UpLift Live - Speaker announcement: Mark Williams

Speaker announcement: Mark Williams

09/21/23 • 9 min

1 Listener

Our next speaker is known as Mr LinkedIn! Welcome to Mark Williams, who's coming from North Wales to speak onstage in Birmingham at UpLift Live about advanced LinkedIn strategies.

TRANSCRIPT

Who would have predicted this time last year that AI would be even anywhere near LinkedIn, you know?

Welcome back to the UpLift Live podcast. This is John Espirian from the Mission Control team for UpLift Live, which is the UK's first LinkedIn-focused conference for LinkedIn specialists, power users and enthusiasts.

It's time for another speaker announcement, and this time we're chatting with Mr LinkedIn himself, Mark Williams. I call Mark the Swiss Army knife of LinkedIn, as he knows so much about the platform and is probably the single person from whom I've learned most about LinkedIn.

I chat with Mark a lot as we're both Liverpool Football Club supporters, and I'm a regular contributor on his podcast, Linkedinformed. We're turning the tables today and I'm interviewing him.

Let's hop aboard and get to the interview with Mark!

Mark Williams, welcome to the UpLift Live podcast.

You are going to be one of our speakers in Birmingham.

It's a great honour to be able to host you.

Welcome to the show.

Thank you very much.

I can't wait.

I can't believe it's so long to wait till March.

It's seems a long time away for me at the moment.

But I'm sure once we get past Christmas, it'll come upon us in a flash.

Yeah, it will a bit.

And it feels odd to be saying this, given that you are Mr LinkedIn, but tell us, for the people who don't know who you are, what do you know about LinkedIn? Oh God! Where do you start? I think, you know, one of the things I would say about me and LinkedIn, I mean, it changes so often.

And there's so much complexity to it, that I don't think anybody could ever claim to know everything about LinkedIn.

But I have been doing this a long time.

And I think one of the things I feel is a strength with regards to knowing about LinkedIn is just that, that sense of knowing the company, the direction that they go in, and sometimes they make a change and you think, oh, you know, I assume this, or one would assume this from what they're doing.

But sometimes when you've been doing this, as long as I have you kind of go oh, I'm not actually sure that's true.

I think it's probably more like this, you know, and interpreting and understanding the platform from the perspective of users and how users have changed the way they use it, you know.

I guess again, the longer you've seen it, the more you've been around it, the easier it is to be able to make that kind of crossover between what the platform or what the company are doing, and how its users will actually want to use it.

Yeah, it's one of the things I appreciate most about your Linkedinformed podcast is that you actually cogitate and digest this stuff and then think about what it might mean strategically and explain that really well on the podcast.

So, if anyone hasn't come across Linkedinformed, it's just gone through its 400th episode.

It pretty much is required listening, I would say.

If you're going to be coming to this advanced conference for LinkedIn specialists, you need to be listening to Mark's podcast, go and check it out.

It's a regular for me on a Saturday afternoon.

Now, Mark, I often think of you as the Swiss Army knife of LinkedIn, because you just know so many things about so many parts of what is a massive beast.

We're too far away from the conference for you to tell us any specifics about what you're going to talk about but can you say something about the kind of state of LinkedIn and where you think it's going and maybe give us some idea of the kind of advanced things that you might want to talk about? I mean, it's funny, isn't it.

Every year, or certainly for the last few years, in January, I do a sort of prediction of what I think's going to happen over the next year.

And I usually get it quite wrong.

So, I've given up trying to really predict on where LinkedIn is going to go.

But the one thing we do know is that it's going to change, and it always does.

And it always will.

I think there are indications from LinkedIn that they are making a real concerted effort to try and stem the tide of personal content.

And then trying to kind of dictate to us that they want to see more business content.

And that's a good thing and a bad thing, you know.

It's a kind of a good thing in the sense that maybe people do go a bit too far with personal content on LinkedIn.

But it's a bad thing, also, in the sense that it kind of drives me a bit mad that LinkedIn feel they can dictate to us what they th...

Our next speaker is known as Mr LinkedIn! Welcome to Mark Williams, who's coming from North Wales to speak onstage in Birmingham at UpLift Live about advanced LinkedIn strategies.

TRANSCRIPT

Who would have predicted this time last year that AI would be even anywhere near LinkedIn, you know?

I chat with Mark a lot as we're both Liverpool Football Club supporters, and I'm a regular contributor on his podcast, Linkedinformed. We're turning the tables today and I'm interviewing him.

Let's hop aboard and get to the interview with Mark!

Mark Williams, welcome to the UpLift Live podcast.

You are going to be one of our speakers in Birmingham.

It's a great honour to be able to host you.

Welcome to the show.

Thank you very much.

I can't wait.

I can't believe it's so long to wait till March.

It's seems a long time away for me at the moment.

But I'm sure once we get past Christmas, it'll come upon us in a flash.

Yeah, it will a bit.

And there's so much complexity to it, that I don't think anybody could ever claim to know everything about LinkedIn.

But I have been doing this a long time.

But sometimes when you've been doing this, as long as I have you kind of go oh, I'm not actually sure that's true.

I think it's probably more like this, you know, and interpreting and understanding the platform from the perspective of users and how users have changed the way they use it, you know.

So, if anyone hasn't come across Linkedinformed, it's just gone through its 400th episode.

It pretty much is required listening, I would say.

If you're going to be coming to this advanced conference for LinkedIn specialists, you need to be listening to Mark's podcast, go and check it out.

It's a regular for me on a Saturday afternoon.

Now, Mark, I often think of you as the Swiss Army knife of LinkedIn, because you just know so many things about so many parts of what is a massive beast.

Every year, or certainly for the last few years, in January, I do a sort of prediction of what I think's going to happen over the next year.

And I usually get it quite wrong.

So, I've given up trying to really predict on where LinkedIn is going to go.

But the one thing we do know is that it's going to change, and it always does.

And it always will.

I think there are indications from LinkedIn that they are making a real concerted effort to try and stem the tide of personal content.

And then trying to kind of dictate to us that they want to see more business content.

And that's a good thing and a bad thing, you know.

It's a kind of a good thing in the sense that maybe people do go a bit too far with personal content on LinkedIn.

But it's a bad thing, also, in the sense that it kind of drives me a bit mad that LinkedIn feel they can dictate to us what they th...

Previous Episode

Speaker announcement: Tiina Jarvet

Our next speaker announcement is an international headhunter and recruitment expert based in Belgium. Meet Tiina Jarvet, who is joining us to speak onstage in Birmingham at UpLift Live on the topic of how recruiters really use LinkedIn, along with some advanced LinkedIn search tips.

TRANSCRIPT

If you get your presence right, optimising your profile, then there are big chances that you will be found. That's how I work.

It's time for another speaker announcement, and this time we have yet another international speaker. Joining us all the way from Belgium is headhunter and recruitment superstar Tiina Jarvet. She's going to talk to us about how recruiters really use LinkedIn, and to give us some tips on how we can be found in search.

Let's hop aboard and get to the interview with Tiina!

Welcome, Tiina Jarvet, to the UpLift Live podcast.

Thank you so much for being here.

You are going to be one of our speakers, one of our international speakers at the UpLift Live conference in Birmingham next year.

Tiina, tell me, what do you know about LinkedIn? Well, John, thank you so much for inviting me to be a speaker on the conference.

I'm so excited about it.

And equally excited I am about LinkedIn and LinkedIn Recruiter.

I've worked with recruitment and with executive search, and I've been using LinkedIn my whole career.

So, I'm so excited to share what's going on behind the scenes.

What do recruiters do when they use LinkedIn, and how people can optimise their profiles.

Yeah, fantastic.

I mean, I've known you for ages now.

And you to me, just not like any other recruiter, you are a proper headhunter, you really know LinkedIn very, very well.

And it'll be great to get your take on things about how recruiters really use LinkedIn.

You have already very kindly done a private session for our Espresso+ community, which I very much appreciate.

This will be you on the stage giving all of the secrets about recruiting and searching.

So, really looking forward to that.

Can you give us any kind of insight about the kind of stuff that you're going to talk about in Birmingham? Well, there are so many myths about how recruiters and headhunters use LinkedIn and how people's profiles are found.

And I really want to tell what's actually going on, and how, what are the tips and what is important, because sometimes you get a lot of information from people who actually don't work with LinkedIn Recruiter.

It's just by guessing what companies could be looking for, but actually to show what is important, and which are the tools and which parts of your profile you should be focusing on.

Because there are some things that are really important to optimise your LinkedIn presence.

Nice one, and let me get this right, you are a Top Global Talent Acquisition Voice.

That's a bit of a mouthful on LinkedIn.

Is that correct? Yes.

So, it's really about being part of the conversation on LinkedIn, and helping people to understand what is actually going on, that LinkedIn, it's, really the place where people connect for job search, but also for other opportunities, career opportunities, and if you get your presence right, optimising your profile, then there are big chances that you will be found.

That's how I work.

I work with people who are not actively looking but who get opportunities in their inbox, based on their experience, and industry.

Fantastic.

And let me just confirm as well, Tiina, that although you speak 9 languages, you're going to be delivering in English in Birmingham.

And you're just super, super talented and I hope this conveys the gravity of this event that we're not just going to get any old speaker.

We're bringing in international speakers.

Tiina is coming all the way over from Belgium to speak to us in Birmingham next year.

So, if you want to grab a ticket, now is the best time, and go to uplift-live.com.

You can buy your ticket for the in person event in Birmingham, which is on Thursday 21 March 2024 Really looking forward to seeing you there.

Tiina is one of 7 speakers that we've got lined up.

They're all apex operators from around the world.

And I'm really looking forward to it.

I can't wait to meet Tiina in person.

We've been connected for years but we've never actually met.

So, this will be a fantastic chance to do some great networking with lovely people.

So, thank you for being part of it, Tiina, and I'll see you...

Next Episode

Speaker announcement: Richard van der Blom

1 Recommendations

Our final speaker announcement is a Dutch superstar based in Valencia, Spain. It's the man who knows all about the LinkedIn algorithm, Richard van der Blom.

TRANSCRIPT

Back 2 years would practically do nothing for the reach.

Now, you get more people to repost your stuff, it accelerates your growth.

It's time for our final speaker announcement, and this time we're shooting over to Spain to speak to a Dutchman. It's social selling and LinkedIn algorithm expert, Richard van der Blom.

Let's hop aboard and get to the interview with Richard!

Richard van der Blom, welcome to the show.

You are going to be a speaker at the UpLift Live conference in Birmingham in March. Welcome aboard.

Tell us, what do you know about LinkedIn? Thank you, John, first of all, thank you for having me both here on the show and in March in Birmingham.

What do I know about LinkedIn? I guess I'll know quite a bit, just like I think all the other speakers.

Have been active on LinkedIn since 2005.

Started to give my first LinkedIn training back in 2009.

So, what I'll probably bring to the stage is about plus 14 years of experience on how to leverage this platform to grow your business.

Basically, that's it, to grow your business, whether you are a solo entrepreneur or a marketing professional, or whether you are in B2B sales.

And that's basically what I hope to share with the audience.

Awesome.

And you're well known for your skills in social selling, but I think probably most people who are watching this or listening to this on the podcast will know you for your algorithm report.

You've become really famous for that.

And you've got more than 140,000 followers, mostly off the back of that, I would guess.

Yeah.

Tell us a little bit about where the algorithm report came from, and what kind of insights people get from that.

Yeah, well working with, so, my main focus is to work with mid-size, larger enterprises.

And back in 2018, we had two enterprise clients.

And they were baffled by the fact that when they publish a white paper or a really well-thought article, they would reach, let's say, 5000 views.

And they were baffled by the fact that if they would publish like a team picture of like, any event that they would participate in, like, I don't know, half the marathon at Boston, they would get like 30,000 views, and they were like, we want to switch that, you know, we want to have 30,000 views for the article and just 5000 views for them.

So, they started to ask us questions.

And back then we only knew from our own experience based on our own postings what would happen, but we could only guess, and then I teamed up with some really amazing people.

And they helped me to, I delivered them with the questions and they started to research like what happens if somebody likes if somebody comments what happens if you change the post in terms of format.

And basically, we released like an algorithm report in October 2018.

That was the first one and it was actually shared first with the two clients.

And they were very, very enthusiastic about it.

So, I thought, OK, let's just publish it.

And it went like, it blew up.

I remember I had almost 1 million views on that post, which was for me back then it was like huge.

And so that was a start, actually.

And back then I didn't thought even about redoing the same thing next year.

I just thought like, OK, it's a one time exercise, job done.

And then I think it was something in May 2019.

May, June 2019.

And people actually came back to me and said, like, are you going to do the research again this year, because we have seen some changes.

And that was when like, it occurred to me like, hey, maybe if we do this on a more regular basis, then you know, people would benefit from it.

So, we started to do it again, October, same month, 2019.

It went even bigger, we have more data because we were more prepared, we know how to examine it.

And that's actually how it started, and indeed you're right.

That's when also my personal growth accelerated my personal page accelerated because social selling is really cool but it's rather boring to post on but if you post like the secrets of LinkedIn content, algorithm, well, you probably know that, then people like really want to have this and really grabbed you know.

Yeah.

And tell me do you agree that the pace of change on LinkedIn is speeding up...