Episode 104. Who’s following you?
Well what a week I have had! Lots of interesting sessions with a variety of types of businesses this week.
I’m so grateful to the driver from Uber who saved my skin!
The main subject I want to talk about this week is ‘Followers’ but first a few quick bits of news;
Now you see it, now you don’t…..and now you do again! This week many people reported losing the relationship tab for LinkedIn Contacts altogether – for everyone, including 1st tier connections! LinkedIn have officially stated that it was a temporary adjustment while they were working on improving the feature.
I also saw (below) a report that a LinkedIn staffer had admitted that they are working on a better solution for premium accounts only. I guess we will just have to wait and see.
PayScale compare top tech companies. Interesting report from PayScale, the highlights being;
- LinkedIn have the highest median pay for mid career employees
- They have one of the youngest workforces in the tech industry with a median age of 29
- 42% of staff are female, the 2nd highest in the survey.
And you think you are getting bad service from LinkedIn…….
This week I had a conversation with a senior manager from a very large enterprise in the UK. To my astonishment he told me that LinkedIn refused to offer any training or tech support for Sales Navigator because they had less than 50 licences!
This is an organisation that was spending £20,000 per year alone on Sales Navigator licences plus a significant amount on Recruiter licences.
So if you think you are getting a poor service as a free user or a low spend premium user, just think how it feels to be spending £20k and get appalling service – shocking!
Update
LinkedIn have responded to the above with the following statement;
All Sales Navigator customers have multiple options to choose from in terms of support from LinkedIn. Every Sales Navigator user has access to our Learning Center which includes a large library of content in a number of languages, including recorded webinars, e-learning modules, videos, tipsheets, ebooks and learning plans. From this learning hub, we also run live webinars multiple times a week, in various different languages. All Sales Navigator users can attend these webinars and ask live questions. In addition, in-product tools enable users to request support on specific questions they might have. For a flavour of what’s available, check out the Sales Navigator site.
I think the issue here was that this sales team were not using Navigator because they didn’t understand it, the company wanted support from LinkedIn to educate their team in how to use it. I guess the problem is that they are unlikely to go to a learning center or attend a webinar unless they have the motivation to do so…..and without education they are not going to.
Maybe I need to offer a solution 😉
LinkedIn Followers
I was asked this week about how to handle followers on LinkedIn. I wasn’t exactly sure what they were asking because I had never really considered the issue of having unwanted followers.
Firstly let’s look at how we see who is following us;
You may notice some in your notifications.
How to see who is already following you
- 1) Go to ‘Your updates’
- 2) Click on the ‘followers’ tab
3) Scroll down to see your followers. The first ones in this list will always be followers but unfortunately the list also includes your connections and you cannot tell the difference until you click on them and open up the profile. Once you find the first of your connections you can be assured that all the rest will be 1st tier connections.
Only by opening up the profile can you confirm that they are a follower and not a connection
I personally have no issue with competitors following me (many do) but some people would prefer to prevent this. Unfortunately the only way is to block each individual – either because they are already following you or because you wish to prevent them from doing so.
Step 1
Step 2
This seems a bit drastic to me but it’s the only way to prevent followers.
Cool Thing
It seems that LinkedIn Contacts is going to either completely disappear or be replaced with a newer feature but the chances are it won’t be free so this week I thought I would tell you all about a great little (free) extension called LinkedIn Storage.
LinkedIn AFQ
This week, in line with the main subject of this episode I thought I would cover a question I get at least a few times every month.
Question – I have followed a number of people (not influencers) on LinkedIn but I can’t recall who they all are. How do I find the list of people I follow?
Answer – Errrr you can’t! Sorry about that, I must admit it’s pretty embarrassing for LinkedIn that they don’t have such a simple facility. I can assure you that this feature has been requested many times over a prolonged period of time, clearly they have other priorities!
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