We've spent the last 3 days here educating ourselves about LinkedIn. Well actually, we've spent more time shouting at the computer screens while the videos in the LinkedIn Summit cause pain.

How To Do LinkedIn (by Brightspark)

1. Work on your profile.  Include projects and slidedecks you've worked on.  Here's a handy slidedeck you can use for my tips.
2. Have a contact request policy in mind, ie. decide who you're going to connect with and who not. Stick to it.
3. Publish on LinkedIn Pulse.  If you're already writing blogs, it's a no brainer to carry them over to LinkedIn.

And that's pretty much it.  You can go now - work on that profile of yours, and be gone!

Bonus Extras:

• You can dabble in groups and if you're lucky you might find one where people are gagging to get the thing you do, and aren't already being besieged by hordes of hungry salespeople.
• You can use apps such as Meet Edgar to automatically post your blog posts for you, to  make it look as if you're all over the platform when you're not.
• LinkedIn Pages - meh.  Unless you're Dell and you need to hire, they don't rock.

I often wonder if I'm missing out on something here.  Surely there's more to LinkedIn than that?  Then the paranoia sets in and I wonder if everyone else is doing it really well and I'm not.  So it was with great anticipation that I came across the LinkedIn Summit - a 3 day extravaganza of the finest LinkedIn thought leaders - sharing their valuable knowledge for free!

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So the team here at Brightspark committed to learning LinkedIn from the experts, just to make sure that we're not missing out. Can I just say that this has been the most painful few days of 2015?  I've been wanting to hit the screen, I keep shouting expletives really loudly, because all of these cocksuckers are saying the same thing.

Want to know how to do LinkedIn?  Go back to the start and read points 1, 2, and 3.

Instead, we diligently sat through the following

1.  Mark White, on "How A Small Business Can Benefit from LinkedIn."

Key takeaways: 

Ask your network of contacts for introductions.

Exhaust all possibilities from advanced search before considering paying premium (fair enough point)

2.  Kristino Jaramillo, "Go Beyond Brand Awareness and Reach with a LinkedIn strategy"

Key takeaways:

She gave 5 points, but only talked about 3 of them.. the easy ones like "look at your profile", and share content.  Yes they are covered by me in my top 3 above. Her other strategy points were "Community Building" and "Lead Generation" which she said 'use your content to get people to talk to you.'  Like Wow.  Her accent also really bugged us.

3.  Marshall Goldsmith, "The Checklist Manifesto"

Key takeaways:

He mentioned his books several times, and his long list of Fortune 500 clients. His examples were all cliched. He mentioned his books several times.  Did I mention he's got Fortune 500 clients?  He is an executive coach.  Who writes books.  And has Fortune 500 clients.????

4.  Donna Serdula, "The Checklist Manifesto"

Key takeaways:

She was good because she was talking about how to optimise your LinkedIn profile.  Some good points, albeit made in a long-winded American way. It took her 5 minutes to say 'don't use your job title' in your headline.  Then it bounces back to our host Liam who repeats everything she said in an enthused way.

5.  Dan Sherman, "How To Establish Yourself As An Industry Expert"

Key takeaways: 

The first one to mention Groups. But his advice was so unrealistic for real live people: he mentioned how people might not like comment or share your posts, but to keep doing it because people might be reading.  And you never know...

6.  Karen Yankowich, "How To Generate Non-Salesy Sales Calls"

Key takeaways: This took the biscuit.

Her advice: search your contacts, send a message asking 'do I have any contacts that I could introduce you to?'. If they come back to you, suggest a phone call. Then she said, this is a sales call. In the next breath she said this is a pitching call...

Like really?  How can I help you?  And then hit them with a sales message when they say yes.  Utter nonsense.

7.  Mark Hunter, "How To Use Updates & Other Tools To Find Prospects"

Key takeaways:

Does a very good job at saying things that are commonplace and makes them sound like they are his unique idea... I post questions in a group, and then I like and comment on the responses... then I connect with them, and send a message.  The LinkedIn search bar is a search engine...Also advocated going to the newspapers and sharing interesting articles via social share button.

That's pretty basic but he managed to pull it off well, in fairness.

Conclusion

I can't write anymore because I feel angry and frustrated just writing this. I have shared this to show that I did the work, I genuinely listened to 3 days of LinkedIn thought leaders waxing on and on.  I never want to do this again.  You never have to either.  Just skip back up to the top of this post and you'll get the three key takeaways that were presented in various guises in this week's LinkedIn Summit.

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