Collaboration over Competition in Action (aka ‘Collabetition’)
Last week I jumped on a train towards Birmingham and met with a group of fellow LinkedIn trainers to share ideas, learning, experiences and also to discuss some important topics. We communicate regularly via Slack but every now and again we get together in person to eat biscuits and drink tea!
Key topics of discussion were:
A lot has changed on LinkedIn in the last 12 months especially with new features and updates being released every week and there is always a lot of chatter and debate on the topic of outsourcing, bots and automation. To be clear no one in this group endorse or support the use of bots or automation on LinkedIn! We much prefer to reap the benefits of putting in the work yourself and building genuine relationships with your network.
Technically we’re all in competition with each other as we each provide LinkedIn training services but instead of work as islands on our own we decide to collaborate so we can offer a better service to our clients and be the best we can be. In the room was myself, Angus Grady, Steve Phillip, Greg Cooper, Petra Fisher and Mark Williams (Aka Mr LinkedIn)
We even managed to dial in Beth Granger rom the USA and Jo Saunders from Australia on zoom!
One thing I loved was sitting in a room full of people that get what you do, share the same values and ethics and are doing it for the right reasons.
There’s a rising number of people claiming to be ‘LinkedIn Experts, Ninjas, Gurus, Specialists, Trainers’ that have only been using LinkedIn for 5 minutes and a lot of confusion out there as to who to trust and who to go to to get the best advise and know-how. We all have our own personalities, experiences and specialisms and I would happily recommend anyone in that room.
There are also a few things to look out for if you’re considering working with a LinkedIn trainer, coach, agency or mentor such as:
- Do they endorse or recommend the use of bots or automation? – if so they don’t really get LinkedIn, they are trying to sell you a service that’s against LinkedIn’s terms and conditions and could get you locked out of LinkedIn or worse damage your reputation.
- Do they practise what they preach? Go and have a look at their activity section on their profile? Do they get good engagement (likes and comments) on their posts and can you get a good feel about their ethics and values?
- If you’re considering an Agency or Company then have a look at how they post on their own company page – if they are only posting a series of external links with the goal of driving traffic to their website then they don’t get LinkedIn. This is a very traditional goal of social media and not how LinkedIn should be used today.
- Do they have good recommendations from genuine customers and not referral partners that are profiting from their kind words? – LinkedIn recommendations are a really powerful way to demonstrate credibility and cannot be written by the profile owner so a good way to tell if they are the real deal.
- If someone tells you they are a ‘Social Media or Marketing Expert’ do they know the difference between LinkedIn and other social platforms or LinkedIn and other forms of Marketing ? How much time do they have on their hands to keep up to date with each platform and how frequently they chance and get updated? Not all social media platforms are the same, some social media experts get LinkedIn but there are a lot that don’t so it’s helpful to check.
If you’d like to learn more then I’d love to speak to you on the phone or alternatively get in touch with one of the wonderful people featured in this photo below.
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