Signs that Your LinkedIn Trainer Isn’t a LinkedIn Expert Ep 133

Thinking of hiring someone to help you with LinkedIn? BEWARE of the so-called "LinkedIn Experts" who really aren't!

In this podcast, I review these 14 Signs that Your LinkedIn Trainer Isn’t a LinkedIn Expert

1. Outdated headshot photo or photo isn’t zoomed in.
2. URL is not simplified
3. Header isn’t optimized: information is hard to read on mobile; photos aren’t relevant for ideal target audience; name is larger than most other text in the header image.
4. City instead of metro area
5. Company page or education has a gray avatar in their top header card
6. Contact info doesn’t have any websites, or websites are invalid / outdated
7. About statement is about them, not about how they help their clients.
8. About statement is missing personal information; it’s all about their company only.
9. Featured section isn’t enabled at all OR has outdated links (1+ year old)
10. They aren’t posting at all, or they are posting more than once a day.
11. Their posts aren’t getting any comments or they are ignoring comments on their posts. 
12. They aren’t spending any time Commenting on their connections’ posts.
13. They are missing a CTA in their experience section.
14. Zero recommendations received or given OR no current recommendations received or given (in the current year).

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My name is Brenda Meller. I'm a LinkedIn coach, consultant, speaker, and author. My company is Meller Marketing and I help business professionals get a bigger slice of the LinkedIn pie.

Visit mellermarketing.com

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Chapters

• 0:00 Signs of Inexpert LinkedIn Trainers
• 8:50 Identifying Inexpert LinkedIn Trainers

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:41

Welcome back. In today's episode, I want to give you some signs that your LinkedIn trainer is not a LinkedIn expert. Now, this is actually a pretty interesting topic for me because I frequently will have people reaching out to me to offer to help me with my LinkedIn presence, and I'll look at their profile, and these are just a few of the items that I see right away. I was recently having a conversation with someone that had shared with me that they had done a LinkedIn workshop for a group and I'm like, oh, they must be a LinkedIn expert, right, and I looked at their profile and I found that many of these telltale signs were there. So today I'm going to share with you signs that your LinkedIn trainer isn't a LinkedIn expert. Okay, first thing, I want you to look at their profile. As you're doing this, look at the headshot photo. You to look at their profile as you're doing this. Look at the headshot photo. One of the signs that they're not a LinkedIn expert is if they have an outdated headshot photo or their photo isn't zoomed in meaning maybe it's a photo of them from head to toes and it's really hard for them to see your face right or it's an outdated headshot photo, and this is evident if you've met them in person, right, and their photo was taken many years ago. I usually tell people it should be no more than five years old, but especially for those of us who specialize in LinkedIn, I think no more than two years old. We should look like what we look like today, or probably still be current version of that. So that's the first sign. The second is I want you to look at their LinkedIn URL. Is it simplified or does it have those alphanumeric nonsense characters at the end? This is definitely a telltale sign that they are not a LinkedIn expert, because if they haven't changed it, it's just one of the basics. It's one of the very first things that I address when I'm working with clients and I, as a LinkedIn trainer, would not have a URL with all those gobbledygook at the end of it.

Speaker 1: 2:20

My third tip for you in terms of a sign that your LinkedIn trainer isn't a LinkedIn expert is their header image. Look at their header right now and see whether or not it's optimized. If they're not a LinkedIn expert, their header probably won't be optimized. The information is either hard to read on the mobile app, the photos that they have and the imagery in there are not ideal for their ideal target audience. Maybe they're relevant for them, but they're really not relevant for you as their intended audience. This is another sign inside the header their name is larger than most of the other text inside the header image. That, to me, is just really evident, because we don't need that space for our name. That space really should be used like a billboard. My fourth sign is that when you look at their city name, it's the city maybe their hometown instead of their metro area. Now, as an experienced LinkedIn trainer, I know that we can come up in more relevant searches if we use a targeted metro area instead of a specific city, and also just the reality of the fact that not a lot of people know your hometown, but they may be familiar with the metro area. So that's a sure sign right there.

Speaker 1: 3:27

The fifth sign is in their top header card, if they've got a gray avatar next to their company page or their education. Now, this is really easy to do. It's free to set up a company page on LinkedIn. If you're training people how to do LinkedIn, you definitely need a company page with your company logo next to it, and, as far as education is concerned, you may or may not have college education, whether community college or university but even high schools nowadays have LinkedIn company pages as well. So when I see a gray avatar, that's a sure sign that they're not a LinkedIn expert.

Speaker 1: 3:59

The sixth sign is that their contact info. When I click inside that there's no websites or there might be websites that are invalid and I visit them, it says link no longer exists or they're outdated. Maybe they've changed jobs and they haven't updated those. So that's a sure sign right there. The seventh sign is that their about statement is about them. It's not about how they help their clients. This is such an easy thing to do and a really easy way to optimize your profile. The eighth sign is that their about statement is missing some personal information. It's all about their company only. I always tell my clients to humanize that a bit. Maybe add some personal information or professional goals at the end, but something a little bit beyond the company information inside there Helps to humanize you and helps you to connect with your profile visitors better.

Speaker 1: 4:47

The ninth sign is that their featured section. It isn't enabled at all, meaning they don't have a featured section on their profile or there's outdated links. This is very common. I look at the featured items they have and they're more than a year old Now. Featured for me, I think, is a really great way of bringing visibility to you, but we don't want to let those items go stale. We want to have new, fresh items in there all the time. The tenth sign is that they aren't posting at all or they're posting more than once a day. Now, these, to me, are just no brainers. You should definitely be posting at minimum once a week, but you should also understand some of the rules of the algorithm, and if you're posting more than once a day, you're getting a penalty in your reach. So that's a very easy sign for me to look at in their profile.

Speaker 1: 5:32

The 11th sign is that their posts aren't getting any comments at all, or if they are getting comments, they're ignoring them. They're not replying back to them. That's something that anyone who is a LinkedIn expert will tell you you need to do. You need to be generating engagement and you also need to be responding back when people comment on your post. When I see that someone is not commenting, it's just really evident to me that they are not a LinkedIn expert, all right. The 12th sign is that they aren't spending any time at all commenting on their connections posts, and this is really easy to do If you're in their activity section, if you can see the posts right next to it, there's a little link that says comments. When I click on comments, I can easily tell how often they're looking at other people's posts and commenting on them, and if they're not at all, it's definitely a sign that they're using LinkedIn for themselves. But they're really not understanding the power of creating social media karma by engaging with other people in their network. It might be clients, it might be VIP connections or referral partners, it might just be people, but if you're not commenting at all, it's like you're missing out on a huge opportunity to be a part of the LinkedIn community. So that is a definite red flag for me when I see that they're not commenting on any connections posts at all.

Speaker 1: 6:41

All right, two more items here 13, number 13,. 13 sign that your LinkedIn trainer isn't a LinkedIn expert. They are missing a call to action in their experience section. Now I know that inside the experience section, linkedin gives you a description block and you can put up to 2,000 characters in here. So I like to think about if the average person is not connected to you, they can't see your contact info. Yet are we making it easier for them? It's like marketing on a silver platter, right? Are we making it easier for them to figure out how to do business with us? And an easy way of doing that is adding some type of a call to action into their experience section. Now, a call to action could be visit my website to learn more. It can be email me at this email address or it can be call me at a phone number, but they should have at least one call to action in their experience section. If I don't see one, let them know. My friend, I don't think they're a LinkedIn expert, because it's such a good opportunity for you to connect with people from there. All right, number 14, and my final sign here that your LinkedIn trainer is not a LinkedIn expert.

Speaker 1: 7:42

Look at their recommendations. If they have zero recommendations received or given or maybe they have some, but they're old they have no current recommendations received or given in the current year they are not a LinkedIn expert. There's something that's to be said about social proof, right. When people say something about you, it's almost more believable than when you say it about yourself, and the great thing about LinkedIn is you can receive these recommendations, which are like testimonials, but they're really believable because we can click to go to that person's profile and we know that person made that recommendation.

Speaker 1: 8:15

The other thing is sometimes I'll see people that have 20 recommendations received and zero recommendations given. What does that tell you about that person? I know what it says to me. It says that they're using LinkedIn selfishly to promote their business, which is totally fine, but it tells me that they've neglected paying it forward and helping their connections. I always try to give out a few recommendations per month, especially when I'm doing business with someone, or even if someone has given me free advice and I can tell it's in their area of expertise. So it's really easy to give recommendations, but you need to be thinking about it and doing it all the time. All right, so that wraps us up.

Speaker 1: 8:51

These are my 14 signs that your LinkedIn trainer is not a LinkedIn expert, and I think, unfortunately, the number of LinkedIn experts is going to rise because LinkedIn as a network is continually growing.

Speaker 1: 9:04

Right now they're at 1 billion members and counting, and we all know that LinkedIn is a highly reputable website and there's such a huge opportunity for all of us to connect with our clients out there, so that brings these LinkedIn experts out of the woodwork, and for me, I always I look at their profile to see do they really know LinkedIn and how long have they been doing this too? That's another thing, but I hope this checklist of different signs helps you out if somebody's approaching you to help them with their LinkedIn, and I'd encourage you to go into my profile and look again since and review this podcast again. I hope you found this helpful. If you did and were connected on LinkedIn, message me there and let me know, or maybe share this podcast along with a friend who's looking at working with somebody to help them with their LinkedIn. Until next time, take care and thank you again for listening.