Episode 43. The Research Story
All about LinkedIn best practice.
Mentioned in this episode:
This show was created by the original host of the show, Mark Williams.
Transcript
Hello, I'm Mark Williams and this is LinkedInified, the podcast designed to challenge and inspire LinkedIn users throughout the world to be more productive and successful in their use of the world's largest online business network.
Speaker A:Hello, this is Mark Williams and this is LinkedIn formed episode number 4:43.
Speaker A:And you're very welcome.
Speaker A:And to all our US listeners, a very happy Thanksgiving to you all.
Speaker A:And also thank you for bringing us Black Friday, something that those of us.
Speaker B:In other parts of the world, of.
Speaker A:Course, have never really experienced until.
Speaker A:In fact, actually, it's not really thanking you for bringing us Black Friday, is it?
Speaker A:I suppose I should be thanking the Internet for bringing us Black Friday because it's just an interesting dynamic, isn't it, that a kind of sale season in one country becomes international because so many products are sold online, so that then it kind of spreads across the whole world.
Speaker A:Interesting example of how the Internet has such a big effect on us.
Speaker A:Anyway, I'm kind of thankful.
Speaker A:I mean, my course on Udemy has been sold for peanuts during Black Friday.
Speaker B:Which I wasn't so wild about.
Speaker A:But on the flip side, I bought quite a few things myself that were things that I had planned to buy.
Speaker A:So it wasn't like kind of, you know, just buying it because it's cheap, but probably saved myself a good couple of hundred dollars just over the last 24 hours or so.
Speaker A:So I guess I probably won and lost on Black Friday.
Speaker A:Anyway, enough of Black Friday.
Speaker A:But yes, Happy Thanksgiving to everybody over in the US if you are listening to the show on your holiday weekend.
Speaker A:Okay, so what we're going to cover today, well, after the news, I'm going to share with you a little article that I read this week that had me laughing.
Speaker A:I thought it was quite funny called the secret lives of LinkedIn users.
Speaker A:It's just a bit of fun, really, but I thought you'd enjoy it.
Speaker A:I also want to tell you a story that is a real example of something that happened to me with someone that I was doing some work with that shows the power of LinkedIn research.
Speaker A:And it's a story that I share with delegates on training courses all the time.
Speaker A:And it just occurred to me that I don't think, anyway, I've ever shared.
Speaker A:Shared it with you before.
Speaker A:If I have, thank you for being such a good listener in that you must have listened to every episode.
Speaker A:If I have, and, and I apologize for repeating myself, but I'm sure not everyone would have heard it before, even if I have mentioned it.
Speaker A:And I also want to cover a An interesting story that came out this week about Pulse and the algorithm that determines whether you get into Pulse from your published posts.
Speaker A:And I think that's really interesting actually.
Speaker A:And although I'm not the biggest fan of published posts, don't do them anymore for reasons that I've talked about before that I will repeat today, I still think it's interesting because it may be something more relevant to you.
Speaker A:So we'll talk about that.
Speaker A:I may squeeze in a little bit about sending messages on LinkedIn.
Speaker A:If I don't manage to cover it this week, it will be next week.
Speaker A:And then I have a question to finish up with as well, which is all about posting status quo updates.
Speaker A:Oh, there isn't any news this week, I'm afraid.
Speaker A:Seriously, I've looked.
Speaker A:It's not like I've not been looking.
Speaker A:I've been looking for news.
Speaker A:I've looked everywhere.
Speaker A:Probably looked harder than I looked any week because I just couldn't find anything.
Speaker A:I'm in plenty of articles out there about LinkedIn, but honestly, nobody's got anything of any real interest to say.
Speaker A:So just an incredibly quiet week on the news front.
Speaker A:The only news I can give you, which has nothing to do with LinkedIn, is that I've moved into a new studio.
Speaker A:I wonder whether you can hear the difference because I am in a completely different room, which would slightly different soundproofing.
Speaker A:I think it's probably better soundproofing, but you'll probably be the best judge of that.
Speaker A:So let me know what you think and whether the podcast sounds any different to you.
Speaker A:Anyway, it's not really news, is it?
Speaker A:But certainly a big event for me.
Speaker A:I tell you what, moving all my stuff, it was an absolute nightmare.
Speaker A:But there you go.
Speaker A:So let me, without further ado, move.
Speaker B:On to our first story, really, rather.
Speaker A:Than a news piece which is all.
Speaker B:About the secret lives of LinkedIn users.
Speaker B:So this is an article that I Read in the HuffPost Huffington Post by a guy called.
Speaker A:What's his name?
Speaker A:Brian Hanley.
Speaker B:He works for PwC.
Speaker A:He's a technology consultant at PwC.
Speaker B:So he's a techie guy working at PwC.
Speaker B:Anyway, I thought it's quite funny this.
Speaker B:Basically it's called the secret lives of.
Speaker A:LinkedIn users and he said he's got.
Speaker B:Over 1,250 LinkedIn connections and he's a fairly active user of LinkedIn.
Speaker B:He still doesn't have the faintest idea what he's doing.
Speaker A:Maybe I should be speaking to him.
Speaker B:And in search of answers, he surveyed hundreds of his fellow users and asked them to describe what they do on LinkedIn.
Speaker B:And he said what astonished me was the difference or the distinction, sorry.
Speaker B:Between their front stage and backstage behavior.
Speaker B:So you know, I.
Speaker B:What they say they do as opposed to what they actually do, he said.
Speaker B:So the first question was, what do you say you do on LinkedIn?
Speaker B:And the order?
Speaker B:The answers in order of priority were number one, build my professional network.
Speaker B:Number two, document my work experience.
Speaker B:Number three, show my technical capabilities.
Speaker B:Number four, promote my personal brand.
Speaker B:Number five, discover new opportunities and presumably that's job opportunities.
Speaker A:Oh yeah, new career opportunities.
Speaker B:And six, share my expertise.
Speaker B:Okay, so there's nothing new in that, is there?
Speaker A:But then he says, what do.
Speaker B:The second question was what do you actually do on LinkedIn?
Speaker A:And the answers to that were number.
Speaker B:One, admire my own profile.
Speaker B:Number two, debut a headshot that looks like my younger, better looking sibling.
Speaker B:Edit my.
Speaker B:Number three, edit my headline and summary ad nauseam.
Speaker B:Number four, examine my credentials from the point of view of my client hiring manager.
Speaker B:Number five, discover who my top stalkers are, I. E. The people who viewed me section.
Speaker B:Number six, neutralize their creepiness by stalking them back.
Speaker B:Number seven, view a hotties profile in the hopes that he or she reciprocates absolutely outrageous behavior.
Speaker B:Can't believe anybody does that.
Speaker B:Eight, connect with attractive people for no other reason than they're fun to stare at.
Speaker A:What?
Speaker B:Nine, request to connect with my crush from college who I never met in person.
Speaker B:That's a bit of an odd one.
Speaker B:Number 10, develop a sense of intimacy with Sheryl Sandberg, Mark Cuban and other famous business people who I'm following.
Speaker B:And number 11, rub my accomplishments unapologetically in the faces of those who doubted me.
Speaker A:Love it.
Speaker B:And number 12, endorse borderline strangers whose skills I know nothing about with the expectation of receiving endorsements in exchange.
Speaker B:I love that nice bit of fun.
Speaker B:And it's always great when someone takes.
Speaker A:Just a little bit of time to.
Speaker B:Put something together that's a bit like sometimes I think, you know, I know LinkedIn or digital media people often give LinkedIn a lot of criticism for this fact that it's all a bit too serious and nobody has any fun.
Speaker B:It's not true.
Speaker B:There's an example of someone having a bit of fun and I'm all for it.
Speaker B:I'll put a link to that article.
Speaker A:In the show notes.
Speaker B:I've literally just read it from start.
Speaker A:To finish, to be honest.
Speaker B:But if you want to share it with your network, then I will put.
Speaker A:A link to it in the show.
Speaker B:Notes which can as always be found@linkedinformed.com all right, so I also wanted to.
Speaker A:Tell you this story on a slightly more serious note.
Speaker B:And this story relates to researching and.
Speaker A:Using LinkedIn as a research tool.
Speaker A:I was given the opportunity to work with a guy who was a senior level chap who worked in banking in London and he was on the job market.
Speaker A:Now, whilst this story relates to a job seeker per se, I certainly wouldn't let that put you off because this could be relevant to any use of LinkedIn.
Speaker A:To be honest, research is a very important part of how we should be using LinkedIn.
Speaker A:It's a reasonably advanced way of using LinkedIn, I think, as well, and probably many people don't use it as much as they could for research.
Speaker A:And that was this guy and he came to me as a referral and by the time I got to speak to him, we'd kind of missed each other a few times.
Speaker A:We'd arranged a Skype call and eventually we did.
Speaker A:And when we spoke he said, look, I'm happy to work with you because I think that LinkedIn could be quite beneficial to me going forward.
Speaker A:Which was, you know, very open minded of him given that.
Speaker A:His reason for saying that was that he was pretty sure that his job search was coming to an end.
Speaker A:He had a couple of positions that were now at final interview and he was pretty certain that at least one of them was going to end up in an offer.
Speaker A:So I said to him, all right, well, look, I appreciate that and it'll be great to work with you, but let's first of all, in terms of priority, cover the most important thing, which are these interviews that you've got.
Speaker A:And he said, well, one hasn't been arranged yet, but the other one has.
Speaker A:He said, but what, why, why do you want to cover that?
Speaker A:I mean, LinkedIn, you know, surely is all about getting myself the opportunity for an interview, but it's not going to help me with the interview, is it?
Speaker A:And I said, well, I mean, you know, we could look at your profile.
Speaker A:I mean, they may have already looked at your profile, but certainly it's not uncommon that someone would actually have a read through your profile just before interviewing you.
Speaker A:In fact, I've heard on many occasions people say that, you know, they go into a meeting and they sit there and they look across the desk and they can see their profile on the person's screen.
Speaker A:And that's in interviews and in sales meetings and things like that.
Speaker A:So we perhaps could update your profile and just make sure that does its job properly.
Speaker A:So we did that.
Speaker A:But then I said in terms of research, what have you done?
Speaker A:So he told me, you know, that he, he'd looked at the organization and you know, he knew a fair bit blah, blah, blah, nor kind of stuff that you do on the Internet.
Speaker B:The wonderful world of Google allows us.
Speaker A:To do research very easily, doesn't it these days?
Speaker A:But actually I think research for job interviews or any meeting to be honest is it's taken as red.
Speaker A:Certainly I would say any interviewers just get, you know, they probably don't even ask you the question these days.
Speaker A:You know, you always used to be, didn't it, in an interview someone would say what do you know about our company?
Speaker A:You know, I'm not even sure people ask that question because it's almost like, well of course, you know, why wouldn't you?
Speaker A:I mean it's a stupid question to ask.
Speaker A:It's not like, you know, it's difficult.
Speaker A:You don't have to press a couple of buttons and you've got the information.
Speaker A:So it's not really a differentiator to know whether you've actually bothered to do research.
Speaker A:Well, in the days when you have to go down the library to get information about companies showing my age, isn't it?
Speaker A:And that was proper research.
Speaker A:But having said that, I think research these days is something that's very powerful but more for the applicant in terms of the information they can find out about the organization and perhaps more importantly the, the person that's about to be interviewing them.
Speaker A:And what happened in this particular occasion is that we looked up, I said well, who's interviewing you?
Speaker A:And he said well there's a couple of people actually there's the chairman and an on exec director because this like third interview, final interview, I said, right, okay, so who are they?
Speaker A:And we got the names and we looked them up on LinkedIn and we couldn't find the chairman and I suppose that's not that uncommon.
Speaker A:He was a chairman of a pretty large organization, so he wasn't on LinkedIn.
Speaker A:But the other guy, the non exec director very much was and actually was fairly active.
Speaker A:Now I fully appreciate that this isn't going to be possible for some circumstances because not everybody is all that active on LinkedIn.
Speaker A:We were lucky here, this guy was.
Speaker A:So it was worth checking though.
Speaker A:So we had a look at his profile and there was some good information, information that was certainly very helpful just in terms of what he'd done, where he'd worked.
Speaker A:Obviously you look at things like shared Connections.
Speaker A:He was a second tier connection to me and I could see some shared connections, but it's not really important whether it was second tier connection to me.
Speaker A:It was more him.
Speaker A:He looked at him, he was a second tier to him as well.
Speaker A:And I said, well, look at those shared connections and maybe what you could do is get on the phone to those people, if you know them, and ask them what they think of him.
Speaker A:Just find out anything you can, why not?
Speaker A:And so we did that actually.
Speaker A:And I would always say, you know, whether it's a sales meeting or an interview or whatever it is, if you've got that opportunity to speak to someone that knows someone, I would always take that opportunity.
Speaker A:And I know, you know, people have reservations about doing stuff like that.
Speaker A:I don't understand why.
Speaker A:I think it just takes a bit of courage.
Speaker A:But you should, you know, speak to people and find out information about people that you're going to be meeting.
Speaker A:So LinkedIn gives you clues like that, doesn't it?
Speaker A:It tells you who someone knows or potentially who someone knows.
Speaker A:So we did that.
Speaker A:Also the View recent activity, which by the way is now working again after it sort of broke for a while.
Speaker A:And so we did that.
Speaker A:And he'd liked a couple of articles, he hadn't actually posted anything recently anyway.
Speaker A:And so we just had a look at those articles that he'd liked and read them.
Speaker A:One of them was fairly recent as well, so probably fresh in his mind.
Speaker A:That's useful.
Speaker A:I mean, yeah, it wasn't necessarily something that was particularly relevant to the interview, but you never know, do you?
Speaker A:So.
Speaker A:And anyway, just the fact that he's read it, then you don't know where the conversation is going to go.
Speaker A:And it might be that it did go in a sort of direction towards that article, in which case you could perhaps quote things from that article.
Speaker A:Not directly, not, oh, I read an article recently that said, but you know, just subtly because you've read it, it's in your mind, you may well be able to just talk about that.
Speaker A:The kind of subjects that come up and the opinion that was expressed in that particular article.
Speaker A:And that in itself will resonate with him because he's read it.
Speaker A:And so he'll recognize what you're talking about, not word for words.
Speaker A:And you don't make it obvious he has no idea that you've done this.
Speaker A:And you don't reveal your source, you just literally talk about that subject, but in an informed way.
Speaker A:But informed in the same way that he's been informed.
Speaker A:You're going to Think probably listening to this story, that this is all very manipulative and Absolutely, it's manipulative.
Speaker A:Interviews, sales meetings, sales presentations are by definition manipulative, but the, the manipulation is normally in the other direction and you're just trying to level it up, really, to be honest with you, that's the way I look at it.
Speaker A:Anyway, so that was useful as well.
Speaker A:So there's a couple of articles that he'd liked and he read those.
Speaker A:Now, further down the profile, we looked at his recommendations.
Speaker A:Now, recommendations are an absolute goldmine of information.
Speaker A:So you go to somebody's profile, you look at their recommendations and what you tend to find is that certainly in a scenario like a sales presentation, and certainly in an interview situation, you tend to find that the sort of people that you're looking at, they might be reasonably senior.
Speaker A:And if they are reasonably senior, what you might find is that they've got more, They've given more recommendations than they've got.
Speaker A:Sometimes I haven't got any, but they would have given some.
Speaker A:In this case, this guy had received about four, if I remember rightly, and they were interesting and useful to read.
Speaker A:So this is people that he knows that are writing about him and giving their opinions about him.
Speaker A:Obviously, all positive stuff, but even so, it was a definite insight.
Speaker A:Remember, this is someone that you're going to see and you've never met them before, and so you're going into the unknown, so the more you can find out, obviously speaking to people that know them is better, but actually reading the words that someone has written, when you think about a recommendation on LinkedIn, is that quite often people have actually given that a bit of thought.
Speaker A:It's the absolute polar opposite to a skill endorsement, isn't it?
Speaker A:You know, people have sat down and thought about this and thought about, well, you know, what do I think about this person?
Speaker A:And because there's that kind of thoughts gone into it, often what you see is quite illuminating, really, and insightful.
Speaker A:So well worth reading.
Speaker A:Recommendations that he has received.
Speaker A:But the real goldmine, to be honest, is the recommendations that he had written about other people.
Speaker A:Now, this is relevant for everyone.
Speaker A:It's particularly relevant for job seekers because in an interview situation, you're often reading recommendations that he's written about people that's worked for him, which in this case was.
Speaker A:Was very much the case.
Speaker A:There were 12.
Speaker A:There were 12 recommendations that he'd written about other people.
Speaker A:I think a couple of them were kind of associates or consultants that he'd worked with, but the rest of them were ex Employees.
Speaker A:I remember these guys go for an interview with this guy.
Speaker A:Now, he was a non exec director, so he wouldn't directly be working for him.
Speaker A:But even so, the context is very much that this guy is making a decision on who he thinks the company should employ.
Speaker A:And we're now reading 10 recommendations about people that this guy has employed and thought were great.
Speaker A:I mean, I'm not being funny, but is that insightful or what in that situation?
Speaker A:That's brilliant.
Speaker A:Such good information.
Speaker A:This particular case was funny because this guy, out of 12 recommendations that he'd written, five of them, a very high percentage five, he'd mentioned the word grafter, which isn't a really commonly used word, but clearly showed that he, you know, has a thing about people that work hard.
Speaker A:You know, that he values hard work.
Speaker A:I mean, otherwise why would he mention that on five different occasions?
Speaker A:There's an absolute clear focus there towards this guy being really interested or particularly finds appealing people that work really hard.
Speaker A:So, you know, we talked about that and I said to him, well, what you want to do is if you like, you know, that horrible technique that people love to use in interviews called competency based interviewing, apologize if you're a fan of it.
Speaker A:I've always hated it.
Speaker A:I always find it incredibly contrived.
Speaker A:But.
Speaker A:And so one way of countering competency based interviewing is to sort of reverse engineer it.
Speaker A:And this is a way of doing that, which is to say, rather than, you know, wait for you to ask me a question, that's something along, tell me about a time when you.
Speaker A:Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, right?
Speaker A:Well, instead of doing that, reverse it and tell them about a time highlighting particular skills that you think are relevant to you but important to them.
Speaker A:And this massively increases the effectiveness of it.
Speaker A:Because we know that he's demonstrating in his LinkedIn profile that he values hard work.
Speaker A:So tell him about a time when you worked particularly hard, right?
Speaker A:And you will know that it will appeal to him.
Speaker A:You know, it's just pressing the right buttons, isn't it?
Speaker A:So that's what he did.
Speaker A:But also after the interview, we had a conversation on the phone.
Speaker A:I said, you know, how did it go?
Speaker A:Oh, really well, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Speaker A:We know, how did, how did it go in terms of the research that we did?
Speaker A:And he said, oh, it's really funny.
Speaker A:He said, I, you know, I talked about a time when I worked really hard and you know, that that came up a number of times.
Speaker A:And he said it was absolutely right.
Speaker A:I could see in his eyes that it appealed to him, you know, you could just tell, can't you?
Speaker A:And into when you're saying something that the other person is finding attractive and, and means something to them, you can tell it's just a kind of chemistry thing.
Speaker A:You just know, don't you?
Speaker A:He said, I could tell it was going really well when I was talking about that, but I thought about the word grafter beforehand and I thought it's not, you know, it's one of those words that not everybody uses and it's not all that commonly used, but it's obviously a word he uses.
Speaker A:And I did think about the option of actually using the word.
Speaker A:Now we had briefly touched about on this and I said, you want to be careful with that?
Speaker A:And he went, yeah, no, absolutely.
Speaker A:But we'd never said anything more than that, really.
Speaker A:And he said I had considered it and I played it around in my mind a few times and I'd come to the conclusion that it would probably be better not to.
Speaker A:He said, probably be better to avoid it just in case, which I tend to agree with.
Speaker B:But he said the thing was, because.
Speaker A:It was in my mind and I was talking about hard work, he said, it just slipped out.
Speaker A:He said, I didn't mean to say it, but it just.
Speaker A:As I was explaining something, he said the word grafter.
Speaker A:He said, I can't remember the exact context or the exact sentence, but the word slipped out basically.
Speaker A:And he said, he looked at him and as he said it, he was conscious of the guy's reaction and he said, I'm not being funny, but there.
Speaker B:Was a real twinkle in his eye.
Speaker A:When I said that word.
Speaker A:He said, so I don't regret saying it actually, because it definitely made a difference.
Speaker A:And that's a kind of NLP thing, isn't it?
Speaker A:That's like mirroring language and how when you use words that resonate with someone, not just the subject matter of working hard, but even these specific words used.
Speaker B:Can make a difference.
Speaker A:I thought that's a really good example.
Speaker A:He got the job.
Speaker A:I mean, I'm sure he probably got the job anyway.
Speaker A:I mean, he's a really good candidate, senior level guy, very impressive.
Speaker A:And.
Speaker A:But, you know, who knows?
Speaker A:I mean, that could have made the difference and that would be relevant in any situation.
Speaker A:I've said it before, but, you know, forget the fact that's a job interview, that could be a sales presentation.
Speaker A:Use the information you've got.
Speaker A:There is bags and bags of information in a LinkedIn profile or some LinkedIn profiles, many LinkedIn profiles actually.
Speaker A:And people just Ignore it, you know, and it's so valuable if you really, really want to find out, if you really want to do your job properly.
Speaker A:Research someone, find out every little snippet of information that's within their profile, like that.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker A:Thought you'd enjoy that little story.
Speaker A:Okay, so second thing that I wanted to talk about is an article about pul.
Speaker A:Now, as you know, Pulse, well, Pulse is the news feed, and on LinkedIn used to be called LinkedIn today.
Speaker A:And the way that Pulse works is that it is largely what you'll find in there are popular posts from organizations or, you know, news feeds from large organizations and also thought leaders as well, influencers, they call them on LinkedIn.
Speaker A:But also you can get your own published posts in there.
Speaker A:I mean, you'd never get a status update in there, but you can get published posts in the Pulse section.
Speaker A:One of my published posts got into the Pulse section.
Speaker A:So getting a published post into Pulse is probably the best way.
Speaker A:Well, it is the best way of actually increasing the number of views because, you know, in reality you're only.
Speaker A:You are restricted by the size of your network in terms of how many people are going to see your published post.
Speaker A:And the numbers, as I've said recently, have been fairly disappointing in terms of views of published posts, to be honest.
Speaker A:And I think there's a whole host of reasons for that.
Speaker A:But one of the things that definitely can boost quite considerably is whether you can get it into Pulse.
Speaker A:So there's an article publishing.
Speaker A:Well, it's actually a book, like a.
Speaker A:A little Kindle books, only like £3 or so by a guy called Garrick or Gyric Pot Geiter.
Speaker A:It's a bit of a difficult name to pronounce.
Speaker A:I hope I haven't got that wrong.
Speaker A:And guy from South Africa who runs a business called Artifacts Knowledge Engineering, he's an IT guy by the look of it, quite sort of techie, sort of chap.
Speaker A:And he analyzes things on the Internet and he always turned his attention to LinkedIn.
Speaker A:And it's quite interesting really, because he goes into a lot of detail trying to understand what it is that you need to do with a published post on LinkedIn, the way you write it in order to get it into Pulse.
Speaker A:What gets it into Pulse.
Speaker A:So I was interested in this because I say one of mine got into Pulse, but I wasn't really sure how, just did.
Speaker A:But it certainly had an effect over the number of views.
Speaker A:And so this is what he came up with.
Speaker A:Basically.
Speaker A:He talks about something called Velocity and something called Fame.
Speaker A:As to these just terms that he's used to describe the points that he's managed to understand from this, and I'll put a link to this book in the show notes say it's not expensive and it's well worth having a look at if this is important to you.
Speaker A:And I'll come to that in a second.
Speaker A:And basically, Velocity is people think that you're going to be found because you've got the right keywords, and keywords actually are not very important at all.
Speaker A:But Velocity is, and that's a ratio of views, likes and shares and, and comments come into that as well, which is a kind of share in itself.
Speaker A:And that's more important than just the number of views he found out.
Speaker A:So what we're saying here is that if you could get a lot of people to view your published post, let's say you get 500 views, great.
Speaker A:But it doesn't mean it's going to get into Pulse.
Speaker A:And the only way you'll really springboard into the thousands of views is by getting into Pulse realistically for most people.
Speaker A:And so what he found was that it's actually a ratio between views, likes and shares and comments.
Speaker A:So what we're saying is that if you did a post and you only got 30 views, but you got 20 of them to comment or like it, then your chances of getting to Pulse are much, much greater than someone that gets 500 views but only one comment or one like.
Speaker A:So you can understand why they've built the algorithm that way.
Speaker A:It does make sense, doesn't it?
Speaker A:But that's, that's his.
Speaker A:What he's managed to discover anyway.
Speaker A:He also talks about this thing called fame, which I must admit I was a little bit confused by when I read it.
Speaker A:And if you have a look at this and you think I'm wrong in my conclusions from this, then let me know.
Speaker A:Marked inform.com we can carry on the conversation in a further show.
Speaker A:But basically he talks about what you know, what is it that gets top.
Speaker A:So we have, when you look at Pulse, that obviously some are at the top.
Speaker A:And same with status updates as well.
Speaker A:They're all organized by what they call top, what is top.
Speaker A:And basically, from what I can read, he seems to conclude that being top is about, first of all getting top, just full stop in Pulse doesn't really happen that way.
Speaker A:There are channels in Pulse and you have to understand the channels in order and write your article in line with those channels.
Speaker A:Because if it doesn't fit into a channel, its chances of getting into Pulse are next to nothing.
Speaker A:It has to fit into a specific channel and when it does, then top, then the next thing that makes it top is that ratio.
Speaker A:Again, from what I can see, you know, views like shares and comments is the factor that makes it top.
Speaker A:So popular as opposed to just number of views.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:So it's about engagement and interaction.
Speaker A:There's no surprise in that.
Speaker A:You know, LinkedIn do put a big emphasis towards engagement.
Speaker A:So the advice that came out of it is, you know, look at the channels, understand what the channels are and write your articles with those in mind.
Speaker A:And then having written the article, ask people that you know to like it or comment on it and also write it in a way that encourages engagement.
Speaker A:I mean, that's always right for any type of social media post, isn't it?
Speaker A:Always ask a question and always write something that would elicit a response so you know, it's it.
Speaker A:If it's bland, then you know it's not.
Speaker A:You're not going to get any conversations from it.
Speaker A:But if it's a little bit controversial or, or you know, you know that the people are going to have different opinions, then that's much better.
Speaker A:It doesn't matter that they disagree with you, because if they disagree with you openly by commenting, then that helps the article spread further and may help it get into Pulse.
Speaker A:And of course, if you work in an organization, you can literally just say, right, I've done a Pulse, sorry, I've done a published post, can everyone like it?
Speaker A:And if you've got 20 people in the room, then you got 20 likes straight away.
Speaker A:And that will increase that ratio significantly and it will have a much greater chance of getting into Pulse.
Speaker A:So I thought that was interesting and worthwhile advice.
Speaker A:I'll put a link to the book in the show notes.
Speaker A:It's not an affiliate link or anything like that.
Speaker A:It's just a straight link into Amazon.
Speaker A:And I say it's three quid or something like that.
Speaker A:Okay, I'm conscious of time here, so we haven't got time to cover.
Speaker A:I was thinking about talking about LinkedIn messaging, emails and the like for that next week maybe.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker A:In fact, actually just as a point on that, if anybody has any views on that, what's effective in messaging, then let me know.
Speaker A:Get in touch marketing form.com because I'll add that to what we cover next week.
Speaker A:But I'll make a note that we'll cover that next week.
Speaker A:Okay, this question, it's not a voicemail one, unfortunately.
Speaker A:It's one that came in by Email when posting an update status update.
Speaker A:This is not a published post.
Speaker A:I've noticed that I have an option where I can send it to public or to Connections, and I don't understand the difference.
Speaker A:Great question.
Speaker A:And the answer is actually, I think a little bit complicated.
Speaker A:More complicated than you might think.
Speaker A:I mean, officially the answer is this, that if it's just connections, then only your first tier connections might see it.
Speaker A:And again, that's important to stress as well in that, you know, not everybody is gonna, not everybody that you're connected to is gonna see your update.
Speaker A:LinkedIn have never been open about this, but it's my understanding that there is an impact through engagement, as there is with Facebook as well.
Speaker A:So that if you are engaging with people and talking to people on a regular basis on LinkedIn, then there's a much greater chance that they're going to see your update than those that you may be connected to and have nothing to do with.
Speaker A:So there is, there is something in that.
Speaker A:But the bottom line is if you select Connections, then the only people that potentially could see it are going to be your connections.
Speaker A:Although of course they could share it.
Speaker A:And then there's a possibility that other people may see it beyond that right now, then there's of course this setting where people can go and view your recent updates.
Speaker A:And if people go and view your recent updates, they don't have to be a first tier connection to be able to do that.
Speaker A:And so when you post publicly, other people can come to your profile and see your recent updates.
Speaker A:So that sufficiently the answer to the question is that when you post it, it appears in the feed only of connections, unless they like it or comment on it.
Speaker A:But if you, in terms of the people coming to your profile and going to that View Recent Activity section, then if it's that you've done it for everyone public, then other people would be able to see that as well.
Speaker A:But you might ask yourself the question, as I did.
Speaker A:Well, why even ask the question?
Speaker A:Because surely what would be the point in doing a status update that only your connections could see?
Speaker A:I mean, if you're gonna, surely you're not doing just a status update so that just Connections can see.
Speaker A:I mean, the whole point in doing it is you want as many people to see it as possible.
Speaker A:Surely.
Speaker A:I mean, what, what other purpose would there be?
Speaker A:And I think the explanation for the difference between the two, in terms of why LinkedIn make a difference between the two comes down to LinkedIn's somewhat out of date.
Speaker A:I'm questioning whether that's the right word to use.
Speaker A:So out of sync with most LinkedIn users anyway, view on connections, I. E. LinkedIn still hold this, you know, rather ridiculous view that you should only connect with people that you know well, and therefore you'd have small networks of people that you know very well.
Speaker A:I mean, they do contradict that, I know, by constantly trying to encourage you to connect with people that you don't know well.
Speaker A:But at the same time, they still have this view.
Speaker A:They keep going on about it, about you should only connect with people that you know well.
Speaker A:And if that was the case and you had this, like, small network of people that you kind of knew very well, then you would, you know, there will be a certain type of update that you'd think, well, I only want my little close circle to see this, but whereas this one, I want anybody to be able to see.
Speaker A:And so if you did build a network of that nature, then the difference between the two would be a difference and it would make some sense.
Speaker A:I just think that it's the reason why people get confused by it, is that they just can't relate to the fact that you would have a network, you know, just close contacts.
Speaker A:It doesn't really make sense for most people to do that because that's not really networking.
Speaker A:So I think that's why it causes so much confusion, is it's the difference between how LinkedIn viewer networks and how most normal users view a network.
Speaker A:As to why they would give you the choice between the two.
Speaker A:I mean, my advice obviously would be, I can't think of a good reason to only ever select connections, although that is the default setting.
Speaker A:You would always want it to be public.
Speaker A:You'd want many people to see it as possible, of course.
Speaker A:All right, so hopefully that answers your question.
Speaker A:Please write in again if not.
Speaker A:But I'm pretty sure that's what you were getting at with that question.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker A:Okay, that's it for this week.
Speaker A:I've run out of time.
Speaker A:Already overrun my half an hour, as.
Speaker B:I tend to each week, don't I really?
Speaker A:But there you go.
Speaker A:Okay, thank you ever so much for your time and attention.
Speaker A:Please write in or leave a voicemail with any questions that you've got.
Speaker A:I know I beg you to do this every week, but it does help the show massively to be able to get contribution and involvement from everybody.
Speaker A:All right.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker A:Look forward to catching up with you again next week.
Speaker A:Thank you for listening to this podcast.
Speaker A:Please get in touch if you have any questions or suggestions by emailing me directly at.
Speaker A:Markinktinformed.com or go to linkedinformed.com where you will also find links to everything I've mentioned in this episode.
Speaker A:If you enjoyed this episode, then please help spread the word by rating it on itunes and by sharing on LinkedIn and Twitter.
Speaker A:My Twitter ID is MrLinkton.
Speaker A:Take care and until next time, happy networking.
