106. Share price drops

Another LinkedIn week goes by and not much changes….the share price keeps dropping and I see numerous articles about the drop in standards and unprofessionalism of LinkedIn!……Tough times for Mr Weiner and his gang!

• As I have somewhat neglected your questions in recent episodes I thought I would focus on the AFQ section this week…..first a few interesting articles I read this week:
• This Is Why Shares of LinkedIn Are Way Down Today. It seems investors have really fallen out of love with LinkedIn and the share price continues to plummet…do they have a point?
• How Do I Master That Skill? LinkedIn, Markle Want To Help. LinkedIn introduce a new service called ‘Training Finder’ initially in Pheonix and Denver. An example of LinkedIn’s increased focus on training as part of their Economic Graph.
• How I Made $10,000 in One Month on LinkedIn (And You Can Too). This article is not what you think from the headline! It sounds like another ‘get rich quick’ piece but it’s actually a sensible and practical example of how to use LinkedIn effectively…worth a read.
• I see a lot of posts about the demise of professional standards on LinkedIn, this is one of the better ones; Why I’ve LinkedOff. I have mixed views on this subject, I don’t want to go back to the days when LinkedIn was, frankly boring! I don’t enjoy quizzes and inappropriate sexual images but I do think people should be free to post anything relevant to their business or career. LinkedIn definitely need to address this issue and I’m pretty sure they will….my concern is that they won’t do it very well and we will all suffer as a result…..be careful what you wish for folks!

AFQ

I’m promoting this section up the agenda this week!

On the subject of inappropriate content on LinkedIn, I got this question this week;

It has come to my attention that some porn stars/sex workers are appearing in my profile!! How can I stop this?

ANSWER: They were of course referring to the ‘people also viewed’ section of their profile, here is an example of what can happen;

Not great! The problem is you would see this yourself, the only way you would find out is if someone told you!

The solution is to switch off this feature in your settings.

Go to the main ‘profile’ section of your settings and you will see the link as shown below.

Next question:

How do I a) Get more profile views and b) Get more invitations to connect?

ANSWER:

1. Have you got your settings so that people can see when you visit their profile? If not change it. Increase your activity, post more updates and try to use more images in your updates. Ensure your picture is professional but friendly and your headline very clearly explains who you are and what you do (not a job title).
2. Put your email at the top of your summary and encourage people to invite you to connect. Make sure your profile isn’t too 'corporate' and lacking in character/warmth/authenticity. People care much less about brands and companies. Getting more profile views will have a knock on effect and you will automatically get more invitations.

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