Episode 193

full
Published on:

13th Jan 2018

LinkedIn User Survey - The Results

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 been improved in that you no no longer need to have any of the skills you specify in your post - as previously covered in episode 189, this makes much more sense! Thanks to Jillian for the heads up on this


I still don’t have the feature but if you do and have been using it, I would love to hear how well it has worked for you.


Interesting Post


Thanks to Carl for sending this one in.


This is actually pretty easy to do yourself, but only if you have access to a Sales Navigator or Recruiter account. For some reason the url’s on those interfaces ignore the customised version and show the original source url with your number in it


The 2017 LinkedIn User Survey Results


We had 780 responses in total, thank you to everyone who took the time to complete the questions. One of the questions asked for the date you signed up to LinkedIn…one person apparently signed up in the year 1800! This individual apparently signs into their account on a weekly basis but has only managed to amass 8 connections in all that time - in addition they have 0 followers so presumably all 8 connections have chosen to unfollow them!! Fortunately this was the only spoof entry we received.


The average number of connections was 2178 The average number of followers was 2748


We had five people who had reached the maximum 30,000 connections.


The highest number of followers was 205,000 (11,658 were connections) and equally impressive was someone who had 165,231 followers including only 1903 connections!


As for the rest of the questions, the full results can be seen below;

Mentioned in this episode:

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

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About the Podcast

Informed: the podcast for LinkedIn® users
A podcast for anyone interested in LinkedIn® best practice
"Informed" is for you if you'd like to understand more about how LinkedIn works so that you can be an effective user of the platform.

It's hard to know whom to believe with so many self-appointed gurus out there telling you the latest hacks for going viral and earning 7-figure deals. And even LinkedIn's own publications often don't speak to the reality of using the platform.

But for those who see past superficial promises and sanitised reports, this podcast provides evidence and thoughtful opinion. With a track record of more than 10 years of sensible, no-nonsense advice about honest best practice for LinkedIn, Informed is a trusted source of insight by many thousands of regular listeners.

The show was created by Mark Williams, who's affectionately known as "Mr LinkedIn". Mark retired in late 2025 and handed over the reins of the show to John Espirian, the relentlessly helpful® LinkedIn nerd. John is a LinkedIn trainer and consultant, the founder of the Espresso+ community, the creator of the UpLift Live conference (the UK's original event dedicated to LinkedIn best practice), and the author of the personal branding handbook Content DNA.

John's reputation is for getting to the point and for not being a salesy douche canoe, so you can expect short, sharp episodes with zero ads or sponsored slots. This also is NOT an interview show, so if you've read this far then please don't pitch yourself for a guest appearance. However, you're welcome to get in touch if you have a LinkedIn question you'd like John to cover on the show. (To do that, search for the "Informed podcast" company page on LinkedIn and send a message.)

This podcast is not affiliated with, endorsed by or approved by the LinkedIn® corporation. John Espirian is an independent trainer and does not work for LinkedIn® – while it would be great to have LinkedIn's endorsement, the show's independence from the corporation means you, the listener, are never fed an airbrushed political spiel.
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About your host

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John Espirian

Relentlessly helpful® LinkedIn® nerd, trainer and consultant who specialises in LinkedIn best practice for individuals, small businesses and corporates. I wrote the personal branding handbook Content DNA, I founded the Espresso+ online community for small business owners and I'm the creator of the UK's original independent conference on LinkedIn best practice, UpLift Live.