. . . unless being able to record them is made available very soon.
I have been hosting a weekly and now bi-weekly show since July 2022, called Social Audio Community Chat, based on my LinkedIn group with the same name.
I’ve loved hosting these rooms and have had wonderful people join in with me and chat about their journey with Social Audio whether on LinkedIn or somewhere else, like Clubhouse, Twitter, Wisdom or other platforms.
It has been an invaluable experience of learning and growth, the mastering of creating LinkedIn Audio Events, promoting them and inviting attendees all takes time and effort.
But what is my outcome for all the effort?
Well, one of my outcomes was to master the process and have a format for creating and hosting LinkedIn Audio, which I have pretty much achieved. The second outcome obviously was to heighten my own profile, make new interesting connections and most importantly share some knowledge and experience.
One of the speakers that joined us, Jon Tromans, introduced me to the BBC mission statement, ‘Inform, Educate and Entertain’, which I am now using as our strapline for our bi-weekly Audio event. Thank you Jon and great chatting with you via LinkedIn Video Meeting recently.
To start with, I am so sorry that you have received an automatic invitation to subscribe my LinkedIn newsletter, 'Chalkboard Thoughts'. It's incredible that LinkedIn who has so many rules around inviting people to connect, can allow for everyone to be spammed with newsletter invitations. I stopped writing articles on LinkedIn some time ago, because basically the articles went into a black hole and received zero engagement.
The same happens with all new developments on LinkedIn, initially there's a surge and people are excited and engaged and after that it slows, reduces and eventually completely stops as the algorithm will eventually ignore it.
I guess they (LinkedIn) must have realised this over time and then opted for the newsletter approach, which exists now and has been rolled out to most of us. The only downside is that when you write the first article for your newsletter, your whole network gets invited to subscribe. For me it's like spamming your whole network and there's a risk that people will disconnect as a result of course. I hope you don't but then again you are free to choose whatever action you wish, as it happens I'm not as interested anymore in growing my network, anywhere.
We’re now scrolling junkies. Why would we all waste our time scrolling through such utter nonsense, abuse, anger, ‘look at me’ posts, sharenting (parents sharing their kids), promotional jargon, show-off knowledge, repeated news stories, so-called opinions, thought leadership, questions as clickbait, engagement requests, follow requests, regular ads, so many examples, I could go on but I guess you get the idea.
Grandfather de Groot and Michael de Groot in Surinam 1974
Thank you, thank you ladies and gentlemen! That was Mike at the drums, with his own interpretation of ‘Dreams’! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Michael will you join us? We were discussing the preposition.
Back to reality and the stuffy classroom with my classmates grinning at me, while the flush of being elsewhere with my thoughts, slowly spread over my face and added to the general hilarity!
Once upon a time there was a young man who had learned to play the piano, a little, then discovered the rhythm of the beat and the joy of rolling drums. That was going to be his instrument and he worked at getting the rhythm , the rolls, the crescendo and the final crash to a perfection that finally got him the much coveted position as lead drummer in his favourite group’s orchestra. He travelled the country till he was proclaimed the star of the show, only to be banged down to reality with a preposition.
Reality! A long hard road to achieve the impossible or was it just possible that one day the tables would be turned and I would be up there taking a bow to the deafening applause, thinking I was dreaming again and that I would be brought back to the classroom where my classmates were clapping their hands to draw attention to the teacher and the work on hand!
There I go again, it is so hard to concentrate and stop this habit of using the hum of the teacher’s voice to lead me to those wonderful places away from the dull drab life that I lead. How can I learn to be interested in the uses and abuses of the English language when there is so much more excitement in the sound that I can bring forth with just a flick of the wrist on those beautiful skins? I must stop, I must stop. My passport to reality is proficiency in English which will eventually lead to making my fantasy worlds of the past, the living world of today! Dreams do come true, especially if they have been day dreams!
From early childhood, we are encouraged to concentrate and every lesson in a school classroom is directed at the student in such a way that it makes it impossible not to do so. But not all of us are blessed with those very gifted powers of being able to keep our minds on the subject that is being taught, especially if it is of no particular interest to us or the teacher is unable to hold the interest of his or her students. It is so easy to let the world of fantasy surround you with those tempting delights, which are far more exciting than the reality of the classroom, that the younger student, the less disciplined the mind and the easier the flight from reality.
The business of growing up consists of filling the mind with knowledge that will enable one to meet the demands of the adult world where what you know is more important than what you are. There is no time or need in your waking hours to dream of flying like a bird, you can fly! Or being famous, you can become famous and world renown, all you have to do is hi-jack a plane or train or kidnap a child or a businessman and you are famous! Write a book? Easy, just collect all your wildest fantasies together and fill them with enough obscene words and you can top the best-seller book list.
Day dreams are fast becoming a luxury that only the very young can participate in, or those who have suffered from the pressures of modern life and have to go to a group therapy session so that they can be encouraged to let their mind wander and enjoy once again the fantasies that have been crowded out by the reality of our world today.
Has climate any affect on national character? When I was asked this question, the first picture that came to my mind was that of happy laughing people in sunny Spain. So that I would say that as far as my experience is concerned, I do think that the climate affects the people of a country and also the character. Astrologers turn to the stars to find good and bad omens in our lives with the help of the position of the moon and the sun and we Europeans living in the northern hemisphere are certainly influenced by the changing position of the sun. When spring arrives in Europe, we look forward to the longer hours of daylight and are walking with our heads up and a smile on our faces, because we know that soon it will be time to enjoy more of the sun.
Bright sunshine, light and warmth, the ingredients for growth and happiness. Dull days, cold and darkness, the characteristic recipe for sitting together trying to discover the meaning of life. Although we in Europe have the opportunity of having the time, in winter, to think and talk of all aspects of life, we envy our neighbours in the sunny countries who have the sun all the time, because we know that the fact that the sun is shining gives them more freedom, they live a carefree life.
So my answer to the question of whether the climate affects the national character, would be yes most definitely.
From a piece of work that I submitted to my course in Amsterdam, learning how to write business English, in preparation for us to move to the United Kingdom. My mother (Marion) assisted me greatly with writing this article at the time. My dream when I was 15 was to become a drummer in a band. I did learn to play the drums and did indeed become a drummer in a small unknown, very short-lived new wave/punk band in London. We even recorded a very poor demo on my father's reel to reel tape player. I still have the recording and it pleases me from time to time to listen to my own mastery on the drums.
Grandfather de Groot and Michael de Groot in Surinam 1974
Thank you, thank you ladies and gentlemen! That was Mike at the drums, with his own interpretation of ‘Dreams’! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Michael will you join us? We were discussing the preposition.
Back to reality and the stuffy classroom with my classmates grinning at me, while the flush of being elsewhere with my thoughts, slowly spread over my face and added to the general hilarity!
Once upon a time there was a young man who had learned to play the piano, a little, then discovered the rhythm of the beat and the joy of rolling drums. That was going to be his instrument and he worked at getting the rhythm , the rolls, the crescendo and the final crash to a perfection that finally got him the much coveted position as lead drummer in his favourite group’s orchestra. He travelled the country till he was proclaimed the star of the show, only to be banged down to reality with a preposition.
Reality! A long hard road to achieve the impossible or was it just possible that one day the tables would be turned and I would be up there taking a bow to the deafening applause, thinking I was dreaming again and that I would be brought back to the classroom where my classmates were clapping their hands to draw attention to the teacher and the work on hand!
There I go again, it is so hard to concentrate and stop this habit of using the hum of the teacher’s voice to lead me to those wonderful places away from the dull drab life that I lead. How can I learn to be interested in the uses and abuses of the English language when there is so much more excitement in the sound that I can bring forth with just a flick of the wrist on those beautiful skins? I must stop, I must stop. My passport to reality is proficiency in English which will eventually lead to making my fantasy worlds of the past, the living world of today! Dreams do come true, especially if they have been day dreams!
From early childhood, we are encouraged to concentrate and every lesson in a school classroom is directed at the student in such a way that it makes it impossible not to do so. But not all of us are blessed with those very gifted powers of being able to keep our minds on the subject that is being taught, especially if it is of no particular interest to us or the teacher is unable to hold the interest of his or her students. It is so easy to let the world of fantasy surround you with those tempting delights, which are far more exciting than the reality of the classroom, that the younger student, the less disciplined the mind and the easier the flight from reality.
The business of growing up consists of filling the mind with knowledge that will enable one to meet the demands of the adult world where what you know is more important than what you are. There is no time or need in your waking hours to dream of flying like a bird, you can fly! Or being famous, you can become famous and world renown, all you have to do is hi-jack a plane or train or kidnap a child or a businessman and you are famous! Write a book? Easy, just collect all your wildest fantasies together and fill them with enough obscene words and you can top the best-seller book list.
Day dreams are fast becoming a luxury that only the very young can participate in, or those who have suffered from the pressures of modern life and have to go to a group therapy session so that they can be encouraged to let their mind wander and enjoy once again the fantasies that have been crowded out by the reality of our world today.
Has climate any affect on national character? When I was asked this question, the first picture that came to my mind was that of happy laughing people in sunny Spain. So that I would say that as far as my experience is concerned, I do think that the climate affects the people of a country and also the character. Astrologers turn to the stars to find good and bad omens in our lives with the help of the position of the moon and the sun and we Europeans living in the northern hemisphere are certainly influenced by the changing position of the sun. When spring arrives in Europe, we look forward to the longer hours of daylight and are walking with our heads up and a smile on our faces, because we know that soon it will be time to enjoy more of the sun.
Bright sunshine, light and warmth, the ingredients for growth and happiness. Dull days, cold and darkness, the characteristic recipe for sitting together trying to discover the meaning of life. Although we in Europe have the opportunity of having the time, in winter, to think and talk of all aspects of life, we envy our neighbours in the sunny countries who have the sun all the time, because we know that the fact that the sun is shining gives them more freedom, they live a carefree life.
So my answer to the question of whether the climate affects the national character, would be yes most definitely.
From a piece of work that I submitted to my course in Amsterdam, learning how to write business English, in preparation for us to move to the United Kingdom. My mother (Marion) assisted me greatly with writing this article at the time. My dream when I was 15 was to become a drummer in a band. I did learn to play the drums and did indeed become a drummer in a small unknown, very short-lived new wave/punk band in London. We even recorded a very poor demo on my father’s reel to reel tape player. I still have the recording and it pleases me from time to time to listen to my own mastery on the drums.
Freedom of Speech on LinkedIn — Michael & Josh #dailycartoon
World politics are in the news 24/7 and we all struggle to get away from the stories that invoke our emotions. Whether we like it or not politics influence the lives around us, the cost of products and services and our general wellbeing. We wish to express our opinions on social networks to perhaps create a movement, a useful debate and share what we think and feel. But some of us prefer to stay away from these discussions and object. Andrew Pain asked us if this would be a good topic for a cartoon and I agree it is.
The world is angry with Facebook and rightly so. It may not happen straight away, but we may have seen the gradual and ultimate demise of Facebook over the next few years. It’s not just the Cambridge Analytica story that’s causing it.
Most people are realising that Facebook is a total time-suck. You lose yourself in the Rabbit Hole, never to come out. You stop speaking to people and avoid having real conversations that matter.
I stopped on Facebook, I haven’t deleted my profile, but maybe one day I will. My mind is so much better off as a result.
Down the Rabbithole — Michael & Josh
What gets to me now is not only the manipulation of the social media platforms, also the manipulation of marketers using those platforms.
I can now see the wording, the language, the videos, the NLP, basically the brainwash that’s taking place across the board. I’m worried for us all. Capitalism, consumerism, growth, GDP’s, nationalism, plastics, money, all of it is making us greedy, corrupt and wish to take rather then give.
A human wants to help her fellow human, but not at any cost, not telling her that I’m better than anyone else, surely?
That is what’s happening at the moment. When I read LinkedIn profiles I am astounded how people promote themselves as the biggest this the best at that, showing off awards, so-called corporates to have worked with, testimonials and also sorts of gimmicks, tricks and magic. It’s making me feel quite nauseous when I read them.
I recently had a LinkedIn connection rage-quit on me. He disconnected from me on LinkedIn because he felt my free advice was not the advice he was looking for and he also felt that when I referred him to a contact who might be able to help also wasted his time.
So he asked to connect to me, with a personalised invite I will add. Nobody sends those these days and therefore he stood out for me and I gladly and willingly accepted. His question in the invitation was;
Hello Michael,
My name is …. I have some questions and need your help.
I respond to every single invitation I receive and every new connection receives a link to a hidden page on my website with some free stuff, including a 13-hour LinkedIn video course, which took me 12 months to create. I also welcomed whatever question he wanted to ask, adding that if I wasn’t able to assist him, I was sure to know someone else who might be able to.
Question 2 from my new friendly connection;
I am trying to get my business off the ground but I don’t know if my personal brand story that I paid someone to write is good enough that describes me and what I stand for.
I then shared with him some text I had written for someone who has a similar role and he never said thank you, then proceeded with sharing his signature speech (sentence). It took a day for me to respond back to that and before I could respond he said;
So your not going to help me anymore?
I then created a google doc with my sentence and his and suggested that we worked on it together. All free of charge by the way, I never asked for any money.
Again no thank you, just coming back with push-back to what I had suggested. He then shared a video by Donald Miller, see below, not bad.
But he wasn’t doing anything so I encouraged him with;
My suggestion is keep working at it. You write the next one okay?
And then this came back;
Thanks anyway, I will just do this with no support and help from anyone anymore. As I just don’t care anymore. I just won’t help anyone anymore every time they come to me and want my help. That is what the problem with everyone they care about just making money. I blame you for wasting my time recommending me to (contact name).
I use a regular excuse to give direct feedback to people that connect with me on LinkedIn by saying that I’m a straight talking Dutchman. The Dutch have a reputation for that, right?
I give feedback because I’d like to help them. I also give it because I see so many dreadful profiles and after having been a LinkedIn trainer for 5 years, I can spot the rubbish instantly.
Why do so many folks write such nonsense on their profiles? What makes them rush the process so much? Is it to just get their profile published quickly? Many then never go back to it to improve it. We are so distracted in our lives that it shows through in the way that we present ourselves online as well.
“Black and white photograph of the back view of street protesters in a rally in Washington.” by Jerry Kiesewetter on Unsplash
Just take a few moments, maybe a few hours to improve what you write about yourself on LinkedIn. It’s not a CV or an advert, it’s an opportunity to present who you are, what your passion is, how you got to where you are now and what vision you have for yourself. Be personal, your story is the most important thing about you.
Whether you’re looking for a job, wishing to further your career or looking for new business relationships, people always buy from people. The way you write about yourself tells us a thousand times more about who you truly are.
The LinkedIn summary is probably THE most important piece of content you can write about yourself.
This is what I witness on a regular basis in LinkedIn summaries.
No summary at all!
Writing in the 3rd person like you’re some sort of celebrity.
Writing one sentence, which says nothing.
Writing an advert.
Writing a list of skills.
Professing that you are some sort of Super(wo)man
Using jargon that nobody understands unless they have intimate knowledge of your industry/sector.
Telling us how many connections you have and how popular you are.
Not writing about yourself only about the company.
And you actually believe it’s good enough?
We must all have higher standards for ourselves and show the world that we care about coming across coherently and that we’ve taken the time to express our intimate world to others.
So where am I seeing AI in my day to day dealings on the web?
Well I use LinkedIn and here is why I have experienced the most. Actually LinkedIn promised us a very long time ago that they would be introducing AI (Artificial Intelligence) in their messaging system. It’s only just being put into practice now at the kind of level I had anticipated at the start.
Obviously they needed to work on this for a while. I’m noticing that they are quite accurately suggesting ‘one tap’ responses to messages in my inbox. At first they used to have just very limited suggested responses, like ‘thanks’ and now the suggested responses are becoming far more sophisticated.
The other place where I’ve noticed AI is Facebook. Not in their messenger but in the fact that I’ve been less active there and they’ve started emailing me with a trick email, suggesting that I had been trying to log-in to their platform and they noticed ai was having problems, supplying me with a one click button to log back in.
They obviously noticed that I had not been active and they need to uphold their active users figure, so giving me a one-button login on my email means that when I click that, I get straight back in and boom I’m included in the active users figure for that day/week/month.
So now all my excitement about AI has just been delivered a terrible blow.
Over-egging means trying too hard to improve something and thereby spoiling it. The meaning has been derived from over-egging the pudding. Trying to improve the pudding by using too many eggs I guess?
It also means embellishing or exaggerating.
For me this is the meaning that I understand it to be, especially the embellishing part.
We all know that we are guilty of doing this, whether it is on CV’s (Resumés) or on our LinkedIn profiles. #OMG, I see so many LinkedIn profiles these days that are so obviously over-egged.
I just wonder why? Are we also desperate for approval, fear of not being accepted, we are trying to come across as more experienced, more established, more impressive compared to our neighbours on LinkedIn? It looks so obvious, I’m so surprised folks do not recognise this phenomena in themselves.
You know if they taught this stuff in schools, maybe we would have better looking profiles on LinkedIn, instead of all those lookalike profiles that sound the same and have no distinctive features whatsoever.
It could be of course that most of us are suffering from that good old ‘limiting beliefs syndrome’, something that I am noticing in my network more and more. Our parents and teachers do have a lot to answer for.
I’m no author. I’d like to think I’m a storyteller but I’m more like a story facilitator, helping you to craft your best story and allowing your digital community to have a closer connection with you.
By far the biggest mistake I see people make is that they write profile summaries in the 3rd person, like they are a big celebrity and their agent has written a bio page for them. Maybe you’re a speaker and your agent writes it for you?
It creates such a distance between your reader, your audience and yourself, because it’s not personal and definitely does not create any sense of intimacy.
When you write a profile, bio or summary page about yourself, write as if you are sitting opposite someone, explaining your story. Of course share what you do in business, cool, but make it more personal because that’s the most interesting part of who you are.
Write WHY you do what you do, what circumstances, opportunities got you into what you are doing today or if you haven’t found what you wish to do yet, what is grabbing your interest the most, what aspirations do you have?
Share something personal about your life too, maybe how you have moved around, how that enabled you to see the world in a different light, what effect did it have on you?
Always write in the first person, ‘I’ instead of ‘She/He’.
I embraced Social Media massively, studied many hours to become an expert in it and learnt from the best in the world.
Then at a business networking meeting at least 5 years ago, when I introduced myself as a Social Media trainer, the response was oh really not another one?
It made me think, I was already overwhelmed with all the networks I had to master, so I decided to specialise in LinkedIn only, I’ve always enjoyed B2B.
I came across the image below on @therealbanksy twitter and for me it really sums up the world of Social Media we live in today.
And last month (December 2017) 5 years after I became a LinkedIn trainer I stopped.
Why?
I am no longer as passionate about Social Media as I once was and I also believe it is a massive time grabber, which affects millions of us as it did for me.
99.9% of the posts that are being put out there get virtually no engagement or are never seen. I call it the ‘falling tree syndrome’. Millions of trees fall over and nobody is there to witness it. Just like your latest social media post.
I’m curious, if you are an employee, i.e. not a business owner, do you see any value in being on LinkedIn beyond it being just your CV (Resumé)? Have fun by looking up that word (Resumé), because the internet has no idea how to spell that and neither do I!
Since I’ve been training professionals in how to get the most from LinkedIn, I’ve noticed overwhelmingly that the largest disbelievers are those that are employed and not business owners. Business owners are totally different, they understand and appreciate the power of a professional network like LinkedIn, the need to grow it and leverage that network.
The only time an employee feels they need to improve their LinkedIn profile, grow their network and be more active on LinkedIn is when they are out of a job or they are looking to move careers.
Employees are not the only ones, employers don’t get it either. If they did understand LinkedIn’s potential power they would include LinkedIn as one of their employees’ roles and objectives. They make the mistake of believing too that LinkedIn is a CV (Resume) platform. I don’t blame them though, LinkedIn still makes over 60% of their revenue from talent solutions, the hidden recruitment engine only available to those that pay handsomely for the privilege.
Anyway, employers and it’s employees need to take LinkedIn seriously for two massively big and simple reasons.
Brand consistency and Customer loyalty.
When potential customers search out company employees your brand would benefit hugely from well crafted employee profiles, great personal and business stories and brand consistency.
LinkedIn Company Icon (when no company page)
Some companies still don’t have a company page and those that do, its employees don’t know how to connect their job experience section to those company pages. Probably THE most basic of requirements on an employee LinkedIn profile. If you just see the grey building image on your profile, then you haven’t connected to your organisation’s company page, if there is one.
Job experience with logo pulled in from company page.
It’s a simple error to fix, the organisation has to create a company page and the employee needs to edit their profile to locate the company page and pull the logo into their job experience section.
Finally then, we’ve all come across the saying;
‘What gets measured, gets done’. Discussing your employee’s LinkedIn profile as part of their objectives will be a great way to ensure that everyone in the organisation improves their profile for the benefit of themselves, as well as the company’s brand.
If the employee just spends 20-minutes per day developing their profile and being active on LinkedIn, it will make a massive difference to the organisation's brand reputation and overall recognition.
In a previous article I suggested ways in which anyone can be active on LinkedIn in just 20-minutes per day. Take the 20-minute per day challenge now!
When browsing the internet, my apple news app and the social media networks, the content speaks volumes.
The content largely is self-congratulatory, especially on Facebook. There is very little value in the content that gets posted whether by the news media, your friends, colleagues and the hundreds of strangers that you are connected to.
Everyone is trying to distract us from our attention in the moment and engage with their story, bring us into their world view and opinions. Mostly it's #fakenews and sucks us in to express a like, heart, laugh, cry, wow or mad, and if we can be bothered, write a comment.
Whether you believe the research or not, they say it takes you 25 minutes to return to the original task after only an 11 minute interruption. That is an absolute age, have you ever tried to sit still for 25 minutes? It's impossible and lasts a very very long time.
So why do we do this to ourselves?
Don't get me wrong, I like social media, I really do, well maybe I did and I am starting to wonder how much time I have actually wasted on social channels, whereas I could have been creating some fabulous stuff and change my life for the better?
Realising that social isn't going away soon I have started to re-assess my activity there. I used to post 3 times per day via my favourite scheduling app, Buffer, but now I only post once per day. I paid for the 'awesome plan' so that I could have all my channels there and post to all of them and now I just have the free plan with only a few channels to post to. I continually had to search for new and interesting content from other channels, I even have a feedly account to locate all that content. The stress of having to keep finding content was crazy at times, when I saw my buffer of content emptying, I panicked and had to spend a few hours to find more stuff to load it up. I am feeling like a massive weight has been lifted from my shoulders by not having to do that any longer.
But did it actually work and did I get a return on my investment. I never truly know whether it did or not and my hunch is that it probably didn't. My engagement is no better or worse as a result of reducing my content sharing.
So what about the way forward? Pretty much as the image says really.
Be impartial.
Inform next steps and offer guidance.
Answer questions.
Solve problems.
Listen, respond and be helpful.
Make people smile, laugh and sometimes give them pause.
Design engagement and customer journeys across screens, platforms and networks so they are seamless.
Create experiences that are delightful, memorable and shareable.
It's not that I'm not wishing to be super personal and to engage with one person at a time and appeal to their specific goals and aspirations.
The truth is there are just not enough hours in the day to engage with every new connection request and every new follower at a level that I would ideally like. So some automation is inevitable. I'm still experimenting too and have already adjustedsome things.
I'm not using autobots as such, but I am manually adding new connections to my CRM and an automated process and messaging them with the same template message. And no, I don't feel great about it, but it's working at the moment.
My goal is to be engaging and strike up a conversation, share some valuable content and information that is free and at the same time being careful not to pitch anything. Its totally not my intention to do any kind of pitching. Eventually I'd like to have a conversation, which I call a discovery call. And that again is to provide some value, not to pitch.
I have carefully designed this process after weeks of testing it and receiving some deeper level of engagement with new connections, especially on LinkedIn. Anywhere else it's much harder to do. Email is still one of our default go to apps each morning. I know it's Facebook for most too.
I state very clearly in my auto emails that my purpose is to engage at a deeper level and invite recipients to unsubscribe if they wish to and indeed some do, but not as many as I had originally expected. Maybe one every 2-3 weeks.
I do receive a fair bit of engagement from these new connections and I also notice a lot don't. I'm surprised because they asked to connect with me in the majority of cases, at least 95% of them are incoming requests. Usually with no reason given for wishing to connect by the way.
The real engagement occurs when after a few touch points, which are a combination of engaging with their profiles and sharing some content and information, you manage to get agreement for a discovery call. When you are able to engage in a conversation with your connections, more clarity about who they are and what their goals are means that you can start to look out for clues and understand better how they'd like you to engage with them in the future. Over the years I've come to realise that this is by far the best method.
The goal always is to end up having a conversation. I believe by phone and usually Skype with video is best. I'd like to try other methods too, like Facebook messenger with video, although having tried it twice, it's still a bit unstable.
If you'd like to skip all the automation and go straight to a discovery call then by all means go for it and head over here,
Online is great and talking is even better. Everyone's ultimate goal in business and life is to make real connections, where you meet someone face to face. Before that meeting a conversation is the ultimate icebreaker. I value my LinkedIn connections and realise that I don't really know you or what your goals are and how I might facilitate or support those goals. Feel free to click through and book a call with me (https://www.stayingaliveuk.com/discovery-call/). I have blocked out only Fridays each week, excluding holidays, for calls. Hope to speak with you soon.
I will be covering 'search' on LinkedIn and Sales Navigator
I am delighted to be taking part in a 5-day long bootcamp with 24 other LinkedIn Coaches, Experts and Trainers from across the globe. We have all been interviewed by Adèle McLay who hosts all the experts to reveal their top tips, insights and techniques for mastering LinkedIn.
This event is FREE for the whole week. Plan in some time to watch as many of the Bootcamp as you can as I know you will get some amazing value from it.
I will be covering the topic of search inside LinkedIn and Sales Navigator, a massively valuable tool to exploit if you know how.
Make sure you sign-up to learn as much as you can for FREE to get your LinkedIn process up and running for getting exposure to more leads and business opportunities.
LinkedIn, is about the change. I thought it would be good to show you the upcoming differences. If you are using the LinkedIn mobile app, you will be pleased to learn that it's very close in user interface to the app. At long last!
If you haven't already, I am sure you have contemplated it. The name has a nice ring to it as well 'Digital Detox'. There are now millions of self-proclaimed addicts to digital content. Soon to be billions. And there are plenty of us that are in denial as well.
I want to make sure you have some facts to begin with.
Brandwatch shared some mind-blowing stats in March 2016. Here are just a few.
In years to come, all those content spewing platforms will be asking us our preferences. Once they know our preferences they will only serve up those bits of content we have asked for. No more no less. Unfortunately this means that we have to make a decision. What do we really need to see on a daily basis? Not what we want to see but what we need to see.
There is a big difference, because as an addict we have many wants and we have to slowly wean ourselves off a lot of the content that we are already addicted to.
The trouble with all of us, we are constantly in FOMO, 'fear of missing out'. That's why we are addicted. If you want to learn why, read my article, 'Do Social Networks Sell Drugs'.
By watching the video below you will also learn what the Internet is doing to our brains.
Most of us are on the Internet on a daily basis and whether we like it or not, the Internet is affecting us. It changes how we think, how we work, and it even changes our brains.
Each week I will share one of the articles and illustrations from the eBook and give you my opinion, insight and meaning of the words and illustrations.
When LinkedIn changed their groups at the end of 2015, there was outrage by the group managers and moderators. LinkedIn had gone one step too far in trying to make groups more accessible to more people. Result? A lot of groups folded, moved to Facebook.
I'm noticing each day that Facebook are doing many things right, so I decided to examine the major functionalities and compare them on each platform.
I thought I would create an infographic. Superman (Facebook) vs Batman (LinkedIn).
Points are awarded merely based on the amount of functionality options that exist on each platform.
There is no doubt that Facebook has a significant advantage over LinkedIn in many areas and it makes it a far better and more enjoyable experience for the user and the manager.
Every business needs to have a Facebook group and indeed there are 620 million Facebook groups already in existence, compared to the very small 2 million on LinkedIn.
I hope you enjoy the infographic. I would love to hear your comments and opinion on groups?
