It was good to get LOTS of questions on our latest BrightTALK webcast (view catchup recording) summarising the 7 latest LinkedIn updates with Danny Bermant of Brainstorm Digital.
There were over 40 questions covering the details during the session. We answered most of them, but promised to answer them in full and provide links to the slides for downloads, so here they are! I hope these are helpful. Let us know if you have any follow-up questions in the comments.
For a more in-depth look at the new features and much more depth on managing LinkedIn, download our Expert members guide to LinkedIn, also by Danny. Now over to Danny for his answers.
Q1. Will the contact see any notes you make about them?
No, you’re safe to say what you like, so long as you don’t email them!
Q2. How to Send mails to only tagged contacts?
Click on the "Connections" link on the main menu. You can then filter your connections by tag. Having selected the relevant tag, click on "select all" and you will then see a message icon appear to the right of "select all". Click on this icon to email the selected contacts.
Q3. Like the lists in Twitter, can a connection see if you have tagged them?
No, they can’t. On Twitter it is possible to have private lists too, so the tagged person can’t see them - useful for tracking competitor activity!
Q4. Why does LinkedIn limit people to 50 contacts? There are many opportunities to engage with our target audience in specific communities and we have to sacrifice one group to join another right now. No other social network restricts it’s users like this.
We hear your pain. It’s frustrating, but we can see LinkedIn don’t want to be used or seen as a spammers platform so are forced to do this.
Q5. Can you export your contact list into a CSV with the tags?
Unfortunately not! As mentioned you should look to tag within a separate CRM system or integrated tool such as Nimble where you can tag and then email separately.
Q6. Sorry missed the name of the $8/mo CRM system you recommended…
Sure, that was Capsule CRM you can read a review here.
Q7. Data protection question - can we export from a number of people within an organisation and then add them to the company CRM?
For a business audience this is fine within the UK, provided opt-out is required, but we wouldn’t recommend it in all EU countries.
Q8. So instead of just publishing a link it publishes the whole article/ video etc?
Yes, that’s what this does. You can embed images as well as video.
Q9. I requested access to new feature to publish posts through the form online. Do you know how long it’s currently taking LinkedIn to look at requests and allocate permission?
No hard and fast rules here unfortunately - some are given access without requesting, so it seems to be based more on number of followers.
Find more about how to access in this Help Center article on Long-form posts on LinkedIn.
Q10. Is it better to post excerpts that link back to your site instead?
Generally, not since the article should be informative and self-contained and best to encourage discussion and sharing within LinkedIn. However, some linking out to further resources offering value is a good practice.
Q11. Would you recommend republishing posts from an existing company blog - or would you rewrite the content to make it unique for LinkedIN’s new publishing platform?
You will get some transaction, but we recommend unique content, perhaps less frequent than on a company blog - it depends on the reach you are achieving. On Smart Insights, LinkedIn posts get fewer views than on the blog, but still give more potential awareness.
Instead posts appear on your personal profile, so these become important in positioning your expertise.
As one listener pointed out you can still see updates from others on the Home page feed, but you have to customize it from “All updates” which covers generic feeds and articles to connections updates or choose “Your updates”.
Q12. Can you language gate these pages?
You can publish your profile in more than one language but were not aware of any language setting for posts.
Q13. How about the company page, is it more visible and useful than the company group?
Generally company pages are a better starting point for a company to share content and gain interactions unless you are a publisher or you can afford a community manager. Groups are often successfully set up distinct from companies.
So, you will need to create Showcase pages instead. This may only be worthwhile if you can support the resource to create them - they are mainly used by large brands or companies with quite different brands, for example the Microsoft Office against Windows brands.
Q14. Are the showcase pages part of the premium account or can it be used in the basic account too?
This wasn’t obvious when LinkedIn announced these, but they are in fact free!
We said they may need promotion to get visibility, for example through Sponsored updates. Penny asked…
Q15. Is there a minimum spend for sponsored updates?
Danny answered £1.50 per click or so which is true, but there is a minimum daily budget.
LinkedIn Today was a news page where you were able to select all the latest stories according to your interests. It has now been replaced by Pulse — the social newsreading app that it bought in 2013 for $90m. You can follow updates from LinkedIn Posts and LinkedIn Influencers (LinkedIn's hand picked list of industry thought leaders) as well as subscribe to different news channels (e.g. Aviation, Construction) and Publications (e.g. Time Magazine, Harvard Business Review).
This one didn’t give rise to so many questions
A final question was:
Q16. How to I find out proposed changes to linkedin - in advance of the changing place.
We do flag up all major changes on the Smart Insights LinkedIn Hub page, only alerting to the major ones and filtering out the minor. We also feature them in our Enewsletter. If you want more info on the changes here we have a post on 10 LinkedIn changes for 2014.
Well thanks for all your questions, here is the deck for available for download via Slideshare reviewing as some have requested!
[slideshare id=35781755&doc=dannybermant-7linkedinchanges-smartinsights-140612025402-phpapp02&w=550]
Finally, here is this bonus video feature of How to use LinkedIn Groups for marketing to watch.
By Danny Bermant
Danny is director of Brainstorm Digital a mentor, trainer and speaker specialising in B2B social media strategy. You can follow him on Twitter or connect on LinkedIn.
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