Oh I've been tagged...

Welcome to another edition of LinkedInformed. This week I'm covering;

• LinkedIn accept defeat on Re-sharing
• LinkedIn Top Startup lists
• Sales Navigator 'Deep sales'
• Where is the LinkedIn Podcast Network?
• Native post scheduling is close
• Thoughts on the new UK Creator Accelerator Program cohort
• Keywords in profile headlines
• How to leverage being tagged in a post
• What to write in company page post comments
• Post of the week

Don't forget that LinkedInformed is an audio podcast which you can listen to on all main podcast players and directories

Interesting Stuff I Saw This Week

Have you noticed that the 'share' option on posts has now been renamed 'repost' and whilst the re-share option is still behind it, it's clear that the main use of this option will be a simple repost. I'm glad LinkedIn have finally downgraded re-sharing, it's never been a popular feature amongst content consumers and reposting is far more effective (although no more effective as liking as far as I can tell).

A word of caution on reposting, whilst it does trigger a notification for any followers who have enabled notifications of your posts, which is largely a good thing, however habitual reposting will result in followers switching off from these notifications...which include your main posts!

Top Startup Lists. The #LinkedInTopStartups lists have recently been published and they have added an extra 8 regions this year. A lot of people have been complaining that these lists include many well established businesses which is true, the criteria includes companies up to 7 years old - perhaps a better name would be the top 'young companies' list...or even better, 'the top young companies who currently spend money with us posting job ads'! Call me a cynic but every single one of the UK entries have job listing on LinkedIn, I haven't checked every country but I suspect they are the same!

This post contains links to every list worldwide;

Deep Sales with Sales Navigator

Sales Nav has undergone a few interesting updates recently

This change from 'Shallow' to 'deep' selling appears to involve 3 elements;

• Account insights
• Buyer intent
• Relationship intelligence

As seems to be the norm, LinkedIn are pretty vague on exactly what this means in practical terms. As far as I can see 'Deep sales' includes some new AI features which are combined with existing features to provide the above 3 features. It's not clear if this is only available on certain levels of Sales Nav' or whether it's a completely new 'add on' upgrade (such as Sales insights) or whether it's just simply a few improvements that they have decided to promote under this new banner.

I have noticed that profiles in Sales Nav have improved considerably and now include Account insights for current company and relationship intelligence. I'm less clear where Buyer intent is found although it's possibly contained in the alerts page.

Please feel free to add any insights in the comments if you have more experience of this, as usual we can't rely on LinkedIn for any clarity on such matters!

LinkedIn Podcast Network

Announced earlier this year, LinkedIn seem to have gone very quiet regarding the LPN. As far as I can tell they haven't expanded the number of shows on the network since it was launched.

I did have some contact from them after I applied to be considered for the network in June but, despite my rapid reply, I have heard nothing from them since.

I did hear a podcast interview with Dan Roth recently where he talked about LPN and gave a bit more information.

From what I can gather, this is not a podcast directory as such but an independent network so it will only contain shows that fully sign up to LinkedIn's podcast requirements and branding. LinkedIn will deliver ad's and hosts will be paid (similar setup to LinkedIn Learning I guess) and I would imagine that LinkedIn will have some control/influence over content. It was quite amusing to hear Dan squirm a little when asked how much podcast hosts were paid, to which he explained that LinkedIn do not release such information (secretive as always!), listen above from 38.15 to hear that. Anyway, given what I stated above, you are highly unlikely to be seeing the LinkedInformed podcast on this network anytime soon!

Native post scheduling

Nima Owji Tweeted this screenshot this week and reported that he had successfully scheduled a post. Hopefully we will start to see this being rolled out soon.

The first UK CAP cohort is announced

I followed the first group of CAP members in the US quite closely and whilst an interesting exercise, I came to the conclusion that it had a fairly modest impact on the platform and the overall quality of content.

The members do get nice starter packs and welcome gifts... so look out for a deluge of 'unboxing' videos and expect to be green with envy! ??

Some interest stats for you (supplied by John Espirian )

150 UK creators selected

27 people have 20K+ followers

8 people have 50K+ followers

1 person has 147K followers ( Ellie Middleton )

The second most followed person – Dominic McGregor – has 91K followers and was the Founder & Chief Operating Officer at Social Chain. As John states...If he needs content help, there's no hope for the rest of us!

I know quite a few of the lucky 150 so I'm looking forward to seeing how their content develops and perhaps improves. As with the US cohort though, I can't help feeling that there are so many more deserving delegates who genuinely need the help.

If you applied to be a part of the UK CAP and didn't get accepted then drop me a DM. I'd love to understand why some of these authors are considered to be more suitable.

LinkedIn have invested a staggering amount of money into this program but I can't help wondering if it's proving to be money well spent.

Keywords in Profile Headlines

LinkedIn Trainers throughout the world all know that your professional headline is a very important place to add keywords to ensure that Recruiters or potential customers find you high up in their search results.

This advice has stood the test of time and is one of the most important factors in optimising a profile...until now according to some research conducted by Richard van der Blom .

Is Richard onto something here?

I test profile optimisation regularly and seeing this made me retest it immediately!

My test proved that keywords in headlines are still indexed by the algorithm...but not always! In my tests it was about 60% of the time but Richard did significantly more testing and found it to be indexed on only about 10%!

So what is going on here?

This looks like a classic bug to me, a theory confirmed by Irina Shamaeva ???? (a LinkedIn search guru) who reported it to LinkedIn months ago and they conceded that it is something they are working on (although they always say that!).

Maybe they will fix it soon...or it may take longer, some bugs have been known to exist for years, but it still makes sense to ensure you have your most important keywords in your headline.

What do I do when I'm tagged in a post?

This is usually a good thing to happen...but not always! Some authors and commenters are serial 'taggers' and their spam tagging can become quite annoying. If you wish you can untag yourself from any post you can do this by selecting the 3 dots of the post or comment (see below)

If you are happy with the tag, what can you do to make the most of it?

• Comment on the post adding additional insights rather than a quick 'thanks for the mention' or a reaction.
• If you were tagged in the comments, reply to that comment thanking them for mentioning you but always add a unique comment to the post (as well as the reply). This will carry that post to some of your followers whereas the reply will not provide that visibility benefit. Incidentally for the same reason, always add your people tags in the main body of the post, not in the comments.
• If the mention is relating to an event you attended/contributed to then consider creating your own post about the same event. You probably should have done this already but sometimes being tagged can be a useful reminder to us!
• If you are tagged in a company page post then all the above still count but I would also advise creating your own post on the same topic. Company content will have restricted visibility so your tag will have much less value.
• Company page content is often promotional and less engaging so it can be difficult to write a meaningful comment when tagged or even if just requested to comment by the page admins. In these circumstances, a simple Like or other reaction is adequate (given the limited visibility) but again, consider creating your own post on the same topic. Avoid re-sharing the post, reposting is OK (see earlier thoughts on that) but it's usually easiest to just react.

Post of the Week

The war in the Ukraine is painstakingly dragging on and there are no signs of a quick resolution. This brilliant post from Roman Shulyar , a lawyer who has had to put on his uniform and take to arms reminds us that many thousands of LinkedIn members are still fighting for their freedom.

Well done Roman, an important reminder to us that despite our economic concerns and political upheaval (in the UK anyway), there are many others suffering a far worse fate elsewhere.

Have you seen any great posts this week? If so, drop me a line with a link to the post. All nominations with over 50 comments will be considered for the next edition of LinkedInformed.

That's it for this week.