Informed 473
Happy New Year! Postbag. Hanne Møller – reposting your own post Caryn Yuen – hashtags I know LinkedIn has removed the ability to follow hashtags, but people can still use them. Some include hashtags within the body of their post to draw attention to certain words, while others add several at the end in a […]
Informed 472
Show notes. What’s in your LinkedIn Year in Review? This is LinkedIn’s version of Spotify Wrapped. Postbag. Should a CTA be included in the headline? Caryn Yuen If the CTA is very short and part of a reasonably short overall headline, then that’s OK. Headlines that are too long won’t be read by humans, and if the intention of the text isn’t clear to the AI-powered LinkedIn search, that could do you harm. How to share achievements Famey Lockwood LinkedIn […]
LinkedIn Premium review
Here are some further thoughts about the value of LinkedIn Premium from 13 December 2025 on the Informed podcast episode 471: This is a completely rewritten update to a blog I wrote in 2021: see original Every time I run a LinkedIn training session, someone always asks whether it’s worth upgrading to a Premium account. […]
Informed 471
Postbag. Does the industry setting matter on your profile? Christopher Johnson (voice note) LinkedIn industry options help page Fake accounts with similar headlines? LB Brittingham I’m searching for other experts supporting introverts and I keep coming across profiles with “introvert living in an industry of extroverts” or similar. Many seem like real accounts. Maybe it’s […]
Informed 470
This week’s main topic looks at how many active accounts there are on LinkedIn. See my LinkedIn membership tracker, particularly the updated section titled “How many active users are on LinkedIn?” Postbag. What do you think of people customising their pronouns? In short, don’t do it! Do text-only posts perform less well than posts with […]
Informed 469
Show notes. Postbag via Beth Kirk: Loving the informed podcast! I have a question around the proactive use of DMs to build relationships on LinkedIn. Do you have any top tips for people with established audiences please? — Look for opportunities to start conversations: birthdays, job changes — Look through your network to find key […]
LinkedIn personal profile analytics
This post looks at the analytics shown on personal profiles on LinkedIn. Which ones matter and what do the numbers mean? When you view your own profile on LinkedIn, you’ll see an Analytics panel near the top of the page, beneath the top card. This Analytics panel shows 3 items: Let’s review these in order: Profile […]
Informed 468
Show notes. Thanks to Mark Williams for his kind farewell newsletter. Postbag. Other topics. Everyone is talking about algorithmic bias against women. I’m going to investigate. For now, see this LinkedIn Engineering blog post (20 November 2025) for the company’s response. A couple of text-plus-image posts: Starting a post with a short bit of quoted […]
Post boosting experiment
Here are the results of a test I did to boost a personal post on LinkedIn over a 5-day period in November 2025. It’s long been possible to boost company page posts on LinkedIn, but personal post boosting hasn’t been possible until late 2025. Here’s the 6-min video I recorded for Espressians on 11 November […]
Informed 467
Show notes The first episode of the new-look show took me 6 hours to record, edit and produce last week. Postbag Why not refresh your About statement with some icebreakers? Pick 3–5 conversation starters and drop them into your profile so that people doing their research can say something interesting to you. Free LinkedIn members […]
Informed 466
Show notes This is the new-look Informed podcast, all about LinkedIn best practice, hosted for the first time by John Espirian. There’s a quick backstory of the handover from the show’s creator, Mark Williams, to John, and then on to listener questions in the Postbag. Postbag questions Generative AI data training: how to turn it […]
LinkedIn experts to follow
If my LinkedIn Learner Lounge isn’t enough for you(!), follow the smartypants below for plenty more insights about how best to use LinkedIn. Many of the following are part of the Espresso+ community, as indicated by after their name. Each person can help you professionally with some aspect of your LinkedIn presence. 🇬🇧 Gus Bhandal […]
LinkedIn verification
Introduction What is LinkedIn verification? Does verification matter? Verification when names don’t match Verification via a company page Verification via an educational institution Data privacy concerns when verifying “Verified on LinkedIn” on external platforms Verification and the Online Safety Act Let’s wrap up Introduction. Verification is LinkedIn’s attempt to build trust with users and external […]
How to get help on LinkedIn
Here are all the routes to contact LinkedIn support for help. IMPORTANT: two-step verification. If you’re here because you or your client were hacked on LinkedIn, there’s a good chance you didn’t enable two-step verification (aka two-factor authentication/2FA) on your account. Enable it as soon as you’re able to. Turn on two-step verification on your […]
LinkedIn Social Selling Index (SSI)
Here’s a quick look at LinkedIn Social Selling Index (SSI) – the score that LinkedIn uses to reflect the strength of your presence on the platform. Note: there was a significant drop in everyone’s SSI score around 26 January 2025. See my post on LinkedIn about this. What is LinkedIn SSI? How do I see […]
LinkedIn visibility
Here are my LinkedIn post visibility and engagement stats for the past 5 years, to show how things have changed as the platform has grown. I’m sharing this info so that you can see that even a regular LinkedIn content creator can experience declining visibility on the platform. I’ll remind you below of the advice […]
Add a profile language variant
This LinkedIn tip could be useful for anyone but is likely to be of most interest to translators and interpreters, and to those who frequently deal with markets where English isn’t the principal language. LinkedIn currently supports 36 languages, and the platform allows us to create language variants of our profiles in any of those […]
Recommended copywriters & content writers
Hire a copywriter or content writer. I’m now focusing on my LinkedIn consultancy work and my Espresso+ community for small business owners, which means I no longer take on copywriting projects (unless you’re Liverpool Football Club, in which case I love you and will work for you for free). Check out my list of recommended […]
Human vs AI book summaries
One of the most popular features from my Content DNA book on personal branding is the “Get to the point” section at the start of each of the 32 chapters. I wrote a few sentences to summarise my thinking and placed them at the start of each chapter, to give readers a flavour of what […]
Are hashtags dead on LinkedIn?
More than 100 people got involved in my latest experiment on LinkedIn hashtags, as I tried to work out whether hashtags on LinkedIn were going away. Despite the hashtag functionality having a recent wobble in October 2024, almost everyone who responded said that hashtags were active/clickable and working as expected. Any hashtags that looked like […]