Explore every episode of the podcast Informed: the podcast for LinkedIn® users

Postbag

• Mary Wu: post boosting
• Mic Adam: company pages
• Ashley Leeds: LinkedIn groups
• Nicky Oliver: company verifications and newsletters

Company page comment blocking and removing people from a page

Pinned comments return

New recommend / super like reaction for Premium members

My interview on Embracing Marketing Mistakes

Solo and small business owners: join the Espresso+ community to improve your LinkedIn and online presence. Find out more at jesp.me/join

Support the show: Informed is not sponsored, so all production and hosting is self-funded. To make a small donation, go to jesp.me/informed-tip – thanks!

Postbag question by Ivan Tobias: What are the biggest misconceptions you've found building other people's LinkedIn profiles that other LinkedIn experts perpetuate?

Can your LinkedIn profile URL reveal your account's age?

Native bold support for text

LinkedIn newsletter analytics and visibility

Solo and small business owners: join the Espresso+ community to improve your LinkedIn and online presence. Find out more at jesp.me/join

Support the show: Informed is not sponsored, so all production and hosting is self-funded. To make a small donation, go to jesp.me/informed-tip – thanks!

Voice note questions from Steve Bruce, Hanne Møller, Ashley Leeds, Mary Wu, Darren Millings, and Mic Adam. The questions cover these topics: endorsements, languages, percentage of content creators on the platform, batch tagging, licenses and certifications, About sections, connection strategy, and profile updates – plenty!

Tips for feed relevance:

• Unfollow or even disconnect with the people you're not interested in.
• Use the "not interested" option where appropriate.
• Mark posts and comments as AI slop if appropriate.
• Create a custom content search for topics by a named group of creators.
• Use the new Network tab at the top of the feed to show updates from only your 1st connections and people you follow (I don't have this yet but it's coming soon).
• Send more comments and DMs in the direction of people you *do* want to hear from, as this is a strong algorithmic signal of what and who you care about.

Solo and small business owners: join the Espresso+ community to improve your LinkedIn and online presence. Find out more at jesp.me/join

Support the show: Informed is not sponsored, so all production and hosting is self-funded. To make a small donation, go to jesp.me/informed-tip – thanks!

The Postbag includes voice notes from Mark Lee, Ashley Leeds, and Lynnaire Johnston.

Suggested LinkedIn fixes:

• Exact date and time on posts & comments
• Batch delete notifications
• Pinned comments
• Combine split DM threads from the same person
• Rich text support in posts
• Reorderable sections in LinkedIn profiles
• Update image option when editing posts and comments
• Folders and tags in direct messages
• Block option for company pages
• Muted words & phrases option
• Away message option for non-connections
• Export option for newsletter subscribers
• Block voice notes option in direct messages
• Videos and audio in comments
• Voice note transcriptions in DMs
• Send DM voice notes on desktop
• Reintroduce audio events
• Folders and tags for saved posts

LinkedIn Local Birmingham is on Friday 25 September. Tickets are only £20 or £15 if you're an Espresso+ member.

Solo and small business owners: join the Espresso+ community to improve your LinkedIn and online presence. Find out more at jesp.me/join

Support the show: Informed is not sponsored, so all production and hosting is self-funded. To make a small donation, go to jesp.me/informed-tip – thanks!

Postbag questions and contributions from Hanne Møller, Mary Wu, Gillian Whitney, Mic Adam, and Mari-Liis Garcia.

Private connection notes are here for Premium members.

How many active users are there on LinkedIn?

Don't forget to grab your ticket for UpLift Live Nano Bristol on 17 September 2026 at https://jesp.me/nanobristol

Solo and small business owners: join the Espresso+ community to improve your LinkedIn and online presence. Find out more at jesp.me/join

Support the show: Informed is not sponsored, so all production and hosting is self-funded. To make a small donation, go to jesp.me/informed-tip – thanks!

A look at some of the basics of your LinkedIn profile's top card.

Plus, voice note contributions from Lynnaire Johnston and Mark Lee.

Solo and small business owners: join the Espresso+ community to improve your LinkedIn and online presence. Find out more at jesp.me/join

Support the show: Informed is not sponsored, so all production and hosting is self-funded. To make a small donation, go to jesp.me/informed-tip – thanks!

A special version of the Informed podcast as it reaches its 500th episode, with voice note contributions from several listeners.

Plus, a reminder to join us in Bristol for UpLift Live Nano on 17 September 2026. Your chance to ask your LinkedIn questions in person and even have your profile reviewed – and we even throw in a delicious buffet lunch at our fab venue on the Bristol waterfront.

Get tickets: https://jesp.me/nanobristol

Solo and small business owners: join the Espresso+ community to improve your LinkedIn and online presence. Find out more at jesp.me/join

Support the show: Informed is not sponsored, so all production and hosting is self-funded. To make a small donation, go to jesp.me/informed-tip – thanks!

Brenda Meller voice note about the new "Seems like AI slop" feature

Is Social Selling Index (SSI) going away for free users?

My first collaborative post, with Lynnaire Johnston

Come to UpLift Live Nano Bristol! It's on Thursday 17 September at The Watershed.

Tickets: https://jesp.me/nanobristol

New book: Mic Drop: The Human Side of LinkedIn, by Mic Adam

"Eyes hurt" is trending on Google …

Solo and small business owners: join the Espresso+ community to improve your LinkedIn and online presence. Find out more at jesp.me/join

Support the show: Informed is not sponsored, so all production and hosting is self-funded. To make a small donation, go to jesp.me/informed-tip – thanks!

Postbag

Mark Lee and Jeremy Freeman sent voice notes about where to get official LinkedIn info and change logs.

"Seems like AI slop" is a new feature on LinkedIn posts viewed in the main feed.

Update on collaborative posts

Solo and small business owners: join the Espresso+ community to improve your LinkedIn and online presence. Find out more at jesp.me/join

Support the show: Informed is not sponsored, so all production and hosting is self-funded. To make a small donation, go to jesp.me/informed-tip – thanks!

Voice note from Gillian Whitney on out-of-network content viewers

Voice note from Mary Wu on profile URLs, plus some feedback on limiting posts

Get your ticket to UpLift Live Nano Bristol for Thursday 17 September

Collaborative posts

Solo and small business owners: join the Espresso+ community to improve your LinkedIn and online presence. Find out more at jesp.me/join

Support the show: Informed is not sponsored, so all production and hosting is self-funded. To make a small donation, go to jesp.me/informed-tip – thanks!

Postbag

Nigel Cliffe voice note on limiting your post visibility

Ashley Leeds voice note on automation tools

Lionel Guerraz on connecting with your company's CEO

Caryn Yuen on link display in comments

To see what proportion of your network is seeing your posts, go to the Content performance panel in your profile analytics. I've reached about a quarter of a million people in the past year, but only 38% of them are 1st connections or followers.

WhatsApp usernames are now available to reserve

Open the app, go to Settings | Account | Username to reserve yours.

Solo and small business owners: join the Espresso+ community to improve your LinkedIn and online presence. Find out more at jesp.me/join

Support the show: Informed is not sponsored, so all production and hosting is self-funded. To make a small donation, go to jesp.me/informed-tip – thanks!

Postbag

Lionel Guerraz voice note about content reach

Come to UpLift Live Nano Bristol on 17 September 2026 – a chance to ask your LinkedIn questions direct to me and get yourself a live LinkedIn profile review!

Creator Marketplace and company page collaborations

Solo and small business owners: join the Espresso+ community to improve your LinkedIn and online presence. Find out more at jesp.me/join

Support the show: Informed is not sponsored, so all production and hosting is self-funded. To make a small donation, go to jesp.me/informed-tip – thanks!

Voice notes with feedback from Nigel Cliffe and Meena McDonald

Native GIF support in LinkedIn comments

Wend game

Solo and small business owners: join the Espresso+ community to improve your LinkedIn and online presence. Find out more at jesp.me/join

Support the show: Informed is not sponsored, so all production and hosting is self-funded. To make a small donation, go to jesp.me/informed-tip – thanks!

Discovery analytics for in and out of network viewers

Should you comment on content where you don't expect to reply?

Why you shouldn't delete AI comments on your posts

Why you shouldn't use "comment X to get Y"

Video tab arrives on mobile

Solo and small business owners: join the Espresso+ community to improve your LinkedIn and online presence. Find out more at jesp.me/join

Support the show: Informed is not sponsored, so all production and hosting is self-funded. To make a small donation, go to jesp.me/informed-tip – thanks!

More chat about AI on LinkedIn, plus the return of a feature in the mobile app.

Trevor Lambert about AI

Ross Thorpe about AI – check out Rooverse

Ashley Leeds about profile URLs

Trudy Pannekeet about group DMs

———

Video tab returns to UK, Australia & Canada

Connect button on mobile prompts for a note

Solo and small business owners: join the Espresso+ community to improve your LinkedIn and online presence. Find out more at jesp.me/join

Support the show: Informed is not sponsored, so all production and hosting is self-funded. To make a small donation, go to jesp.me/informed-tip – thanks!

Judi Radice Hays: feedback on birthdays

Jeremy Freeman: LinkedIn newsletters

Kathie York: Since LinkedIn likes to see engagement within the first hour of a post, is it still bad form to be the first commenter? One reason I ask: having a link in a post hurts our 'reach.' What are the rules, now, for placing the link in a comment we create? And what happens to that comment if someone reposts our post?

———

875 LinkedIn employees (5% of workforce) sacked!

Is AI slop really going away? We need a "report as AI" feature!

"Nonconsensual intimate imagery" warnings.

How to find the date and time of any post or comment on LinkedIn: see my free tool at jesp.me/date

Solo and small business owners: join the Espresso+ community to improve your LinkedIn and online presence. Find out more at jesp.me/join

Support the show: Informed is not sponsored, so all production and hosting is self-funded. To make a small donation, go to jesp.me/informed-tip – thanks!

What happens when you need to change your plans?

Lionel Guerraz: commenting and its effects on topic authority.

Judith Rafferty: how do we deal with birthdays on LinkedIn?

———

The main topic is about changing your schedule on LinkedIn and whether it's OK to post about different topics.

About statement previews are now 6 lines long on mobile. Desktop previews are still 4 lines long.

UpLift Live Nano Bristol: our conference's little brother event is on Thursday 17 September 2026 at The Watershed in Bristol. Come to learn about LinkedIn and network. You get lunch, and if you're brave I'll review your LinkedIn profile in front of the room. Use code EARLY10 for a £10 discount until the end of May. Standard price is £59.

I'm off to Creator Day in Poole this week. See you there?

Off-topic food post

Solo and small business owners: join the Espresso+ community to improve your LinkedIn and online presence. Find out more at jesp.me/join

Support the show: Informed is not sponsored, so all production and hosting is self-funded. To make a small donation, go to jesp.me/informed-tip – thanks!

New membership figures for LinkedIn are out. Let's take a look at the stats for this quarter.

• Richard G Abrahams on post impressions.
• Steve Messenger on comments being turned off on every post.
• Lynnaire Johnston on verification concerns.

———

• LinkedIn member results via Microsoft.
• I signed up for Premium All-in-One.
• Comments reduced from 1250 to 1000 characters.

Solo and small business owners: join the Espresso+ community to improve your LinkedIn and online presence. Find out more at jesp.me/join

Support the show: Informed is not sponsored, so all production and hosting is self-funded. To make a small donation, go to jesp.me/informed-tip – thanks!

How do you report someone and what happens when LinkedIn ignores your feedback?

See Melanie Goodman’s post

———

LinkedIn has a new CEO: Daniel Shapero

Content DNA is 6 years old – read sample chapters

Espresso+ members now get the full 32-chapter audiobook for free.

What comment features do you want?

Crosscheck AI feature

Your LinkedIn headline matters

Solo and small business owners: join the Espresso+ community to improve your LinkedIn and online presence. Find out more at jesp.me/join

Support the show: Informed is not sponsored, so all production and hosting is self-funded. To make a small donation, go to jesp.me/informed-tip – thanks!

Postbag

Mary Wu voice note about the use of someone else's account.

–––

Grad's Guide 2026 – some stats around the current jobs market.

• Main report
• UK version
• US version

Creative Collision at LinkedIn HQ on 28 April

There is no 360Brew anymore?

AI People search reaches all of the US

Solo and small business owners: join the Espresso+ community to improve your LinkedIn and online presence. Find out more at jesp.me/join

Support the show: Informed is not sponsored, so all production and hosting is self-funded. To make a small donation, go to jesp.me/informed-tip – thanks!

Postbag

Voice note response to Mark Lee’s question, from Tonny Mikkelsen.

Mark’s real question was about limiting content searches to the UK only. There's no good route for that, as the "All filters" panel on post searches does not include anything about location.

———

Post collaborations

Differences between desktop and mobile versions of LinkedIn

Customise your profile username

Solo and small business owners: join the Espresso+ community to improve your LinkedIn and online presence. Find out more at jesp.me/join

Support the show: Informed is not sponsored, so all production and hosting is self-funded. To make a small donation, go to jesp.me/informed-tip – thanks!

Postbag

Should I delete posts on LinkedIn?

Richard G Abrahams: Should I write a newsletter?

Mark Lee: Can I target my posts to certain locations?

Clip from my UpLift Live 26 talk on "direct messages and algorithmic immunity".

I put in around 12 hours of editing time to get the replays ready, and we have about 17.5 hours of content in total now available over the past 3 years of the conference.

Get your replay ticket

Social Insider report on document post engagement rates

Look out for messages saying "Email not reachable" and "Update your email to ensure you don't lose access to your account" – they're legitimate messages but seem to be associated only with LinkedIn accounts that have Gmail email addresses. Hopefully, this is a temporary issue only.

Ryan Roslansky's book: Open To Work released

Solo and small business owners: join the Espresso+ community to improve your LinkedIn and online presence. Find out more at jesp.me/join

Support the show: Informed is not sponsored, so all production and hosting is self-funded. To make a small donation, go to jesp.me/informed-tip – thanks!

Last week we ran the third annual UpLift Live conference in Birmingham. This episode contains some reflections on the day from me and from some of our attendees and speakers.

Our speakers for the 2026 conference were, in order:

• John Espirian
• Tony Restell
• Nicole Osborne
• Mic Adam
• Guy Strijbosch
• Heather Murray
• Phill Agnew
• Dave Harland
• Brenda Meller

No Postbag this week – but please do send in your questions for next week's show.

If you missed the conference and would like to watch the talks from 2024, 2025 or 2026, please grab a replay ticket at uplift-live.com/replay

Solo and small business owners: join the Espresso+ community to improve your LinkedIn and online presence. Find out more at jesp.me/join

Support the show: Informed is not sponsored, so all production and hosting is self-funded. To make a small donation, go to jesp.me/informed-tip – thanks!

A quick look at a document that explains why LinkedIn should be considered a social media platform just like all of the other big players.

Postbag

Teresa Ward: should we use @mentions in comments?

Lionel Guerraz: on saving money with tech tools

———

Don't use the vertical pipe | symbol in your headline

Is LinkedIn social media?

UpLift Live 26 is almost here. Still time to get your ticket at uplift-live.com

Solo and small business owners: join the Espresso+ community to improve your LinkedIn and online presence. Find out more at jesp.me/join

Support the show: Informed is not sponsored, so all production and hosting is self-funded. To make a small donation, go to jesp.me/informed-tip – thanks!

This week's show "acknowledges" the challenge LinkedIn seems to have in presenting a stable user interface to its users.

Voice note from Kaye King about improving our feeds

Voice note from Christian Harris on LinkedIn groups

Voice note from Kate Nankivell about line spacing in the About statement

———

LinkedIn is showing a weird mix of languages on the user interface. Why?

Throwback to 5 years ago when I posted a video of how to say hello and thank you in many different languages

Deliberately using typos to make text look real? (Please never do this.)

LinkedIn is the most cited domain for professional queries, according to research by Profound

Solo and small business owners: join the Espresso+ community to improve your LinkedIn and online presence. Find out more at jesp.me/join

Support the show: Informed is not sponsored, so all production and hosting is self-funded. To make a small donation, go to jesp.me/informed-tip – thanks!

This one tip will help content creators get their external content seen.

Postbag

Espresso+: Comment "X" and I will DM you – is that a good idea?

Judi Hays voice note … about voice notes

———

Getting content seen: one approach that works for me

How to reduce your LinkedIn notifications

Company page invitations reduced from 250 to 50

Removing date/time stamps

Some news about the UpLift Live 26 conference

Solo and small business owners: join the Espresso+ community to improve your LinkedIn and online presence. Find out more at jesp.me/join

Support the show: Informed is not sponsored, so all production and hosting is self-funded. To make a small donation, go to jesp.me/informed-tip – thanks!

Among other topics, this week's show is about LinkedIn voice notes. I love them!

Postbag

Mark Lee voice note on spam comments

Niraj Kapur has sent a voice note about AI, based on the content of last week's episode.

I'll be sending more voice notes from now on – see my guide on LinkedIn voice notes

My average post length based on 5 years of data

I want to do more guest podcasts! See my past appearances on other podcasts

LinkedIn's weekly sharing tracker now gone. There are more than 10 such updates coming in the next LinkedIn Roundup for Espresso+ members.

LinkedIn Local in Birmingham: join us on 6 March.

There's now a "living" LinkedIn newsletter that links to all my episodes of this podcast and that I will update each week.

Solo and small business owners: join the Espresso+ community to improve your LinkedIn and online presence. Find out more at jesp.me/join

Support the show: Informed is not sponsored, so all production and hosting is self-funded. To make a small donation, go to jesp.me/informed-tip – thanks!

Is AI coming for all our jobs? That's the main topic this week, with lots of resources for you to check out so you can work out on which side of the fence to fall.

Anon: How can I make my Featured items look the same size?

Other topics in this week's show:

Something Big Is Happening AI article by Matt Shumer

Frank Prendergast has shared a voice note about this. Check out Frank's podcast with Justin Collery: The AI Argument

See this annotated version and podcast as a rebuttal to Matt's article, produced by Ed Zitron.

About that Matt Shumer post – another rebuttal, by Gary Marcus.

Watch a clip of Mustafa Suleyman, CEO at Microsoft AI, speaking to the Financial Times about what AI will do to white-collar jobs.

LinkedIn Local programme to shut down at the end of 2026.

LinkedIn action on automated comments

LinkedIn Future of Work fund open till 15 March 2026 – apply here

What's your oldest post on LinkedIn?

Bonus content I found after recording: check out episode 11 of The Last Invention, which includes interviews with Ed Zitron and Gary Marcus.

Solo and small business owners: join the Espresso+ community to improve your LinkedIn and online presence. Find out more at jesp.me/join

Support the show: Informed is not sponsored, so all production and hosting is self-funded. To make a small donation, go to jesp.me/informed-tip – thanks!

This week's show comes out early to remind you of this weekend's price rise for the UpLift Live 26. We have an interview with our final speaker, the host of the Nudge podcast, Phill Agnew.

Postbag

Ashley Leeds: Premium banner image buttons

Caryn Yuen: Some experts say that sharing glimpses of your personal life can help build your brand and make it easier for your audience to connect with you. How important do you think this is? How often should one be doing this? How do you decide what’s worth sharing, and what’s not?

———

Phill Agnew interview: our final speaker at UpLift Live 26 on 26 March 2026. Get your ticket at uplift-live.com and see all speaker interviews at uplift-live.com/speakers

More in this episode:

• Conference planning video
• Banner image size blog
• About those post-it notes

Solo and small business owners: join the Espresso+ community to improve your LinkedIn and online presence. Find out more at jesp.me/join

Support the show: Informed is not sponsored, so all production and hosting is self-funded. To make a small donation, go to jesp.me/informed-tip – thanks!

Being away for a week in Milan did wonders for people asking me questions for the show!

Richard G Abrahams: As a fiction author, given that time learning and using social media is time not spent writing and editing fiction, and given that LinkedIn is a business platform, is there really any value for me to go through the learning curve to promote my novels? Will I really get return for the effort?

Ashley Leeds: How are LinkedIn group recommendation emails generated? How is your Espresso+ podcast on Apple?

Kate Clark: What's your view on LinkedIn events?

Caryn Yuen: Some experts recommend posting daily to build your personal brand, and some even suggest posting multiple times a day. What posting frequency would you recommend on LinkedIn, and why?

Also in the show:

Updates on my speaking gig in Milan, with slides for Espressians.

Banner image safe zone tip

Saves and sends – how to access what you've saved

Link click analytics

MS earnings call FY26Q2

Open Profile Premium messaging

Top Voices UK

UpLift Live price rise to £299 on 14 February. Get your tickets for our third annual conference in Birmingham on 26 March soon!

Solo and small business owners: join the Espresso+ community to improve your LinkedIn and online presence. Find out more at jesp.me/join

Support the show: Informed is not sponsored, so all production and hosting is self-funded. To make a small donation, go to jesp.me/informed-tip – thanks!

This week we look at audio pronunciation on your profile.

Sara Gallagher: How can I realistically tell what advice is applicable to me, and what "works" because of the skewed sample but won’t in the broader LinkedIn universe? Does it just come down to trial and error?

• Is your security certificate valid?
• Recording an audio pronunciation
• Mystery speaker for UpLift Live 26 – who is it?

Illiya Vjestica is running a bonus UpLift Live 26 webinar on Thursday 5 February at 4pm, on the topic of presentation best practice. This one's free for all ticket-holders to the 2026 conference.

Solo and small business owners: join the Espresso+ community to improve your LinkedIn and online presence. Find out more at jesp.me/join

Support the show: Informed is not sponsored, so all production and hosting is self-funded. To make a small donation, go to jesp.me/informed-tip – thanks!

Main topic is how others can be your marketing department via their recommendations and video testimonials.

Postbag

Mark Lee: I’m wondering what would happen if I chose to start another newsletter on a different topic potentially of interest to a different subset of my connections. Do all my connections get notified of the new newsletter? Does it have an impact on what happens with the other newsletter? Do all new connections get notified that I have two newsletters?

Do off-topic posts work?

Dates and times on posts

Recommendations and video testimonials

Solo and small business owners: join the Espresso+ community to improve your LinkedIn and online presence. Find out more at jesp.me/join

Support the show: Informed is not sponsored, so all production and hosting is self-funded. To make a small donation, go to jesp.me/informed-tip – thanks!

What is real and what is fake on LinkedIn? We're looking at some fake accounts this week.

Gillian Whitney voice note

Can anything be done to stop DMs fragmenting when sending LinkedIn recommendations?

LinkedIn security fake account

Update on fake LinkedIn security accounts via Guy Strijbosch

Where did all the Top Voices go?

Keep your headline short: check out some tips on the importance of making a quick impact with your profile headline.

Our most recent LaunchPad call went well, and now we're offering a conference discount to Informed listeners.

Use INFORMED to get 20% off an in-person ticket to UpLift Live 26. That offer is valid until 11.55pm UK time on Saturday 17 January, and then it's a 10% discount after that.

Solo and small business owners: join the Espresso+ community to improve your LinkedIn and online presence. Find out more at jesp.me/join

Support the show: Informed is not sponsored, so all production and hosting is self-funded. To make a small donation, go to jesp.me/informed-tip – thanks!

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 more Instagram-style approach. So what purpose do hashtags actually serve on LinkedIn now?

My top LinkedIn questions

• Where do I start?
• What do I post about?
• Should I post personal stuff?
• How do I approach people?
• Do I need LinkedIn Premium?
• Should I switch to creator mode?
• How do I increase my Social Selling Index (SSI)?
• Should I put links in posts?
• Do I need a company page?
• How do I get more engagement and visibility?

Solo and small business owners: join the Espresso+ community to improve your LinkedIn and online presence. Find out more at jesp.me/join

Support the show: Informed is not sponsored, so all production and hosting is self-funded. To make a small donation, go to jesp.me/informed-tip – thanks!

What's in your LinkedIn Year in Review? This is LinkedIn's version of Spotify Wrapped.

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 has a new template for an individual to announce an achievement – degree, certification, award, etc. While the post is flashy and eye-catching, the question that I have and don’t understand is where does an individual show the actual document for the achievement? If the document is posted as a comment, the document isn’t always viewed in the feed. In addition, a person can say they have an achievement without actually having the evidence. (I have seen an individual post she had a certification from an organisation that I belong to so I knew the certification did not exist.) So, does LinkedIn want us to say we have an achievement without showing the evidence? There’s too much room for errors.

Check out the Add profile section button on your profile, where you can add relevant items that work better than the templated LinkedIn post:

• Licenses & certifications
• Projects
• Courses
• Publications
• Honors & awards

• Joined in 2008 (but I wasn't active until 2017)
• Active for 344 days (most of us got the same)
• Top 5% (again, most of us got the same)
• Peak times 10am–7pm (yawn)
• 1 certificate
• 634 new connections
• 1382 connections "on the move"
• 10K+ profile views
• 1708 searches completed
• Most used Premium feature: InMail (no way)
• 192 posts (public posts only – I've done way more private posts)
• 9173 reactions
• 7076 comments
• 3796 new followers
• 3300 comments on others' posts
• 1025 reactions on others' posts (must be more!)
• 18 reposts
• Support was my most used reaction after likes
• I was a "Catalyst" (I've heard of a couple of people with "Amplifier")
• Gus Bhandal was the person I kept up with most

Make sure you back up your LinkedIn data from time to time. See Mic Adam's analysis of how he uses his data with AI: part 1 and part 2.

Solo and small business owners: join the Espresso+ community to improve your LinkedIn and online presence. Find out more at jesp.me/join

Support the show: Informed is not sponsored, so all production and hosting is self-funded. To make a small donation, go to jesp.me/informed-tip – thanks!

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 some sort of LinkedIn insider knowledge/meme? Kind of like newbies to Threads don't understand the rage bait from fake accounts when they first get there. I'm wondering if the same thing happens on LinkedIn.

LinkedIn release a community report twice a year and the latest one covers January to June 2025. They say they've stopped 61.2M fake accounts at registration. 22.2M have been restricted proactively before reports were needed by members, and only 385,900 accounts were restricted following member reports. If you suspect you see a fake account, you can report it via the More button on their profile.

I joined in May 2021, paying £399.90+VAT. That's £479.88 per year or ~£1.31 per day. Here's what you get on Premium Business:

• Unlimited People browsing and searching
• Who viewed your profile over 90 days
• 15 InMails per month
• Custom CTA button
• LinkedIn Learning
• Open Profile
• Rotating banner
• Feature content at top of profile
• Enhanced Services panel
• AI features
• Gold badge
• Perks, currently including 3 months of free YouTube Premium and Spotify Premium

You might get a discount to stay when trying to cancel Premium, but I'm not offered that.

LinkedIn now has 100 million verified members, and Zoom will soon show your LinkedIn verification badge.

Some interesting videos to check out on YouTube:

• Rory Sutherland Behavioural Science & Marketing Q&A ~1h
• Algorithmic bias discussion ~1h 30m
• Lynnaire Johnston and Mark Williams ~1h 10m

UpLift Live 26 free ticket prize draw – ENTER NOW

Come to the LaunchPad call on Thursday 8 January 2026 at 11am GMT where the winners will be announced live!

Solo and small business owners: join the Espresso+ community to improve your LinkedIn and online presence. Find out more at jesp.me/join

Support the show: Informed is not sponsored, so all production and hosting is self-funded. To make a small donation, go to jesp.me/informed-tip – thanks!

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?"

– What do you think of people customising their pronouns?

In short, don't do it!

– There are quite a few LinkedIn experts who seem to attach an image to every single one of their posts. Do text-only posts perform less well than posts with images?

Looking at my own data since the start of 2024, my text-only posts get 27% more impressions than my posts where I include an image.

Lynnaire Johnston's livestream with Mark Williams (creator and former host of this show) at 8pm on Wednesday 10 December 2025: "LinkedIn, Legacy and Letting Go".

UpLift Live 26 LaunchPad calls for those attending or considering attending our conference on LinkedIn best practice:

• Thursday 8 January 2026 at 11am UK (public)
• Friday 20 March 2026 at 1pm UK

I'm speaking in Milan, Italy at Inspire Day, on 29/30 January 2026.

Congratulations to Gus Bhandal on the launch of his The Squeeze membership!

Solo and small business owners: join the Espresso+ community to improve your LinkedIn and online presence. Find out more at jesp.me/join

Support the show: Informed is not sponsored, so all production and hosting is self-funded. To make a small donation, go to jesp.me/informed-tip – thanks!

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 referral partners and potential clients, then scour their profiles and content for anything that could start a conversation

— Don’t jump in out of the blue with a sales message. That will look like a campaign. Be more human!

— If there’s any sign that the other party might be open to it, use a voice note or even a video note to further humanise. I get great response rates.

via Espresso+: Does anyone get high levels of impressions with comments as a company page?

via Espresso+: How to be found through ChatGPT?

via Espresso+: Does an emoji in the Name field lead to spending one day in LinkedIn jail?

Engagement pods

Pods are unholy alliances of LinkedIn users who are trying to artificially boost their posts’ visibility in the LinkedIn feed. LinkedIn are trying to crack down, with a new video about this by Gyanda Sachdeva, a VP of Product Management at LinkedIn.

Thanks to an update from Tony Restell, UpLift Live26 speaker, who got this direct from LinkedIn:

Any profiles or companies you come across that are selling fake engagement services, please report directly via email to trademark@linkedin.com

Solo and small business owners: join the Espresso+ community to improve your LinkedIn and online presence. Find out more at jesp.me/join

Support the show: Informed is not sponsored, so all production and hosting is self-funded. To make a small donation, go to jesp.me/informed-tip – thanks!

Thanks to Mark Williams for his kind farewell newsletter.

• Profile verification: to verify or not? (see more)
• Post timing: when is best to post?
• Recommendations: should they be up to date?

Everyone is talking about algorithmic bias against women. I’m going to investigate.

A couple of text-plus-image posts:

• Changing the skin tone in emojis
• “Quiet Piggy”

Starting a post with a short bit of quoted text often seems to get me good engagement, as per the second example.

Why put a date and time stamp on posts? I wish LinkedIn would do something about this.

This feels a bit meta but here are some things related to the development and marketing of the podcast:

• There’s a new page at espirian.co.uk/informed
• There’s a new banner image as part of my rotating Premium banner
• I’ve invited 250 people (the monthly limit) to follow the company page
• There were ~1000 downloads for episodes 466 & 467 – thanks!

Solo and small business owners: join the Espresso+ community to improve your LinkedIn and online presence. Find out more at jesp.me/join

Support the show: Informed is not sponsored, so all production and hosting is self-funded. To make a small donation, go to jesp.me/informed-tip – thanks!

The first episode of the new-look show took me 6 hours to record, edit and produce last week.

• How do you manage lots of ongoing DMs?
• How much should we care about algorithms?
• Downgrading desktop features

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 can now send only 3 free personalised invitations per month – there are 5 quick tips in the show for how to get around this very annoying limitation.

Solo and small business owners: join the Espresso+ community to improve your LinkedIn and online presence. Find out more at jesp.me/join

Support the show: Informed is not sponsored, so all production and hosting is self-funded. To make a small donation, go to jesp.me/informed-tip – thanks!

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

• Can you deactivate a company page without closing your personal profile?
• Can you talk about visibility being down on LinkedIn?
• Should we invest time in making newsletters, livestreams and videos on LinkedIn?
• How are comment impressions gauged and are they a useful metric?
• Is post boosting a good idea?

Generative AI data training: how to turn it off if you don’t want to give your data to LinkedIn for free.

Microsoft’s 2026 Q1 results are out, with some nuggets about LinkedIn growth.

Links

• Growth stalling post 1
• Growth stalling post 2
• LinkedIn membership growth tracker
• Ryan Roslansky on LinkedIn’s results
• Book a consultation with John
• Espresso+ community

Solo and small business owners: join the Espresso+ community to improve your LinkedIn and online presence. Find out more at jesp.me/join

Support the show: Informed is not sponsored, so all production and hosting is self-funded. To make a small donation, go to jesp.me/informed-tip – thanks!

My final ever episode. I have made the decision to retire, which means no more LinkedIn™️ training or LinkedIn™️ at all so the podcast needs to be handed on to someone else.

Mentioned in this episode:

This show was created by the original host of the show, Mark Williams.

This week’s topic was inspired by a post I didn’t even read!

I only caught a glimpse of it in my feed, but the headline or hook must have stuck in my brain and started to evolve into an idea for a podcast episode. It’s not the first time that’s happened—and it definitely won’t be the last.

Chances are, it’s happened to you too, even if you didn’t realise it.

That inspiration came from just one impression out of almost 20,000!

• Impressions to irrelevant people don’t matter so long as there are enough relevant ones.
• It can be argued that nobody is completely irrelevant anyway… you just don’t know!
• Content topic is critical to attract attention of the right audience

So are impressions really a vanity metric?

To hear all my thoughts on this subject plus the following topics, click on the podcast link below.

Also covered:

• A profile feature makes a welcome return
• Video posting advice from LinkedIn™️...and it's actually quite good!
• New video trends feature
• Is spam getting worse?
• Premium free trial rules tightened
• Post of the week
• An announcement about the podcast

Mentioned in this episode:

This show was created by the original host of the show, Mark Williams.

We often come across people on LinkedIn™️ who look interesting and produce content we find valuable...so we follow or connect and over time we feel as though we get to know them better.

But do we REALLY know them?

Interesting People interviews are designed to reveal more about the background, personal lives and characteristics of some of our favourite people on LinkedIn™️.

Lea Turner is known for her openness and authenticity so it was a challenge to get her to reveal something we hadn't heard before...but she is most definitely very interesting!

Mentioned in this episode:

This show was created by the original host of the show, Mark Williams.

The only dedicated LinkedIn™️ conference in the UK enters its second year this week. I won't be able to attend but they have a stellar line up of speakers so I asked John Espirian to come on the podcast to give us a glimpse of what in person and virtual attendees can expect.

Plus:

• The challenge of keeping up with AI!
• AI video is getting better but it's not fooling me yet
• Exposing automated AI comment cheats (idiots)
• Two new features
• A new video newsletter from LinkedIn™️
• What happened to the mobile video feed?
• This post made me laugh
• Post of the week

Mentioned in this episode:

This show was created by the original host of the show, Mark Williams.

So, the world's largest online business networking platform has decided to invest in offline networking? LinkedIn's new experience centre, in London is a bit more than just about networking but it's an interesting new development.

That plus:

• Can you simulate the engagement of a LinkedIn™️ post?
• New profile feature
• Embedding posts
• Do screenshots boost a posts reach?
• Are Russian comment bots infiltrating LinkedIn™️?
• The LinkedIn™️ DM privacy case has been dropped...but was it baseless?
• Post of the week

Mentioned in this episode:

This show was created by the original host of the show, Mark Williams.

In this episode of the Informed podcast I argue that thoughtful and considered commenting is the single most effective action that anyone can take on LinkedIn™️ - that's a bold statement but one I really believe to be true.

That plus:

• Boobgate!
• New Newsletter analytics
• Feed sorting removed
• New feed sort tab being tested
• How to spot AI comments
• How LinkedIn™️ influence user behaviour
• Post of the week

Mentioned in this episode:

This show was created by the original host of the show, Mark Williams.

In this episode I cover the positives and negatives of the new(ish) mobile video feed.

Plus a brilliant post of the week (and it's not a video).

Video summary

https://youtu.be/_Cpjy-U0UXM

Mentioned in this episode:

This show was created by the original host of the show, Mark Williams.

What would you spend your time doing if you only had one hour on LinkedIn™️ per week?

Is it possible to have impact in that time?

A recent interaction led me to think about this topic. One hour a week is woefully inadequate but it's an interesting challenge...what would be the best things to do in those precious 60 minutes a week?

That plus:

• Two new features
• Your plummeting SSI means nothing!
• How much?! Is LinkedIn™️ Recruiter overpriced?
• Premium Duo pricing announced
• Top Voice requirements are tightened
• Post of the week

Mentioned in this episode:

This show was created by the original host of the show, Mark Williams.

In this weeks episode I discuss my predictions for LinkedIn™️ this year.

I've always said that there are 3 LinkedIns:

• The company
• The platform
• The community (us)

My prediction is that the biggest changes this year will come from user behaviour and those changes provide opportunities for all of us.

Topics covered:

Introduction

07.00 New features

24.30 My predictions for 2025

53.15 Is the trend towards video damaging the reach of other great content?

60.00 UpLift Live conference in March

Mentioned in this episode:

This show was created by the original host of the show, Mark Williams.