Behind the Scenes at LinkedIn Learning

• • Show Notes

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Online learning courses have become the main channel for many of us to pick up new skills and refresh our understanding of the latest developments and best practices in our current field of work.

Have you wondered where the ideas for them comes from, how the instructors are chosen, how the courses are produced or how the sessions are targeted at you? Well, this week, Martin Waxman is in California recording his next course for LinkedIn. And we took the opportunity to invite Martin’s producer, Hilary White, to give us insight into these and many more questions we have about online courses.

Bonus: Do you think you might like to offer an online course with a major platform like Lynda.com or LinkedIn Learning? Listen to the end for info on how you can put yourself forward for consideration as a LinkedIn Learning instructor.

Linkworthy

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It’s your turn.

We’d love to know what you think about the topics we discussed as well as your suggestions for questions you’d like answered or topics for future shows.

Please rate us on Apple Podcasts

We hope you like the podcast as much as we like making it for you. If you do, we have a favor to ask: If you like this podcast, please rate us on Apple Podcasts.

Thank you to the people behind Inside PR.

Our theme music was created by Damon de Szegheo; Roger Dey is our announcer. Inside PR is produced by Joseph Thornley.

Creative Commons Licence
Behind the Scenes at Lynda.com and LinkedIn Learning by Joseph Thornley, Martin Waxman, Gini Dietrich is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Yes, you are the product. But you don’t have to be.

• • PR

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Are you the product today? Heck Yeah!

In the past two weeks, many people have jumped on the bandwagon launched by Will Oremus’ article “Are You Really the Product? The history of a dangerous idea.” In a nutshell, Oremus argues that the “If you’re not paying for the product, you are the product,” aphorism doesn’t really apply in the case of Facebook.

Gini and Joe have different perspectives on this. Gini sees a lot of value in Oremus’ arguments. Joe thinks that his arguments are beguiling, but convoluted, bringing us to the same conclusion: “If you aren’t paying for it with money, you are paying for it in other ways.” Ultimately, he who pays for something sets the terms.

Don’t fall into the trap of believing this is an expression of powerlessness. In fact, as Joe sees it, it is a call to action.

So, what can we do about it?

First, don’t think about recreating Facebook or finding a viable Facebook competitor. Facebook has reached dominance and will not be challenged until it is broken up. (Remember the good things that followed on the AT&T break up in the 1980s? Basically, it created the opportunity that became Silicon Valley.)

Instead, think about the more selective, specialized things that we want to do, connections that we want to make, networks we want to create, that reflect our actual interests. Think about why so many people see Slack as their social platform. Why we love using Apple Messages to create groups of friends for sharing. Places that will give us the dignity and respect that we want. That will be geared to us. Not their advertising model. And places that we are prepared to pay for.

Don’t fight Facebook. Go outside of and beyond Facebook.

LinkedIn at 15

LinkedIn. Can it really be 15 years old? It seems like only yesterday we first met.

LinkedIn is not as big as Facebook. It doesn’t sit at the middle of the news cycle like Twitter. And it doesn’t have the love directed at Instagram. But it is older than all of these social networks – and it occupies a unique place for business. We talk about how it has changed over the years and our ongoing love/hate relationship with it.

Linkworthy

Are You Really the Product? The history of a dangerous idea, Will Oremus

LinkedIn Turns 15, Allen Blue

 

It’s your turn.

We’d love to know what you think about the topics we discussed as well as your suggestions for questions you’d like answered or topics for future shows.

#IPRMustKnow

Our hashtag is #IPRMustKnow. If you are tweeting or posting about the podcast, please include our hashtag so that we can find your post.

Please rate us on Apple Podcasts

We hope you like the podcast as much as we like making it for you. If you do, we have a favor to ask: If you like this podcast, please rate us on Apple Podcasts.

Subscribe on the podcast app of your choice

We’re trying to be wherever you want us to be. So, you can subscribe to Inside PR on the most popular podcast apps.

Thank you to the people behind Inside PR.

Our theme music was created by Damon de Szegheo; Roger Dey is our announcer. Inside PR is produced by Joseph Thornley.

Creative Commons Licence
Are you really the product? Heck Yeah! by Joseph Thornley, Gini Dietrich, Martin Waxman is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Inside PR 446: Bad news for independent podcast creators

• • Inside PR

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Is podcasting on the verge of tipping from a creator-driven medium to an advertiser-driven channel? UNU predicts the trends. Microsoft gets LinkedIn. And crises bring out the best in both social and mainstream media. Gini Dietrich, Martin Waxman and Joseph Thornley tackle these topics and more in this week’s Inside PR podcast.

#IPRMustKnow

Midroll acquires Stitcher

A big deal by podcasting standards. Podcast advertising broker Midroll has acquired Stitcher. I think that independent podcasters have reason to worry that, if successful, Midroll/Stitcher will do to podcasting what Facebook did to the open Web. Martin and Gini are still making up their minds about this. Whatever your view, if you care about podcasting, this is an #IPRMustKnow.

Who knew UNU?

UNU is a site that uses the wisdom of the crowd to answer questions and predict trends. Very 2008.

Microsoft acquires LinkedIn

The news that Microsoft is acquiring LinkedIn broke just before we recorded this episode. So here you get our first impressions of the potential benefits and downsides of Microsoft’s integration of LinkedIn with its Office suite.

Crisis brings out the best in us

Finally, in the wake of the Orlando shootings, we reflect on the current state of crisis communications, how news flows through social media and the important role of mainstream media to establish context, discern authoritative, credible witness testimony and curate the reports from social media.

We’d love to know what you think.

Leave a comment on the blog, send us an email or an audio comment to [email protected], join the FIR Google+ Community, join the Inside PR Facebook group, message us @inside_pr on Twitter, or connect with Gini Dietrich, Joseph Thornley, and Martin Waxman on Twitter. And we have a favor to ask: If you like this podcast, please rate us on iTunes.

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Thank you to the people behind Inside PR. Our theme music was created by Damon de Szegheo; Roger Dey is our announcer. Inside PR is produced by Joseph Thornley.

Inside PR 407: PR generalists versus specialists

• • PR

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Martin here and it’s a jam-packed episode this week. But first a milestone: it’s been nine years since Terry Fallis and David Jones started Inside PR and we want to give Terry and Dave a big congratulations and bigger thank you! And thanks to all of you for sticking with us. If you’re interested, head to the archives and listen to IPR #1.

Back to 2015…On today’s show, we talk about three things:

1. When to hire a PR firm – and when you should wait
Gini wrote a post about a startup client whose product wasn’t ready when they hired her firm, so any traffic the Arment Dietrich team drove to the site led to customer frustration since the business wasn’t ready for…um business. Moral: sometimes entrepreneurs need to put the brakes on their PR efforts until they have something to show, solid goals and can afford it.

2. PR generalist or specialist – where is the industry heading?
According to the Holmes Report Card, in recent years PR agencies have been hiring specialists over generalists, similar to the way things operate in the ad and marketing industries. However, data now shows the generalist may still have a role, especially as it pertains to developing strategy. Thanks to Shel Holtz for suggesting this idea.

3. LinkedIn buys Lynda.com – are jobs posting now going to be linked to skills training?
LinkedIn’s become a publisher, job source, networking space and virtual rolodex and now it’s moving into training with its $1.5 billion purchase of training site, Lynda.com. See a job you want but lack some of the skills. LI may have a training program for you. Thanks to Alison Garwood-Jones for suggesting this topic.

What do you think?

We’d love to hear from you.

Send us an email or an audio comment to [email protected], join the FIR Google+ Community, join the Inside PR Google+ Community, join the Inside PR Facebook group, leave us a comment here, message us @inside_pr on Twitter, or connect with Gini Dietrich, Joseph Thornley, and Martin Waxman on Twitter.

And we have a favor to ask: if you like this podcast, please rate us on iTunes.

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Thank you to the people behind Inside PR.

Our theme music was created by Damon de Szegheo; Roger Dey is our announcer.

Inside PR is produced by Ashlea McGrath.

Inside PR 383: Making LinkedIn work for your business

• • PR

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In this week’s Inside PR podcast, Martin Waxman, Gini Dietrich and I talk about LinkedIn as a publishing platform.

LinkedIn has been pushing itself as a publishing platform, promoting links to new content and providing publishers with additional data on the performance of their content. LinkedIn’s efforts seem to be an illustration of “if you build it they will come.”

From the number of alerts I receive when I open LinkedIn, it appears to me that more and more of the people with whom I have connections are in fact publishing content to LinkedIn.

Martin, for one has been drawn to LInkedIn more often as the amount of fresh content has increased. However, while there is more content that he can find there, he observes that a large portion of the content is repurposed content that originally appeared on a blog.

Gini agrees with Martin that cross posting content from blogs to LinkedIn seems to be common. The question she asks is, what is the right strategy? Post on the blog first and then cross post on LinkedIn? Or do it the other way around. Which will give her the greatest engagement on both of her platforms?

The question for publishers remains, “Is it worth the effort?” Gini has a practical, hard-nosed answer. She points out that our job is to drive traffic to our websites, where it can be converted to benefit our business. Publishing to LinkedIn is valuable if it contributes to that.

We also talk about Chuck Hester’s approach to LinkedIn. Chuck, who hosts the Linked Conversations podcast on the FIR Podcast Network (Inside PR is also a member of the FIR podcast network.) Chuck relies primarily on LinkedIn to connect with potential clients. To do this, he publishes a post or updates his profile at least every week or so. He has observed an uptick in the number of people looking at his profile after each of these events. When new people do look at his profile, he sends them a message asking if they’d like to connect. And this has generated new business opportunities. (You can hear Chuck describe this approach to Sarah Lane and Tonya Hall during an appearance on TWiT’s The Social Hour podcast.)

We like Chuck’s approach and think it is worth exploring further. We plan to reach out to him and ask him to join us in a conversation on a future episode of inside PR. To set up this discussion, Gini plans to emulate Chuck’s approach to see what types of results she can achieve. And in a month, after she’s done this, were going to invite Chuck to a discussion with us about this approach and how others can pick it up.

We’d love to hear your thoughts.

How do you use LinkedIn? Do you publish content on LinkedIn to provide people with a reason to click through to your profile? Do you watch your LinkedIn stats so that you can reach out to these people? Has this provided any benefit to you?

Send us an email or an audio comment to [email protected], join the FIR Google+ Community, join the Inside PR Google+ Community, join the Inside PR Facebook group, leave us a comment here, message us @inside_pr on Twitter, or connect with Gini Dietrich, Joseph Thornley, and Martin Waxman on Twitter.

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 Thank you to the people behind Inside PR

Our theme music was created by Damon de Szegheo; Roger Dey is our announcer.

Inside PR is produced by Ashlea McGrath.

Inside PR 366: Kelly Blazek, LinkedIn Connections, and Proper Communication

• • social media

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Martin Waxman is back and we are grateful because he is much better at the intro and closing than Joe Thornley and me.

We kick the show off by talking about the Kelly Blazek crisis situation that happened a couple of weeks ago.

As a quick refresher (or the story, for those of you who missed it), the 2013 Cleveland Communicator of the Year received an email from a young professional who is moving to Ohio and searching for a job.

Because Blazek runs the 7,300 member marketing job board for the Cleveland area, this young woman sent her a LinkedIn message, explaining who she was, her business expertise, and what kinds of jobs she could do. She then asked to join the jobs board.

What she received from Blazek, in return, was both unprofessional and … strange … for a communicator.

Kelly-Blazek-Response-to-Diana-Mekota

While we don’t beat this horse to death, it did create an interesting conversation about LinkedIn and how we each use the tool.

As it turns out, we have three different uses for it: Ambivalence, referrals, and contact management, which makes it an interesting look at how there really is no right way or wrong way to use social media. Except to not take your bad day out on someone asking or help.

Martin also mentions he hates the generic LinkedIn requests. You know the one. The, “I’d like to add you to my professional network” with no mention on how you know the person or why you’d like to connect.

He also talks about his pet peeve, which is people who have never worked with you asking you to write a recommendation.

After you listen, we leave the floor to you. What are your personal rules about LinkedIn connections?

P.S. While Terry Fallis’s new book, No Relation, doesn’t come out until May, as is his modus operandi, he is podcasting it for you ahead of time. Check it out!

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We’d love to hear your thoughts.

Inside PR is part of the FIR Podcast Network.

Send us an email or an audio comment to [email protected], join the FIR Google+ Community, join the Inside PR Google+ Community, join the Inside PR Facebook group, leave us a comment here, message us @inside_pr on Twitter, or connect with Gini Dietrich, Joseph Thornley, and Martin Waxman on Twitter.

Thank you to the people behind Inside PR

Our theme music was created by Damon de Szegheo; Roger Dey is our announcer.

Inside PR is produced by Kristine D’Arbelles and Ashlea LeCompte.

Inside PR 2.48 – A big week for Salesforce and Radian6, Google +1 and April Fools!

• • measurement, PR, Shownotes

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Martin Waxman, Gini Dietrich and I are back for another episode of Inside PR.

This week, we talk about the implications of the Radian6 acquisition by Salesforce.com and the launch of Google +1.

Oh. And April Fools didn’t pass us by either. Gini gives a big shoutout to HootSuite ‘s  Angry Owls prank and Martin is looking forward to connecting with Ernest Hemingway on LinkedIn. And along the way, Joe gets reorganized into a spare office – if one is available.

The big news this week was the announcement that Salesforce.com would pay $323 million to acquire social media analytics company Radian6. This is an interesting acquisition for the valuation, of course. But even more-so for what it may signal about the evolution of social media monitoring and analysis services. We take a close look at the implications of the Salesforce-Radian6 deal.

Finally, Gini kicks off our discussion of Google +1 with the question, “What does it feel like to be a me-too product when you used to be ruler of the world?” Fighting words?

Do you have comments? Send us an email or an audio comment to [email protected], join the Inside PR Facebook group, leave us a comment here, message us @inside_pr on Twitter, or connect with Gini Dietrich, Joe Thornley, and Martin Waxman on Twitter.

Our theme music was created by Damon de Szegheo; Roger Dey is our announcer.

And a BIG WELCOME to the new producer of Inside PR: Kristine Simpson. You’re a brave person Kristine. 🙂

UPDATE: I’ve written a longer post on ProPR.ca about the implications of the Radian6-Salesforce, Finally, a means of measuring the ROI of social media?

Inside PR #190 – Wednesday, February 3, 2010

• • 30, Agency Life, Comments, Inside PR, PR, Show Notes

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Comments? Send us an email or an audio comment to [email protected], visit the Inside PR Blubrry site, leave us a comment on the Inside PR show blog or message us @inside_pr on Twitter.

This week on Inside PR, Terry, Dave and Martin welcome listener comments and discuss the best ways to prepare for the departure of a senior team member.

00:29 Dave opens the show.

01:22 Martin introduces a comment from Laurie Smith of CNW.  (See the whole comment on the blog).

01:47 Terry reads a comment from Jennifer Grinder.

08:50 Martin shares a neat analogy for Facebook, Linkedin and Twitter via @julito77

10:21 Terry introduces this week’s topic: How can PR agencies minimize the impact of losing a senior team member?

23:08 Terry starts the -30- segment.

32:25 Terry wraps up the show.

Our theme music was created by Damon de Szegheo; Roger Dey is our announcer.

This week’s episode was produced by Sarah Laister.

Inside PR #130 – Wednesday, September 24, 2008

• • Agency Life, Comments, Inside PR, PR, Show Notes, social media

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Comments? Send us an email at [email protected], call us on the comment line on 206-337-0727, visit the Inside PR Blubrry site, or leave us a comment on the Inside PR show blog.

This week on Inside PR Terry Fallis and Martin Waxman discuss the topic of Word of Mouth, suggested by Bob Crawshaw of Maine Steet Marketing.

Show Notes

00:27 Terry opens the show.

2:24 Housekeeping: Terry introduces the first of two comments.
Brent Kinnaird at the Hamilton Port Authority left a comment about Inside PR # 129 not being up.
*Inside PR #129, is currently only available on some computers, but, for subscribers, is still available on Itunes. We are looking into it.*

5:16 Terry introduces the second comment from Bob Crawshaw of Maine Steet Marketing, who suggests that Inside PR discuss Word of Mouth (WOM).

10:06 Terry mentions WOM expert Sean Moffitt who runs Agent Wildfire.

10:33 Martin talks about WOM.

11:03 Terry talks about WOM.

11:56 Terry reads from Agent Wildfire’s website.

12:49 Terry mentions research on trust and gives the example of the Edelman Trust Barometer.

14:05 Martin talks about WOM in terms of Social Networking sites such as LinkedIn and Twitter.

17:41 Martin mentions that anyone who is interested in WOM should read Malcolm Gladwell‘s book, The Tipping Point.

22:50 Terry mentions Sean Moffitt’s involment with WOMMA and his blog Buzz Canuck.

23:45 Terry closes the show.

Our theme music is Streetwalker by Cjacks and is courtesy of the Podsafe Music Network; Roger Dey is our announcer.

This week’s episode was produced by Janna Guberman.