be on track to develop greater trust and this is much more likely to result in winning more business.

 

Social Networking in Real Life - SOCIAL EXPERIMENT

 

Have you see this great video from Jena Kingsley? It really made me chuckle, especially the bit about endorsements and the anonymous viewer on the subway!

https://youtu.be/_pyJlERCrJE 

 

Cool Thing

This weeks cool thing comes from a listener, Carl Whalley who found that when linking to his site, LinkedIn often didn’t find the right image on a post - or at times no image at all. This works seamlessly on other sites but LinkedIn seemed to be having problems.

As Carl explains “The heart of this issue is "Open Graph" support, which Googling for will provide more details. Typically, the source site will be Wordpress or Joomla etc, and it’s actually the sites fault by not identifying the images as Open Graph compliant”.

The fix for the site is usually simple - just install a plugin and the correct meta tags will be automatically added to the page, allowing the user to choose the image they want.

So if your blog icon Wordpress and you find you have had this problem you might find adding the plugin to your Wordpress site sorts it out.

Thanks Carl.