Richard van der Blom (2:39)

On the platform starting in 2010 with providing very easy training to people. And the more people you welcome in your sessions, the more questions you get. And one of the main struggles for a lot of people on LinkedIn is still how to create content that eventually converts into business opportunities.

Jay (3:01)

Richard was really early to LinkedIn and as his own reach grew, he started getting a lot of questions about how to best use the platform.

Richard van der Blom (3:09)

And I can tell a lot of people how I do it, but then a lot of them are going to say, yes, Richard, but you're a LinkedIn expert on LinkedIn, selling LinkedIn stuff, and I'm a web designer not selling LinkedIn stuff. So for me it's difficult. So that's why we started to do some more like neutral research, objective research, like where we could see, like, how do you get more reach, how can you get more traction? What are the do's and don'ts? And that started like five years ago where we did the research.

Jay (3:38)

And that brings us to this episode because as you know, I love data.

Klaus (3:41)

I am a sucker for research.

Jay (3:43)

And five years ago, Richard Str started creating an annual LinkedIn Algorithm Insights research report. This thing is a gold mine of data driven observations about how different aspects of LinkedIn are working and even how they are trending compared to the year before.

Richard van der Blom (3:58)

We did it the first time in 2018, it was a nine page report and actually when we launched it on LinkedIn, I published it. I mean, it was like a trial. There was no plan behind it. We were really stunned by the massive exposure it got already five years ago, like 400,000 views, something like that. And then my network actually started to ask the year after seven, eight months, like, Richard, are you going to do a new research again? Because we've seen some changes and that was the first time that I realized, hey, maybe this is something that we should do every year.

Jay (4:28)

So Richard's team kept doing the research report. It was an expensive process. He actually shares the cost of doing.

Klaus (4:34)

The report later in this conversation.

Jay (4:36)

But it wasn't easy to get this.

Richard van der Blom (4:38)

Data until last year, the fourth addition. All the research was done by ourselves or by people that we would hire. And most of it was done manually. So we had, obviously we have some research tools, but people are actually like diving in every 15 minutes into posting what happens. And we started with, I think it was something like 1200 posts in 2018 and last year we had 9000 posts. Manually. And I mean, it's not just looking at a post manually. It's making print screens every 15 minutes for the first 24 hours. So that was huge. Okay, it was not the most efficient way, but we didn't have data.

Jay (5:19)

But Richard would soon get more data. Now in year five, things have gotten even more in depth. This year's report was the longest ever, clocking in at 123 pages. And it came from the help of a partner who could bring a lot more data to the table.

Richard van der Blom (5:34)

This year we partnered for the first time with authoredup. They have 10,000 of people using their tool, which means that they can like examine all the things that they are publishing, like how many hashtags, how many tags, what type of formats are they using? External links. So this year we have done 20,000 posts in our way, which is still the double of last year. And we have done this throughout the whole year. So normally we'll do only like 3 months research and then we would write a report. But now we have seen so many things that we decided let's make it actually like an ongoing research. But then we got 1.5 million posts data from 1.5 million posts from author OP and funny enough, 80% of the conclusions were aligned.

Klaus (6:20)

We begin this conversation by talking about.

Jay (6:22)

The 20% of conclusions that were different. But I have a link to the full report as well as Richard's LinkedIn profile in the show Notes. I recommend reading the report and following.

Klaus (6:31)

Richard after you listen to this conversation. Of course, in this episode you'll learn.

Jay (6:36)

Why LinkedIn Reach may be down, what formats are most effective right now, how to use LinkedIn as a lead generation. And you'll get a feature by feature breakdown of how Richard himself uses LinkedIn. I'd love to hear what you think about this episode. You can send me a message on Twitter or Instagram.

Klaus (6:52)

Klaus, tag me, let me know what you think. But now let's talk with Richard.

Richard van der Blom (7:02)

The 20% that did match, we did an additional dice like why doesn't it match? What can we see? And that actually brought also some interesting new points. Like for example, we always try to explain people how a like or a comment or a share or a repost works and what is the effect or the impact on growth. And this year, thanks to auto dub, we also saw that there are external elements that also decide whether your post is going to grow and get more reach other than the engagement buttons. Okay, so we also have now like different type of information and that made like going from 49 pages last year to 123 pages this year.

Klaus (7:50)

Every time I see a piece of work like this that is so in depth, so highly researched, I think this is like the crown jewel of valuable content in an educational space. Hearing you describe how this was created strikes me that not only is this very time intensive, it sounds very expensive.

Richard van der Blom (8:10)

Yeah, yeah. So the part from Autodrop, because they have the tool, it took them quite some hours to retrieve the data and analyze the data, which they obviously did themselves, but they had the data. Okay. So they didn't need to do the 15 minute sprint screens and get. That's what a tool does for them. So. And we always have been working with what we call a project team of freelancers or students. So we just instruct them. This is what you need to do. This is the profiles you need to monitor and do your thing. I started two years ago with also having sponsors for the algorithm report. And not because I want to make money with it with the algorithm report, because I don't, but simply because the costs, what you just mentioned got like 15k, 20k that I went like, okay, it's great that everybody loves Richard for the algorithm report and we give it away for free. But I mean, except from resources, because I wrote the report myself. It took me like three full time weeks to write that report based on the analysis. I mean, I know my hourly rates and that's not even accounted. So I'm counting the 15k for external resources. So yeah, so this is the third year in a row that we had sponsors. And that's. To be honest, one of the main reasons why I still like to do it is it's a huge lead generation document. But not in the traditional way that we like want to have your data. No, we share it for free. But by making it so easy to get, people are sharing it and making their own versions and referring that it always has a huge impact on my own visibility. So normally I get booked a lot for events, I get asked for a lot of index with potential clients. So it's actually a lead generation for us as well.

Klaus (9:57)

Well, I could spend this whole hour talking about the mechanics of creating a research report like this, but I think the most helpful thing I can do for folks is to really dive into some of the insights from this report. One thing that stuck out to me in the early pages here was the statistic that top creators have increased from 0.9% to 1.1%. Those are people who are posting weekly and people posting at least once in the last three months. Are now 7.1% of LinkedIn users. So I read that. And to me, that says there are very few people competing on Publishing on LinkedIn. I don't know how that compares to Twitter or Instagram or whatever, but that seems like a very low number of people who are actively publishing as a.

Jay (10:37)

Creator on the platform.

Klaus (10:39)

Do you read that the same way?

Richard van der Blom (10:40)

Yeah, definitely. Definitely. And it's funny because you can actually draw two complete different conclusions. So whenever I show these numbers, for example, when I'm on a stage and you have a very traditional audience, and I'm trying to make people understand why they should become active, when I show them that only 1.1% is active on a weekly basis, they go like, okay, but I belong to the 99%, so why would I care? I'm a majority. Because I'm not doing anything. No. And I always challenge people to look at it from the opposite side, like, hey, if only 1.1% is there every week, probably 99% of your competitors are also not there every week. So if you're going to be there every week, this is this huge opportunity you have if you become consistent in what you do on LinkedIn. So that's how I look at it. But I agree when people say it has never been more difficult to get reach on LinkedIn, I totally disagree, because now you have much more readers. I mean, we have 1 billion members, and still you have a very limited number of people that are actively publishing on a weekly basis. So if you do that, there's a huge opportunity.

Klaus (11:51)

When I think about algorithms, I think companies try to construct an algorithm to serve their user preferences. But there's also a side of this to think the algorithm serves the company, and the company, they're going to be better served if the users are happy.

Jay (12:07)

So after all this research, when you.

Klaus (12:09)

Think about everything you've learned from the report, what do you think LinkedIn wants?

Jay (12:15)

What is LinkedIn trying to incentivize with.

Klaus (12:18)

The way the platform is designed?

Richard van der Blom (12:21)

You know, that's understandable, but it's a bit of a tricky question. Or maybe the answer is tricky because we should not forget that LinkedIn is for all its members. It's a rented ground. Okay? You are there. You're doing something on a platform that you don't own. And Microsoft, as The owners of LinkedIn, let's be honest, they're there to make money. So I see that a lot of the choices that they make are supporting their revenue system, how to get more revenues. And some of the choices are not necessarily in the best interest of the members. When it comes to the algorithm, one of the things that LinkedIn recently announced was that they have put a mechanism in place to not help you to get your content going viral, but to support it to get more relevant reach. Okay, so instead of a bigger reach, let's make reach more relevant. And funny thing is that in the same article, either the interviewer or Daniel Roth, chief editor of LinkedIn, refer to some of algorithm reports. And I know he meant also the one that we produce are saying differently, while in fact we are not saying differently at all. Because I'm saying in the algorithm report, based again on 1.5 million posts, less reach, less engagement, same conversion. That's what basically happens with a lot of us. Less reach, fewer people see your content, so fewer likes, because fewer people, but the same conversion, that means that the people who still see your content have become more relevant. So actually it's a confirmation that what LinkedIn officially announced that they are doing is what we see. But for some reason they treat it like we say something that is not true because obviously we stay that reach is down. Okay, reach is down, but probably relevant reach is up. So that's a good thing.

Klaus (14:24)

That's an interesting metric to try to tackle on any platform, relevant reach, because as you say several times in the report, you're coming from the place of assuming the goal is conversion. And so if you're looking at number of conversions, however many people you reach, doesn't necessarily matter if you're still getting.

Jay (14:43)

A growing number of conversions.

Klaus (14:45)

But if I'm not thinking about that, I'm probably thinking reach is down, engagement is down. I see that as a sky is falling problem because we are kind of trained to believe that these are leading indicators of what we want. But when the nature of the leading indicator changes, we don't necessarily know that.

Jay (15:02)

Is true and how to react.

Richard van der Blom (15:03)

No, I agree with that. And it's much more easier to look at your vanity metrics, reach and engagement, than to look at the end of the funnel where you need to measure conversion. Because sometimes, I mean, just this morning I got an email from a company in France that started with, you know, we have been following you for several months and we would like to have a call with you for like to discuss possible training. So this means that eventually my consistency in content converted into a business opportunity, but if I look at one post at a time, I don't see that conversion. There is no direct button underneath my condo which says book a training. You know, I and I hope it will never be there. But instead, many of us look at vanity metrics like reach and engagement and get like, digitally depressed if they go down. Also, because we are trained, our ego is trained to get as adrenaline or a pose going like, boom. You know, even I myself sometimes need to slap myself and say, like, why are you disappointed? Okay? You know, this can happen. Like, sometimes I create a pose, I expect a lot and it doesn't perform or it performs less than I expected. And I get disappointed because I want to reach my 60,000 average impressions, okay? So if I reach 40,000, I'm going to be pissed all day until I realize, no, Richard, because this is not what it's about. It's about a conversion. So that's also something that everyone should have in a strategy, like, how can I measure the conversion that initially came from LinkedIn?

Klaus (16:35)

I want to dive into the way you interact with LinkedIn because, you know, we have all these measures, all the statistics, but in some way you've ingested all that information, done your own testing, and now that has informed your day to day, week to week behavior.

Jay (16:48)

So when you think about your content.

Klaus (16:50)

Strategy on LinkedIn, where do you start? Do you start like a monthly level, a weekly level, a daily level?

Richard van der Blom (16:55)

Well, maybe I'm not the best example for people to copy because I'm very impulsive. I learned the good way or the hard way that I cannot schedule my content creation process. I've done it before, like, block the Friday afternoon or blocked the Monday morning, and I had like three hours of content creation. I literally sat down and watched for 10 minutes at my screen, thinking about everything except content creation. And it doesn't work. And sometimes I'm at the most inconvenient places. I'm in a restaurant with my partner trying to have a romantic dinner, and I get this brainwave and it almost explodes. Like, I this is the post. This is, this is the blog. This is, you know, so I know that I need to seize those moments, not specifically the rest of the moment, but those moments where I have energy, where I feel creative. That's the moment where I write, for example, three, four, five posts, okay? And I don't write the entire post, but I write the drafts, like short titles, short hooks. I write myself a summary of the post until I have the time to, like, really do the proper writing part. I normally work one week ahead, so I always make sure that I have four to six posts because I publish five, six times a week. So I always make sure to have four or five different posts. Because if my creative process is blocked for some reason because I don't feel creative or I'm doing a lot of traveling, then at least I know that I can maintain the same posting frequency because I still have some content. It also allows me opposite or when you have a very strict content creation process, that or a content calendar that goes two months ahead. It also allows me to be very flexible. So if something happens today, I can literally create a post today, post that tomorrow, and the other three, four posts are like scheduled one day later than was planned. So that would be my advice. Each one of us has a different approach on how to create content, but for me, it works if you feel creative, if you have the inspiration, go for it. And don't write one post, but write three, four, five posts at least. Drafts.

Klaus (19:03)

You said you post five to six days per week.

Jay (19:07)

How did you land on that number? Why not three?

Klaus (19:10)

Why not seven?

Richard van der Blom (19:11)

Basically because I upgraded my content process so I have become more efficient. So in less time I produce more content. Because I always say consistency is more important than frequency. Okay, so if you can publish three times a week, but you can maintain that four months, that's much better than this week six post next week one because you don't have more time the other week three, the other week's one. So consistency pays off on LinkedIn. And I came from three years ago, three, four posts a week, to last year, seven days a week. Last year I had like almost not a single day and that was literally too much. So I went back from five to six posts, which I know I can create quality content. Okay, so I don't need to publish posts for the sake of the frequency that are less professional, less quality. I can create five to six quality posts a week. So that's basically the rhythm of balance that I found again, based on optimizing my content creation process and writing more in less time.

Jay (20:19)

After a quick break, Richard shares how he uses different formats on LinkedIn and some mistakes to avoid. And later, Richard gives us a feature by feature breakdown of what he's most optimistic about. So stick around.

Klaus (20:31)

We'll be right back.

Jay (20:34)

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Klaus (20:52)

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Jay (20:54)

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Klaus (21:36)

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Jay (21:39)

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Klaus (23:04)

The report has some really interesting data about some penalties of posting the same format multiple times in a row for some formats, not for formats like text.

Jay (23:15)

But for some formats.

Klaus (23:16)

If you post three PDF carousels in a row, then it starts to decrease your reach. So when you think about your content strategy, how much of that is in the front of your mind. How do you think about the formats that you post during a typical week?

Richard van der Blom (23:30)

I'm very aware that. So again, because I publish six posts ahead, normally I have two carousel posts. I have two text posts with a picture. I have probably one video and maybe one post. So I already have the dynamic there. And the only thing I think about, like this morning I published a carousel post because yesterday I didn't publish a carousel post. Okay. So I really try to have a dynamic approach. It's very rare that I publish two the same type of post each day because like the research said, and I found that also based on my own experience. If you have a more dynamic approach in terms of format, it's like people are more engaged because you trigger different ways of engagement within your audience and you don't need to have all the different types. You know, I always advise people at least have three. I mean, if you don't like video or you don't want to do video, that's fine. But then at least next to your text post, have a carousel and maybe a poll or write an article. Okay, so you don't need to implement all the different types, but at least have three and mix them up.

Klaus (24:41)

It seems like you are pretty active in most if not all of the different types of formats on your page. So if you were to rank stack.

Jay (24:49)

Your priorities in terms of I really.

Klaus (24:51)

Try to get more of these than.

Jay (24:53)

This and more of this than these.

Klaus (24:55)

What formats do you tend to use most?

Richard van der Blom (24:59)

So first of all, 48% of all posts that are published on LinkedIn worldwide, 48% is text plus one image. That's basically the default post because it's what we are used to do. We write a text, we put in an image. That's it. I myself, I really get a lot of engagement and also in the end a lot of conversion. With my document posts, which we always refer to as carousel posts, you know, the PDFs. I started to do a video two years ago, which for me was a huge surprise, especially in terms of engagement. Videos are for me the most engaging content. Less rich than documents, but more positive engagement. It's like people see you, they see you move, they see you speak, so something triggers them to become more like active on your content. I don't do a lot of text only post. Okay, so in the research it said that text only posts also perform very well. But I think that is something if you really have a very unique way of writing. You know, a lot of copywriters, they Use this post because that's what they do, they write copy. Because if you write a text only post, you're very vulnerable because there's no video, there's no document, there's no picture that can draw it. It's all about how you write. Okay, So I don't do that a lot. I really need to tell myself, ah, you didn't do a text post for over two weeks. Let's do a text post. And one of the biggest surprises for me, or maybe a confirmation is that polls, LinkedIn polls are really performing well compared to like the median reach of all types of posts. And I think a lot of people dislike polls because in 20, what was it, 2019 I guess, or 2018? I don't remember anymore. Our feet was filled with polls because it was new. So it was a new feature. So LinkedIn boosted it in the feed very aggressively. But it's a great format to spark conversations, to generate leads. And also if you have a poll, you have actually the ingredient for your next post. Because if you have a poll that is really insightful based on what your network votes, you can make another post and say like, hey, did you know that 80% of people dislike a follow up message after being connected? So that's also what people need to understand, that you can use a poll to create more posts based on the outcome.

Klaus (27:30)

On that point, I noticed the bit about polls in the study. And so before this call an hour ago, I posted a poll here on LinkedIn. So this post is literally an hour old and it is already doing 3-6x the number of impressions that I would expect right now. Which is crazy because it also doesn't have that much typical engagement. Like it doesn't have a ton of reactions, it doesn't have a ton of comments, but has a lot of votes and a ton of impressions. So really interesting and really I hadn't.

Jay (28:03)

Thought about the fact that you can then take this and use that as.

Klaus (28:05)

Inspiration for another post. So do you think that for polls the real needle mover is votes? That's what LinkedIn is looking at as this is engaging.

Richard van der Blom (28:16)

Yeah, no, no, no, of course, because a vote is a click. So that means that people are engaging with your post. You know, reach growth goes by dwell time, the time people need to consume your post and clicks and each vote is a click. So I had a poll, one of my most successful polls reach 120,000 impressions because it got over 5,000 votes, which means 5,000 clicks on your post. I mean, that's a big Signal to the algorithm that people are engaged with your poll. And then, I mean, it's very difficult to repurpose a poll into a new post if you have, let's say in total, 10 votes. Because what are you going to say, 40% of the people, I mean, four votes. But once you have the bigger numbers, I mean, I did a poll about how do you respond if after being connected with a new person, you automatically receive an email newsletter from this person? So what if somebody automatically adds you to the newsletter database? What do you do? First, I don't care. Second, I will write a person to ask why. Third, I remove the coin, I put that out and I got like 4,000 votes. And 70% of people said, like, that would be a reason to disconnect from me. So I recreated a post and I said, like, how to build your newsletter. And one of the things you shouldn't do is add people automatically because 70% of people will disconnect with you. So this is what I mean. How you can repurpose the outcome of a poll in terms of a new content piece.

Klaus (29:53)

So good. And I love the tip to make the last option other see comments to drive comments and additional conversation.

Richard van der Blom (30:01)

Exactly.

Klaus (30:02)

Sounds smart. What I didn't realize. So again, this poll that is an.

Jay (30:05)

Hour old has 148 votes, which is more than the typical number of reactions.

Klaus (30:09)

I get on a post. I didn't realize on LinkedIn you can see who voted for what. I'm seeing engagement from people that I.

Jay (30:16)

Have never seen their name or face.

Klaus (30:17)

Show up before in my podcast.

Richard van der Blom (30:19)

Exactly, Exactly.

Klaus (30:20)

I don't know if people realize that that's visible.

Richard van der Blom (30:24)

They should, because that's where the real potential lead generation lies for polls. Because imagine that you ask the question, what is your biggest struggle when it comes to content creation on LinkedIn? Okay. For example, timing, creativity, resources. And if you're a creative expert and you see that 30%, let's say 300 people voted creativity there, you have 300 potential conversations to follow up because you can see only the author of the poll can see this. Very important to mention this. So all people who vote can see the percentages, but they cannot see who voted what. But you can see all the people. Don't matter if they're first degree, second degree, not connected, whatever. You can see and you can follow up. And following up is so easy because it's literally saying like, hi, Jay, first of all, thank you for voting on my poll. I really appreciate it. Would like to connect with you to see more of each other's content. So you get a 95%, I'm not kidding, 95% acceptance rate because you are actually saying thank you to somebody who engaged. Okay. And then if you accept, my next message would be to get back to the poll you voted creativity. What exactly do you lack in terms of creativity? And then you can start a conversation and if I can help you there, you have a lead comment from a poll and I have so many because I mainly train salespeople. I have so many successes with clients. When we do a brainstorm on what type of post can we create where one of the options is actually more or less a hidden buying signal. So if they select the right option, then we have a conversation.

Klaus (32:15)

That's genius. That's so smart. Well, you mentioned a second ago that.

Jay (32:20)

The vast majority of posts on LinkedIn.

Klaus (32:22)

Are image with text, which is surprising to me because I, I tend to opt for just straight up text because to me that seems like there's actually less effort, there's fewer variables involved. There was this trend for a while where the images that we were seeing attached to text posts were all selfies and it wasn't even necessarily indicative of what the content of the post was. And I had a conversation with someone at LinkedIn, a creator manager, and they said that they were trying to make some changes to actually change that behavior. Do you still see this approach of here's a selfie and here's text with it as effective in 2024?

Richard van der Blom (33:00)

It's all about relevance. Basically, that's it. It's all about relevance. So I have some people in my network, every time they put out a post, no matter what a topic is, if it's an expertise post, if it's a storytelling post, if it's an event, every time they have the same, well, not the same, they have like a database of 40 professional photos, but it's all about them. And it doesn't make sense because it doesn't add any. It's just positioning yourself. And probably some of them have read in the past that having a selfie gets you more reach. Okay? Now the thing is having a relevant selfie gets you more reach. Having a non relevant selfie probably turns people off because like, why do you want to position yourself on an article that is about sustainability in the oil industry? I mean, why do we need a selfie? Okay, so what LinkedIn said, and that's very important what they said, is that they were trying to make your expertise content more visible for your followers and your personal storytelling more visible for Your connections. That's what they literally said. And there was a lot of misunderstanding about that specific interview with Daniel Robb from LinkedIn. So that means that LinkedIn now thinks if you make a selfie or if you put a selfie, it's probably more relevant for the people who know you better, which normally are your connections, because that is people you have worked with in the past, your former colleagues, your friends, whatever. While followers can be people all over the world who have followed you because of your insights. So LinkedIn now has a process where they steer the more knowledge based content primarily to your followers. And as soon as you add a selfie, it goes more to your connection. So that's something that you really need to consider. If I do a personal storytelling post, so I'm planning to do a personal storytelling post this Saturday about my ducks. So I probably will be in the picture holding like a little ducky. Okay. Because it's about the post and that really helps to generate more impressions. I mean, if I do a completely different picture, it doesn't match. But if I create a post about the three trends in AI, I don't need to have a selfie because they're not relevant.

Klaus (35:19)

You mentioned the difference between connections and followers. Before Creator mode existed, you basically only had connections before there were followers. So for folks that were active on LinkedIn years and years ago, I find that a lot of them, myself included, have this glut, this huge number of connections, because that was the way to get in touch. And we got a connection request, we just accepted it. So two part question. How do you approach connections today? How do you manage who sends you a connection request and you accept? And then the second part question would be, if we are in a position where we have a lot of connections that we don't actually know, should we go back and try to cull that number or does it not matter?

Richard van der Blom (35:59)

So how do I cope with connections? So just to give you the numbers, I'm currently at 28,000 something connections and 175,000 followers. There is no limitation on followers. Okay. So people can have millions of followers. There's no limits. There is a limitation on connections. 30,000. That's it. Okay. And that limit has already been exactly the same number since 2010, I think. So there is no chance that they're going to increase it like very shortly, 30,000. So in terms of who do I invite? I invite people I met in the commercial process. Okay. In the sales process. So if I have an intake with a client this morning, I had an Intake with the Price Warehouse Coopers with three people. I prior to the event, prior to the meeting, I send them an invite. Okay, not after, but prior. Because I want them to see my page, I want them to see my video content so they already have a decent understanding what I'm doing. If I read an interesting article from someone on LinkedIn that I'm not connected with, but I got it via the engage with somebody in my network, I reach out and I say, hey, Jay, I just saw by coincidence your article. Really like the way how you write, would like to connect and read more of your insights. So all the people I meet in real life, all the people I think provide valuable insights, and all the people I meet in my sales process, I want to proactively invite them. So that means whenever I reach 30,000, which will probably be like in April based on the current growth, I have a problem. Because that means that if I want to invite the three people from PricewaterhouseCoopers first, I need to delete three people. That's the only thing I need to do. So in that case, I am going to do a bit of a cleanup where I'm going to look at people that are not belonging to my target audience, have never engaged in the dm, haven't seen them on my content, and I'm going to delete them as a connection. Okay? Which means I don't know. That's something I need to check, Jay, if I remove a connection, if I also remove them as followers, that's something I need to check anyway. I need to make room to have new connections. And for me, I want to be connected with people who provide value to me and any way or who I can provide value to. So, for example, and I don't mean this in the wrong way, but a student from Texas University who says, like my teacher said, I needed to follow you and I want to connect with you, I don't connect because at this moment, based on my priorities, please follow me and engage with my content and I will respond to your engagement. But at the moment, you having 80 connections, being a student in Texas as an example is not the type of connections that I benefit from at the moment. Okay? So yes, based on my own priorities, I'm going to make a change with followers. First of all, I cannot decide who's following me. You know, yesterday I got a question from somebody. I have a few followers that I don't want them to. How can I make them unfollow me? It's impossible. The only thing you can do is block them and they don't see you anymore. But you cannot say I don't want that person to follow me. So I see it. Followers are the people who have recently indicated to LinkedIn that they find my content valuable. Those are probably also my future content ambassadors. Those who are going to engage and connections are people that either from the past or recent I have met them in real life or they have a role in the sales process or the marketing process that we are doing.

Jay (39:34)

After one last break, Richard and I go feature by feature through LinkedIn and break down what he's using and what he is avoiding. You'll learn a lot here, so stick around.

Klaus (39:42)

We'll be right back.

Jay (39:44)

I am once again inviting you to join our membership for professional creators, the Lab. Of course I am biased, but Andrew is not. Andrew has been a member for about two years now and this was a testimonial he sent me unprompted.

Klaus (39:57)

Joining the Lab has been the single best investment I have made in my business and in myself since I started doing this going solo 17 years ago.

Jay (40:05)

If you benefit from the conversations here on the podcast, you'd love the things.

Klaus (40:08)

We talk about in the Lab.

Jay (40:09)

In fact, some of the past guests of this show are members themselves. The Lab helps you keep a finger on the pulse of what's working and what's changing for creators right now. I can tell you about all the things that are included, like all of my courses, including Build a beloved Membership podcast like a YouTuber, the Newsletter Masterclass. You get a complimentary copy of Creator hq, our operating system built in notion. But the best thing is the people. Incredibly generous, incredibly kind, incredibly smart and accomplished people are in the Lab. I could go on and on about this, but just know there is nothing more important to me than continuing to make the Lab the absolute best community for professionals creators. You can join the Basic tier now, which is an absolute bargain, or you can apply to join our standard or VIP tiers. Just visit creatorscience.comlab to learn more and get started. That's creatorscience.comlab. it's in the show Notes. I hope to see you there. This episode is sponsored by ces. CES is the proving ground for breakthrough technologies from leading brands and cutting edge startups. And now CES puts creators at the center of it all with an innovative new space in the Las Vegas Convention Center. The CES Creator Space, presented by Sony, is a hub designed specifically for content creators and storytellers. Located in the central hall lobby, the space will feature a stage sponsored by Pinterest, hosting talks and panels with insights from creators as well as leaders at.

Klaus (41:29)

Companies like Walmart, Wailer and TikTok.

Jay (41:31)

Topics will include brand partnerships, content rights and AI. Now here's the best part, so listen closely. Creators are eligible for complimentary registration and exclusive access by getting a media badge. I've actually done this in years past before they had this creator space and it has always been a blast. You can be boots on the ground making content at the show with all the newest technology. You'll be able to access the CES creator space during the show January 7th through 10th and even media days happening January 5th and 6th with the first looks at product announcements from global brands. To learn more and register, visit CES Tech. That's Cesar to register for complimentary media credentials. And now please enjoy the rest of.

Klaus (42:15)

My conversation with Richard Vanderblom. I want to do a little bit of rapid fire on some other aspects of the LinkedIn platform and your current approach or optimism for fairly recently LinkedIn rolled out the option to create a customized button on your profile if you are in creator mode and I see that you are still using the text link instead. And this is a question I get a lot. I assume that means that you see a higher conversion for the text link than the button. Is that true?

Richard van der Blom (42:49)

Yes, exactly. So I have currently the line that you can adapt sign up for my newsletter when they came with a button, seeing that they would also promote the button in your messages box and in the feed, I switched to button. So I had a button. But unfortunately the button comes in five flavors. No, it's like visit my website, visit my portfolio, something like that. Visit my blog for example. There's no button that says sign up for my newsletter. So and if I say visit my website, it's not the same then sign up for my newsletter. So what I did I had Is there a button that says book a call? I don't even know. I think I believe so book a call. Yeah so I had that one where I put the LinkedIn advising call, which is a paid call that you can do with me. You pay 200 bucks and you get 25 minutes. Pick my brain. So I had that there. I did it for three months. And what happened is, and this is very funny, not only the conversion on my booked goals went down because I also have this in my feature section. It went down. It didn't went up can be a coincidence, you know. But my signups for my newsletter dropped 95% and I still have my sign up for My newsletter in my feature section, but apparently that's going down on my profile. While the link on top of my profile is directly clickable and sign up. I did it three months, I switched it back and my newsletter signups boof. Went up again. You know, and my LinkedIn advising goal is more or less at the same level. So I didn't see any increased conversion from having the button. Although I thought, to be honest, like having this button in your messaging box, in your content, in the feed, I mean. But apparently there is very little intent from your audience to click on buttons and go to a website, go to portfolio, book a call. Okay, so having just a link on your profile sign up for your newsletter is like a very easy button to click on so that I switch it back based on three months tracking the performance.

Klaus (44:53)

Just let us customize the button text.

Jay (44:55)

Come on. LinkedIn Easy win.

Richard van der Blom (44:57)

That's it.

Klaus (44:57)

You can tell us how to make it short.

Richard van der Blom (45:00)

Spot on. If tomorrow LinkedIn will have a button sign up for my newsletter, I would switch it back directly. Yeah, spot on.

Jay (45:06)

You have a lot of links in your featured section.

Klaus (45:08)

I've never had any luck getting anyone to click on a link in my featured section. Do you see traction from those links?

Richard van der Blom (45:13)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely I see traction, yeah, because I have them, I follow the links, I can see how many clicks I get on each item. That's why I also sometimes move the items around. Funny thing about the featured section. Okay, so how do people get acquainted with you? So let's say we were not connected and you put out a great post and somebody in my network likes your post. So that's the first time, Jay, that I see your post. Okay, so I might like your post or I might engage with your post. That's all I do. I like your post or I comment on your post, which is a signal to the algorithm to show me your next post as well. I see a second post maybe the day after and I go, wow, this is the second time that Jay is really spot on. So now I'm going to follow Jay. Okay, so now I'm making sure that I'm going to subscribe. There comes a point on average after three to four posts where people are actually going to visit your profile. They actually go to check you out. So the content brings people to your profile. So what for me doesn't make sense is why I would have in my featured section exact the same content that already brought people to my profile. Instead, I want to have some low commitment converting offers, sign up for my Newsletter book an advising call Check out my Community low commitments so there is no button where I say book our 50k social selling program because that will not happen. But sign up for my newsletter is offering people a signal that they can use so you know that they have some commitment already to check you out and now they have given you consent to like sending them emails. Okay, so my advice for the feature section is always have some low commitment offers so you can tease people to take like the next step.

Klaus (47:04)

I think people would love to share more links in their content if it performed well. And in the report you mentioned there.

Jay (47:11)

Are three ways to do that.

Klaus (47:12)

You can either just put a link in the post directly, you can edit the post after some amount of time.

Jay (47:17)

Change less than 15% of the post.

Klaus (47:19)

And add a link or add it in a comment. How do you find yourself using links in your post?

Richard van der Blom (47:25)

To be honest, I haven't found my preferred way of working. The only thing I don't do, I don't edit my posts. I don't add it to add a link. That feels unnatural for me it might work. It did in the past. There is no editing penalty anymore, which we saw like two years ago. You get a penalty if you edit your post yourself, but it simply feels very unnatural for me. So I have two options. Either I publish the post with a direct link or I put in a comment. What LinkedIn has started to do since November, and it's true, check it out, is that comments that contain links are almost invisible now. Especially if you get more comments than LinkedIn moves the comments with the links to the bottom. So even if you click on more relevant, there's never ever a comment with a link. So that means that if my post is successful, but I want to share a link in the comments and because my post is successful I get a lot of comments. The link like is practically unfindable. Okay? It's people cannot find a link. So whenever I think okay, the goal is really to have the conversion on the link. To give you an example, if I want to announce a LinkedIn audio event or LinkedIn webinar, I need to have the link in the post because I need to make it as easy as possible for people to click on the link and register. You don't want people to have to look for the link and after five seconds they give up. So for me, if the goal of your post is conversion, have the link in the original post. If it's not, ask yourself the question how important is it to have the link at all? Do I really need a link? Okay. Because there's also very low intent from people that are watching in the feed and are scrolling to click to go to your website, to click to go to YouTube. They don't want to do that. They want to stay on the platform. So I think you should really consider if a link is really necessary. Yes or no?

Klaus (49:20)

I see you're using the LinkedIn newsletter function. I was a beta user of that and in the beginning it felt like magic. I was getting like 500 to 1,000 new subscribers a week without doing anything.

Jay (49:31)

Engagement was high and after a while.

Klaus (49:33)

It seemed like engagement really dropped off. But I've been thinking about it again because I have a new thought on strategy of how to use it.

Jay (49:40)

But I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Klaus (49:42)

On the current state of the LinkedIn newsletter as a product.

Richard van der Blom (49:44)

I was in the Netherlands, I was one of the beta testers. There was a very small group, I think 50 people. I was one of them. So my newsletter is, I don't know, five years old, I don't know. I have actually an article about me moving from Holland to Spain, which I did in 2018, so probably six years old already. The newsletter function, I didn't have a specific strategy within the beginning. I do recognize that it got a lot of traction at the start. Also because LinkedIn would send out a specific notification to each single subscriber once you published. I've seen it become less performing, let's say two years ago until one year ago. Like you said, less engagement, less visibility. Also because LinkedIn would not send out to every single subscriber anymore notification. While they should, they didn't. Funny enough, since LinkedIn has added that each new follower automatically now received an invite to subscribe to your newsletter. Because that's true, my newsletters are going through the roof again. To give you an example, last year, 2023, I did my last newsletter in February before I did another one in November. So there is a nine month gap in between. Basically because I almost forgot that I had a newsletter. I was so busy. Like I forgot. And when I looked in November, I had 54,000 subscribers. And I only knew, remember from February that I had 28,000. So I was like, okay, I haven't been here for nine months and my subscribers went from 28,000 to 54. How is that possible? So I really checked this. And in the same time I grew my followers with 40,000. So from 40,000 new followers, half of them also subscribed to my newsletter. So for me, like that's magical because now you are growing automatically your newsletter. And I also have a very high engagement on my newsletter. So I share like insight. I share best post. So everything that you might have missed, I do that again in my newsletter. And also I have always two or three converting elements in my newsletter to my business, whether you can buy my toolkit or you can sign up for a LinkedIn advising call. And every time I publish a newsletter, which I don't do often, once a month, I get like conversion on that.

Klaus (52:04)

See that's the thing. That's what I think is the underrated opportunity of the newsletter because it goes beyond the platform and into the inbox.

Jay (52:11)

It feels like this is the format.

Klaus (52:13)

Where if you want to place a.

Jay (52:15)

Link to your own third party owned.

Klaus (52:17)

Platforms, this is the best place to do it potentially. I didn't want to forget this.

Jay (52:23)

You mentioned that you've been posting a.

Klaus (52:24)

Lot of video and I'm looking at.

Jay (52:25)

Your videos and I see that they.

Klaus (52:26)

Tend to be a lot of them less than a minute, but really no more than a minute and a half. That seems like it's not an accident.

Richard van der Blom (52:32)

No, no. Because again, I don't think anyone on LinkedIn is willing to watch your 5, 6, 7 or even worse 20 minute video. Because when we are scrolling we want to get updates from multiple people on network. We not necessarily want to consume in depth long form content. So I always aim for somewhere between 45 seconds, max 90 seconds. 45 to 90 seconds. That's where my videos normally are. I try to start them with a bang. So there's no long introduction of who I am, what I've done in the past. It's directly, this is the topic. In the next 60 seconds I will give you three tips on how to improve your profile so people stay engaged for at least one minute. It does take a different creation process. I mean I can literally now stop this interview, write a post in 10 minutes. I have a post. I cannot do that with video. Somehow, you know, I need to prepare, my hand needs to be okay, I need to have my devices, so it's a bit more complicated. But on the other hand, if I have my setup, I normally record six to 10 videos in like one hour, one hour and a half. And the good thing is that I told this in the beginning. I get massive engagement on my videos, really good engagement in depth from my target audience. So the quality of engagement is higher than the quality of engagement on all other posts. So I really need to do some videos again.

Klaus (53:53)

You're also Doing something that I've never seen before. This is an audio medium, so I'm going to try to describe what I'm seeing here for the listeners below. Your featured section, you have the activity section that you can look at an individual's posts by post type, posts, videos, comments, images, newsletter events, documents, and you.

Jay (54:09)

Can tell LinkedIn which one you want to prioritize. You have told LinkedIn that you wanted.

Klaus (54:12)

To focus on the video post types and you have created thumbnails for all.

Jay (54:17)

Of your videos, or at least most.

Klaus (54:19)

Of your videos there. So it's almost effectively like you have a second featured section. It kind of looks that way. It's very graphic, it's very visual, really invites the click. And I've never seen anybody do that before. Was. Was that by design you mean the.

Richard van der Blom (54:33)

Thumbnails or just pinning the video tab or both?

Klaus (54:37)

Both.

Jay (54:38)

Was that how you were thinking about.

Klaus (54:39)

It was to create this more like visual experience on your profile?

Richard van der Blom (54:43)

I always think about the customer journey on my profile. So if somebody comes to my profile, I mean, we don't read profiles, maybe recruiters do, but clients, they don't read. They screen, they scan. And I think they scroll and skip a lot. And I think that going through tons of my documents post or text posts where they actually should read to get the added value is probably going to be less effective than have snackable videos. 45 minutes with the titles with proper thumbnails where directly says, this is what a video is about. And it's working. Because yesterday I received a message from a company that says, we want to have you for a keynote. We went through some of your videos and specifically liked this and this. So it's working. And it also depends obviously again on first of all, have you created video content? Do you feel comfortable? Is it the kind of professional video that you think matches the standards of your clients? Maybe if you're a copywriter, you need to have all your text posts there, you know, to make sure that people see how you write. But I think very few people are aware of the customer journey on a profile. Like, what is the type of content that I can really impress my clients with? How can I make an instant impact? And like you said, it's almost like a second featured section where people can click on the thumbnail and the video directly starts. So I think that's the reason why.

Jay (56:16)

One line I pulled out from the.

Klaus (56:17)

Report that I can't believe I almost forgot to ask about it says, our.

Jay (56:21)

Experience with over 200 clients demonstrates that consistently posting 10 quality comments daily for a month can lead to significant increase in profile views, 40%, engagement on one.

Klaus (56:31)

Owns content, 25% and follower or connection growth 20%. Those are huge numbers and it sounds like a pretty low lift. High quality comments every day, 10 of them for a month. In your own behavior, how much time do you put into commenting and how do you prioritize what you comment on?

Richard van der Blom (56:52)

So first of all, I think I probably commented less than I actually want to do. I comment now on maybe 10, 15 posts a day where I think that I should be more active on posts from peers, influencers and clients. I mean if I only would respond to posts from my clients, I would have like 30, 40 comments at least a day. And time is my bottleneck here. Okay, so I need to publish, I need to drive a business, I need to provide my trainings, prepare. So because I've seen that if you comment on the right people and if you comment strategy is about adding value, about being relevant, insightful, it can really drive more people to your profile, increase your follower growth, also increase conversion. I'm using two tactics. So first of all I'm using bookmark search. So I have made a search of my preferred content creators. You can do it on LinkedIn. You know, you can go to your main search bar, you click on Enter, you select post, and then you can select which creator. So you can put in 20 names there, max, even if you're not connected with the people. Okay, so you can list 20 names, click on frequency last week and you see all the posts of the 20 people of the last week. Now if you bookmark that in your browser, you can just now every week you click on the bookmark and you get an updated overview, which makes it very efficient to comment. And you can create bookmarks for your clients, for prospects, for your colleagues, for your peers, for your competitors. So like the sky's the limit, there is also a tool called UseAware that I'm also using. And on userware you can create actually a list of people that you want to follow. And inside the tool you see an overview of all the posts and you can filter them and you can comment on them. It becomes a real challenge if prior to the actual commenting you need to spend half an hour in finding all the interesting posts. You don't want to check out profile for profile to draw the conclusion, ah, this person has not published anything. Okay, go to ah, this one. I mean that's not efficient. So you need to have either the bookmarks or an app that gives you an easy Overview of all the people you have listed and then directly comment on their posts.

Klaus (59:14)

How do you think about engaging back with the people who have commented on your posts? I know some people are very militant about this or like, I gotta do.

Jay (59:22)

This for the first 60 minutes.

Klaus (59:23)

There's a note and report about the first 60 minutes being important. How seriously do you take that?

Richard van der Blom (59:28)

Well, again, I take it seriously. So my intention is to respond to insightful. I'm not going to respond to comments that say, great post. If somebody comments, great post, maybe I give it a lie, but that's it. But if somebody says, like, Richard, great post, especially like tip number eight, I'm always going to respond. At least that's my intention. But if I have a really successful post, I sometimes have 100 comments in the first half hour and I'm like, no commenting on comments like a madman. And after half an hour, my time is up and then probably I'm going to miss out a lot of comments. So my intention is there to nurture my post in the first, first 15 to 30 minutes again. After that, I choose to have different priorities.

Klaus (60:14)

There's a lot of notes about optimal.

Jay (60:16)

Length of posts in terms of characters.

Klaus (60:18)

Do you keep a spreadsheet?

Jay (60:19)

Are you tracking the characters on the.

Klaus (60:21)

Posts that you write?

Richard van der Blom (60:22)

No, no, I do have. I use AlterUp. So AlterUp already counts the number of characters. So you don't need to count. You can see it. It's not what I'm looking at. No, not at all. I use the characters I need to get the message across. I'm not going for a fixed character count. No, not at all.

Klaus (60:38)

All right, then, last question. Is there a hunch, something that's impacting the way that you're using LinkedIn, but you don't necessarily have the data to support yet?

Richard van der Blom (60:49)

I don't know if it's a hunch, but sometimes there are things happening that cannot be a coincidence. And that really surprised me. Like, to give an example, I looked up a speaker, a professional keynote speaker, an American lady on Google. And the next day I have a post of her in my timeline, which was liked by somebody in my connection. But I never, ever, ever saw a post of her before I googled the name. Next day, she's in LinkedIn. So those things, like, I don't believe in privacy anymore. Okay? On the Internet we don't have privacy. So I'm not concerned about I aware of this. But it also makes me like, wow, this is like, so I'm Google somebody, and now she turns up on LinkedIn. There are a lot of connections, probably with Microsoft and Google, I don't know, and probably there are more of those kind of things. I cannot come up with them now. But sometimes I'm really surprised about the things that happen, and I know 100% sure that they're not a coincidence.

Jay (61:55)

If you want to connect with Richard.

Klaus (61:57)

And see the 2024 algorithm report, visit the Show Notes for links to both.

Jay (62:02)

And if you want to go deeper on LinkedIn, listen to episode number 127 with Daniel Murray, where we explore the.

Klaus (62:08)

Opportunity for LinkedIn company pages. I've linked that in the Show Notes as well. If you like this episode, find me.

Jay (62:14)

On Twitter or Instagram or LinkedIn.

Klaus (62:16)

Klaus and if you really want to.

Jay (62:18)

Say thank you, leave a rating or.

Klaus (62:19)

Review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Thanks for listening and I'll talk to you next week.