Linked introduced a new privacy policy yesterday – you will have had an email about it, might have seen the video.

You can read the whole policy here.

Linkedin has also blogged about it.

Looking at what commentators are writing (and few have written much at the moment) the main change is with regard to showing sponsored advertising in your home stream.

The key paragraph appears to be:

“LinkedIn may show you sponsored content in your Network Update Stream (NUS), which will be designated as sponsored content and will behave like other NUS updates. If you take social action (for example, if you “like or “comment” on the sponsored content), your action will be seen by your network and other LinkedIn Members who are shown the sponsored content after you have acted on it.”

This is similar to how Facebook works with ads that appear in your stream.

At present it appears that you can’t yet opt out of this feature (for example, you can’t hide the ads that appear in your home stream) but you can already opt out of receiving Linkedin Ads on third party sites- do this from ‘Manage Advertising Preferences‘ in the first tab on your settings. You may remember we covered this in the workshop.

I’m imagining that if Linkedin does introduce an ‘opt out’ of onsite ads, this is where the preference option will be available for you to click it.
Try this link to go directly to manage your advertising preferences.

There is a summary of all the changes to the policy here:
Linkedin Privacy Policy – Summary of Changes

It will be interesting to see if seeing sponsored ads on your home page turns out to be a problem. Let me know if you see one – I haven’t seen one yet!

What do you think of sponsored advertising? Good, bad or indifferent?

Image: Privacy Keyboard by g4II4is (creative commons)

Linkedin has just (as of 4 April) quietly launched a ‘mentions’ feature on Linkedin status updates.

Just like in Facebook, you can now start typing the name of one of your contacts to connect them to a status update you are preparing.

This is what they say about it:

How does it work?

• Begin by typing the name of a connection or a company in your status update box or a comment field on the Homepage.
• Select someone from the list of your connections that appear in the drop-down, complete your status or comment and post it.
• The person or company you mentioned will receive a notification alerting them that they have been mentioned.

Linkedin also hints in its launch blog post that it will be possible to add other Linkedin members in this way – I’ll be interested to see how this works, or if it becomes a problem.

Read the post on Linkedin’s blog about the new feature, and view a slide show.

I haven’t got the feature in my profile yet – have you? Why not give it a try and start a conversation with one of your connections?

As part of the new profile work I’ve mentioned beore, Linkedin has also started to discontinue its applications. What does this mean for you?

The Applications, or Apps, were what Linkedin used to increase its functionality and interact with other platforms. Here are some examples of apps that are (or are about to be) discontinued, and what you can do about it if it affects you.

Tweets – Linkedin’s rather useful tool to find your Linkedin connections on Twitter has been gone for a while. To find twitter users, either check their ‘Contact Information’ button on their profiles, or export your Linkedin addresses and import them to Twitter via Googlemail or similar. Twitter’s iPhone app has now started to sync with your address book (if you let it) so you can also check via this if your Linkedin connections are on twitter and make sure you join the conversation there if you are.

Events – Linkedin enabled event pages to be created, and this was a very useful tie-in with the ecosystem of Linkedin, as your attendance at events could be added to your profile, and a status update also let your network know you were going. However, Linkedin is getting rid of many of its ‘non-core’ tools like this, and instead I recommend you use other dedicated tools (like I use Eventbrite) to plan events, and then share these via the status update system on Linkedin.

Blogs – Linkedin had several blog applications which allowed you to add a feed of latest blog posts to your profile. Some of the more common ones like WordPress and Blogger have tools to enable you to post automatically to the status update system on Linkedin now. Again, Linkedin is encouraging you to post as and when, direct into its status update system. You’ll also note that RSS feeds (the syndication feed system on which blogs and news feeds operate) are being discontinued as a way of feeding content into groups. I think this is a good thing as it encourages more thought about what you share where. You can still post directly though, with discretion!

Slideshare – Linkedin bought Slideshare, the presentation publishing tool, last year. Slideshare is a great tool for sharing powerpoint or keynote content, and pdf documents too. Previously you could add these to your profile via the Slideshare app. Now you have to do it direct using the ‘Rich Media’ button.

How to add Rich Media: Visit the part of your profile and click on the Rich Media button in the top right hand corner of that part. You can add Images, Video, Audio, Presentations and other documents, there’s a full list on a button in the dialogue box that comes up.

Be sparing with your use of rich media or it can look rather messy. I think that this tool will be gradually improved by Linkedin if it takes off. Its a shame that some of the functionality of Slideshare isn’t there anymore, but its good that you can still add that video about your work to your profile under the job to which it relates – a useful too.

There are many other applications which Linkedin is discontinuing. If you have any questions about these, why not comment below and we can investigate for you and share the results.

Here are the dates and details of further training sessions this year.

Social Media Strategy in a (half) Day

Monday 11 March – As the February session went so well we’ve squeezed in another date at Herman Miller. More Information and Booking Here:

Linkedin for Professionals Workshops

Thursdays 21 March, 16 May, 11 July at Herman Miller - More Information and Booking Here:

Twitter Masterclass

Thursday 25th April, 13 June – Learn how to use twitter effectively, whether as an individual or corporate. More Information and Booking Here:

Venues

All the ‘in person’ sessions are at Herman Miller in London.
I’m also open to invitations to do workshops elsewhere in the UK of course, if we can get the numbers (10-20 is ideal). Please reply to this email if you’re interested in helping me put one together in your area.

To view all the current dates you can follow this link.

Liverpool Linkedin Workshop

We’re planning a Linkedin workshop session in Liverpool later in the spring, hopefully. Let me know if you’d like to be kept informed about this.

Please share these dates, the event page and individual events with friends and colleagues who you think might be interested or have expressed an interest in the sessions. All the event pages have sharing buttons.

Many thanks for sharing. Any questions? Ask them below

If you’re running a company page on Linkedin you’ll note that it is now possible to upload documents to company page status updates (you’ll probably see an area at the top of the page when you visit, suggesting you try it out).

To see how it looks, follow this link to my company page where I’ve just uploaded one of Linkedin’s pdf guides – in this case, to how to engage your company followers with status updates…

The more observant will notice that what Linkedin is doing is uploading your document onto slideshare, which it bought last year. Slideshare is the platform for sharing primarily powerpoint presentations, but also pdf documents. More investigation required…

I note that Twitter has introduced an option to access an archive of your tweets. This will be interesting for people who want to keep a record of what they have done in the past and compare it to their goal achievements, for example.

On the blog post Twitter has written about the archiving tool, it notes that the option is being rolled out across all twitter users. I haven’t got it yet, but am keeping an eye out.

Find out if you can access an archive of your tweets by choosing ‘Settings’ (the cog on the top right on twitter.com) and scrolling down.
When you can see the option to ‘Access my Archive’ just click and you’ll get a message from Twitter explaining the next steps.

Twitter Settings - Archive Request button - click to view large

Why not share with us what your archive looks like, and what you can do with it?

I’ve always been interested in how geeks online try and mirror real life for some time. Sentiment analysis of twitter, for example, or the measurement of influence with tools like Peerindex or Klout.

Last week Linkedin introduced a system of endorsing its users using a single click, similar to how Klout asks you to do. Yesterday the tool arrived in the UK. It is an extension of Linkedin’s ‘Skills’ feature where you are asked to describe your key skills which are then added to your profile. Now people connected to you can endorse one of your skills simply by clicking on it.

Linkedin Endorsements

In a world where we need to check each other out, it seems to make sense to try and see the true credibility of strangers. Who better to approach for advice than someone you know and trust? If you don’t know them, maybe there is another way you can trust them? Perhaps someone else you know trusts them?

I can see the point of these tools. They are convenient, but are they realiable? I’m not so sure about that.

Over the last year since we did some experimentation with PeerIndex when trying to explain the value of twitter to non-users in the construction industry. This was quite effective because people are interested in some of the qualities of these tools – the way they let certain types of people rise to the top of lists, for example. Saves you some time, or at least it should do.

For me the problem with one-click and algorithm based ‘reputation networks’ is that they are trying to recreate the real thing, rather than simply visualise it. This makes them bound to fail. You can become influential in something even if you aren’t – hence the value is destroyed.

If someone can give you +1 with one click, the same system can be gamed by charlatans. So much more effective are one or two personal recommendations on your linkedin profile, from clearly genuine people who have worked with you. How they write about it gives away so much about what they think about you. This information is much more reliable.

If you want to leave Klout here’s a good place to start.

Several of you have asked what we cover in the workshops, so here’s the new agenda:

Agenda

1.00     Arrivals, Refreshments

1.20    Introduction
What is Linkedin
Why Linkedin?
Linkedin for Individuals
Linkedin for Companies
Aims of a Linkedin Strategy

1. Audit
Review of Linkedin use – an example
Activity: Who are we looking for?
Using Linkedin to assess market size

2. Hunting and Farming
Strategic Objectives & Tactics
Pull Marketing in Social media
Status Updates and how they work

3. Get your Profile Right
Principles
Activity: Who do I want to visit?
Tutorial: Optimising profile for Search
Tutorial: Setting Levels of Openess
Tutorial: Turning Off Noise

4. Grow your Network Correctly
Principles
Tutorial: Connect to someone you met
Tutorial: Introductions to Strangers

3.00     Refreshments

5. Measure what Matters
Objectives for measurement
Tutorial: Website Traffic Measurement
Tutorial: Calculating ROI

6. Intro to Company Pages
Elements and Benefits
Key Steps to an effective page
Building a Company Network

7. Intro to Social Objects
Social Objects and how they work
How to use Social Objects on Linkedin

8. What’s Next?
Tutorial: Daily Maintenance tasklist
Checklist, Index and Q&A

5.00     Close

London Workshop 13 November – still at EarlyBird rates

The London workshops are held at the fantastic Herman Miller Design Centre, in their seminar room with lots of natural light and fantastic chairs to sit on. Bring a sandwich to eat before we start if you like, and check out all the great furniture.

Oxford Workshop 30 November – in partnership with Constructing Excellence Oxford
I’ll be speaking in Oxford on 29th November, and the next morning will run a Linkedin workshop, take a look:

Both these workshops will use my new improved course materials including a new workbook and additional sections on strategic Linkedin use, company pages and social objects.
The London workshops run from 1-5pm, the Oxford one from 9.30am-1pm all participants receive refreshments, a comprehensive workbook to work on and take away, and free membership of my private Support Group on Linkedin for ongoing support from the community. 

Looking forward to seeing you in Oxford or London,
Su

"This is a great workshop – content rich and well run. The accompanying workbork has been well used since and I have already reaped the rewards of implementing Su's profile raising tips."  Jacqui Smith, Director at HomeSmiths Ltd

PS. Would you like the workshop in four easy to handle one-hour weekly chunks with homework? I’m planning an online version of the training. Let me know if you’d like to know more.

It has been interesting to see the discussions about the big Twitter-to-Linkedin switch off over the last few days since the announcements on Friday. I see the decision, whoever was behind it, to be great for users of each platform.

There are a couple of reasons why this change is good for twitter users:

1. If you were bothering people with your Tweets on LinkedIn, they could click the ‘hide’ button to get rid of them. And every other one of your updates… So it was hugely damaging for tweeters. I made a couple of videos about this.
2. Tweeting to LinkedIn when you weren’t properly present there (which many weren’t) made it a broadcast, not an opportunity for conversation. Reply to one of these tweets and receive… Silence. This is even more damaging for tweeters.

Take these with the cultural, language and terminology differences and people were doing more harm than good. LinkedIn is a so much better platform without it; now all we need is for them to improve their API.

So Linkedin users benefit too. Conversation on Linkedin is already recovering – you may note that people are beginning to use their home feed again.

Remember that Linkedin is NOT Twitter, and be present there when it makes sense to do so. Horses for Courses!

Linkedin Training information

Yesterday I was giving some Linkedin training and the subject of Linkedin Answers came up. As a result we used the service to ask the question which titles this blog post: Do you use Linkedin Answers? Have you had any success with it?

Asking the question gave me the opportunity to demonstrate how to use Linkedin Answers, a service where you can ask the entire Linkedin network worldwide a question. I also hoped that doing so would demonstrate how the service works, and whether it would deliver useful value.

I’ve used Answers in three ways.

1. To get advice on how to use Linkedin from people who use it regularly;
2. To get help looking for a specific person who may be outside my network (for example, a reliable lettings agent in Ipswich)
3. To get advice on how to give a presentation to a specific audience.

All three worked really well, particularly the third. In both 2 and 3 above I send copies of the message to people in my network who I thought might know the answer, as well as making the question public. I had useful response from people I knew and also complete strangers. On the third I also blogged about the issue on my website which encouraged a wider group of people to go and look at the question. The best answer came from someone I was connected to on Linkedin through a personal contact, who happened to be related to someone who knew the exact answer I needed – out of Linkedin and back in again!

So what are people on Linkedin saying in answer to my question? Go and have a look here. And what is your experience? Please feel free to share.

Image: See Something Say Something (London) by Eric Fischer (Creative Commons)