LinkedIn for humans
How small businesses can win in 2026 (new report) and other 🍑 stuff.
Bonjour!
What an ice breaker - our LinkedIn for journos training session this week:
I’m really lazy with LinkedIn. Do you have a routine you’d suggest for managing your account? I’m terrible at it. I just forget about it.
She said it’s more effective to pick up the phone when she needs something rather than posting online and hoping folks will see it. “If it’s a story I go direct.”
Agree but LI helps you get more eyeballs on your work and find opps. Now at over 1.3bn members globally, 47m in the UK (the biggest European market), content creation is up 15% this year and comments have risen 30% (ban the bots!).
Just reading their Special Report: how small businesses can win in 2026 (TLDR: people and communication skills with a dash of AI).
LinkedIn is like flossing - boring but necessary. Lean is my routine (over a cuppa) and being human is my strategy - sharing useful info, commenting and connecting people. I check people out when they comment on my stuff and vice versa – we’re curious.
I’ve tried to filter the nonsense out of my feed, but it can still feel like an echo chamber with copycat posts, bro poetry, peacocking etc.
My LI Top Voice of the Week: Paul Longley – If people at work were honest during back-to-back meetings... Can’t embed it here so I found him on YouTube.
you’ll love this one.But seriously – it was a great session, thanks to the LinkedIn team. Four of them came including the Head of Comms for UK & Ireland, which was unexpected and appreciated. They were super engaged in the chat and answered our questions…
Q: “Why do you keep asking us to ‘write with AI’ – it feels insulting. I’m a writer, I don’t want to write with AI.” A: As ever, it’s optional. It’s there to help people who aren’t professional writers and want some help.
Q: What about the women’s visibility posts / social experiments - is it true? A: “Our algorithms do not use gender as a ranking signal. We take bias very seriously.”
“You are aiming to be media and not paying for it!” – Graham Bates (professional cynic!). No reply to that one. I emailed him afterwards:
LinkedIn wants to take media space and become a publisher, not just a jobs board (and, seemingly, boasting platform).
Young journalists want to be published and so are seduced into posting in the hope of pitching to established media and finding legitimate work. But it’s a US tech giant publishing those stories without paying for them and lazy prospective employers and editors could begin only to scroll through its membership just like Google dominates search (use Ecosia please!).
As the presenters boasted, it also considers itself a non-governmental employment and demographics monitor full of our data from which officials will begin quoting but it’s hardly comprehensive nor authoritative and, as “Premium” proves, exclusive.
Fair enough.
A popular post might get picked up for the Daily Roundup but they’re not paying for engagement (yet!). Still figuring out how to tap into the creator economy while staying professional. In May they launched BrandLink ad revenue share for video creators. Bit select but it’s a start - the first time they’ve shared ad revenue with creators (wonder if Substack will do similar?)
I see lots of sponsored / paid partnerships and people promoting their services with a sign off. You can use affiliate links as long as you add disclaimers. Out of all the platforms, I’ve had the most work via LinkedIn.
We’re planning a London Freelance Salon Day next May so I’ve invited them to do a ‘LinkedIn Lounge’. Working on a programme for that – pitches and ideas welcome. Let me know what would be useful.
Shoutout to Andy Aitchison aka The Prison Photographer (what a tagline!). I’m loving his work and his LinkedIn newsletter is a joy to read.
💻 The Great LinkedIn Reach Drop – signed up for this on 11 Dec (thanks Amy!) Not noticed anything but I’m curious…
Nika xoxo
PS Early Xmas gift: Starmer’s Substack (the comments!). So pleased he listened to me. He needs to write it though—at least the intro—or it won’t connect with readers. Photo needs a credit.
Some useful stuff from our session - we talked about building a strong profile, finding sources, getting featured, newsletters, free vs premium and more.
The rest of this post is for paid subscribers (video recording, notes and the Q&A).