Best of LinkedIn: Social Selling CW 09/ 10

00:00:00: Brought to you by Thomas Allgaier and Frennis, this edition highlights key LinkedIn posts on social selling in weeks nine and ten.

00:00:07: Frennis supports enterprises with enablement and insights providing data-driven sales intelligence flexible support team augmentation and data quality improvements.

00:00:17: so social engagement turns into measurable pipeline.

00:00:20: Right, and if you are working in BDB marketing or sales right now.

00:00:24: You were probably feeling the ground moving underneath?

00:00:27: I mean it's things are changing fast.

00:00:29: Oh absolutely It's a total earthquake.

00:00:30: Yeah.

00:00:31: So our mission for today is deep dive is really to unpack The top social selling trends we've been seeing across LinkedIn specifically In calendar weeks nine and ten because We're looking at this this fundamental shift in how professionals actually connect, how they generate pipeline and honestly just navigate a feed that is suddenly incredibly crowded.

00:00:51: Right!

00:00:51: And we've got to... well.. We have a stack of insights today from people who are actively cracking the code right now-we're bypassing all their generic advice.

00:00:58: We want get straight into mechanics.

00:01:00: what works for you because it will work last year.

00:01:03: The high volume posting?

00:01:05: Exactly!

00:01:05: The automated engagement pods blasting out generic industry updates.

00:01:11: That is completely dead.

00:01:13: Completely

00:01:13: dead.

00:01:14: So this deep dive, it's really designed to be your shortcut a way to master these changes without just Drowning in information overload.

00:01:23: Yeah, and I think we can start right at the source of that shift Right which is the platform's underlying architecture.

00:01:28: a lot of creators have been analyzing this massive algorithm update recently

00:01:33: The three sixty brew thing

00:01:34: exactly three sixty Brew Which is they're calling it?

00:01:37: A hundred and fifty billion parameter AI model

00:01:40: which Is just a staggering number to even think about.

00:01:43: but put That into plain English for second for you listening.

00:01:47: when We talk about one hundred fifty billion parameters that means the AI isn't Just.

00:01:52: It's not just scanning your post for keywords or hashtags anymore,

00:01:55: right?

00:01:55: No.

00:01:55: Not at all.

00:01:56: it actually has the computational weight to understand nuance.

00:01:59: It understands tone context and whether you're posted is actually a genuine insight Or just you know recycled corporate fluff

00:02:06: Precisely.

00:02:07: And Gabriel Krupa and Celine Flores Willers have both been sharing some really deep analysis on this.

00:02:13: over the last couple of weeks, The platform has officially moved away from a likes-based distribution model

00:02:18: Which is how it used to work forever?

00:02:20: Forever!

00:02:20: Right in the past if someone liked your post This system just pushed your content into their network.

00:02:25: It was very linear distribution machine But new architecture Is what they call an interest based model.

00:02:31: It evaluates something called thematic authority.

00:02:34: Okay, so wait let me make sure I have this right.

00:02:37: Does that mean if i usually post about bdb sauce like softwares of service sales strategies but today?

00:02:46: I decide to post a random observation About my dog or I know My marathon training?

00:02:52: does the algorithm actively penalize That?

00:02:55: well it doesn't necessarily penalized The dog picture itself But It absolutely won't distribute at the way it used To because that post falls outside your established thematic authority.

00:03:04: Yeah, ThreeSixtyBrew actually reads your entire profile.

00:03:07: It looks at your historical posts the specific topics you interact with and it builds this highly-specific profile of your expertise.

00:03:14: Gabriel noted this staggering shift in distribution.

00:03:17: The algorithm is now aiming to push your content To roughly seventy percent strangers.

00:03:22: Seventy percent strangers?

00:03:24: Yes,

00:03:24: seventy percent Strangers twenty percent connections And only ten percent to your actual followers.

00:03:30: That is a massive paradigm shift.

00:03:31: I mean, that means your content is constantly being auditioned.

00:03:34: basically it's been put in front of new hyper-targeted interest clusters outside you're immediate network just to see if your authority holds up and the real world

00:03:43: It's the tiktokification.

00:03:44: professional networking

00:03:45: Spot on!

00:03:46: Thats exactly what its.

00:03:47: And to survive that gauntlet You really have understand the new behavioral math.

00:03:51: Stefan Bus actually analyzed a massive data set recently over ten million posts

00:03:57: Ten

00:03:58: million.

00:03:58: Just to figure out what actually triggers this new algorithm and the heaviest signal you can get right now, it's a save!

00:04:05: A save?

00:04:06: Not like not share.

00:04:09: One single save on your post gives five times more reach than standard-like

00:04:14: five times.

00:04:15: That forces a completely different cognant strategy, doesn't it?

00:04:18: Because alike is just.

00:04:20: you know...a digital knot of agreement.

00:04:21: You scroll..you like....You move on.

00:04:23: A save means the reader found information so dense or actionable Or useful that they literally need to reference later.

00:04:30: Exactly So you have build frameworks and checklists or deep analytical breakdowns To actually earn that save.

00:04:36: And Stefan also pointed out that comments are still heavily weighted But only if there're fifteen words more.

00:04:42: So the great post comments are useless now

00:04:44: completely useless.

00:04:45: a fifteen word comment carries two and half times more weight in The system than a short one plus And this is key.

00:04:51: if you as the author reply to a comment within thirty minutes It boosts that specific engagement thread by sixty four percent.

00:04:58: sixty-four percent just for being fast because That speed signals to the AI that alive synchronous conversation Is happening right then and there.

00:05:06: but I want to pull back from the metrics For Just A second Because optimizing fifteen word comments or thirty minute reply windows, it kind of feels like a trap if your core message is weak.

00:05:18: Oh for sure!

00:05:19: Richard Vanderblum who has basically written the definitive guides on this platform's research he argues that most marketers are still playing the wrong game entirely.

00:05:30: He frames it so perfectly, he says people are optimizing for visibility when they desperately need to optimize for relevance.

00:05:36: It's

00:05:36: the megaphone versus the magnet?

00:05:38: Yes!

00:05:38: Megaphone thinking is obsessing over uh...the perfect time of day at a post to get maximum eyeballs.

00:05:44: Magnet thinking is asking what specific painful question Is my ideal buyer typing into his search bar right now?

00:05:51: And Richard's point is that if you write purely to appease the three sixty brew algorithm, You might actually trick this system.

00:05:56: You might get ten thousand views.

00:05:58: but If those views aren't from your target buyers?

00:06:00: You generate zero pipeline

00:06:02: zero.

00:06:03: Zero.

00:06:04: social selling in twenty-twenty six Is no longer an attention game.

00:06:07: it is a memory game.

00:06:08: you need The right people to remember you when their contract is Actually up for renewal

00:06:12: which naturally leads us To the next massive challenge we're seeing.

00:06:15: because

00:06:16: if

00:06:16: corporate company pages are seeing their organic reach just drop to absolute zero under this new interest-based model, companies are panicking.

00:06:25: Oh total

00:06:25: panic!

00:06:26: They're trying to force their employees To become the megaphones.

00:06:30: they want to scale this relevance through their teams

00:06:32: and we were saying Just how poorly that top down approach works.

00:06:37: Ema Sisevich addressed This directly in week nine.

00:06:40: she noted That companies keep asking you know How do We get our employees to post?

00:06:44: And her blunt response is that The moment You try to mandate it the initiative Is dead.

00:06:48: That on arrival.

00:06:49: Yeah,

00:06:49: she points out that your team does not want to do.

00:06:51: you're marketing for free.

00:06:53: Okay but I'm gonna play the skeptic here for a minute.

00:06:56: Realistically how do you get?

00:06:58: A busy engineering team or a stressed-out sales floor to post on LinkedIn without giving them a mandatory push Or at least a pre written corporate script?

00:07:06: because they aren't marketers They don't know how to write viral hooks

00:07:09: and that is exactly The core friction point every company hits.

00:07:13: Ema's solution Is that you give them lanes not scripts.

00:07:17: Lanes, not scripts.

00:07:18: I like that right.

00:07:19: you don't hand an engineer a marketing brochure to copy paste.

00:07:23: You let the engineer talk about the code That broke last week?

00:07:26: You let them talk About the architectural trade-offs they had To make and how They fixed it.

00:07:30: you Let The sales rep Talk about the actual patterns They are seeing in lost steels.

00:07:35: the

00:07:35: real stuff though

00:07:36: Real stuff.

00:07:37: she recommends killing the formal content calendar entirely for employees.

00:07:41: Instead you just ask your team one simple question every Friday What happened this week that the market would pay to know?

00:07:48: Man, valuable expertise without forcing them to sit there and be copywriters.

00:07:55: Finn Witcherley makes a very similar distinction in his analysis too, he observes that most B-to-B companies accidentally build an amplification system

00:08:03: Right where staff just reshare corporate PR announcements Exactly

00:08:07: when what they desperately need is an ambassadorship system.

00:08:10: Yeah Ambassadorship empowers those internal subject matter experts To share unpolished real insights.

00:08:16: And the data backing this up is unequivocal.

00:08:19: Nadine Weber shared metrics recently showing the stark contrast between personal and corporate reach, a CEO or technical lead posting thought leadership insight can easily generate twenty five hundred impressions.

00:08:32: easy but that exact same text word for word posted by the corporate company page it pulls in about one hundred eighty impressions.

00:08:40: painful

00:08:41: It is!

00:08:42: The algorithm favors human profiles by a massive multiplier right now because buyers trust people, not logos.

00:08:49: But implementing that ambassadorship model always hits the wall with the executive team.

00:08:53: I mean Phillip Berner tackled classic leadership pushback head on...the fear as always If we help our best employees build massive personal brands and become highly visible won't our competitors just head hunt them?

00:09:04: IT IS THE MOST COMMON FEAR IN ANY ENABLEMENT MEETING Every time Right.

00:09:08: But Philip counters that by pointing out the visibility actually creates a deep sense of pride and belonging.

00:09:13: When you invest in your employee's professional stature, they become highly engaged an incredibly loyal.

00:09:19: They are statistically less likely to leave.

00:09:21: That makes total sense.

00:09:22: And

00:09:22: furthermore Bradley Keenan analyzed a benchmark report of over two hundred different employee advocacy programs.

00:09:30: He found that nearly eighty percent the successful ones now actively include senior executives.

00:09:36: when the CEO and board are posting their own raw insights, participation across entire business just naturally accelerates.

00:09:43: It creates psychological safety.

00:09:45: If the CEO is talking openly about industry challenges or failures The mid-level manager feels permitted to do exact same thing.

00:09:53: Let's connect these dots for you listening.

00:09:55: We have an algorithm prioritizing deep thematic authority, right?

00:09:59: And we have internal subject matter experts acting as ambassadors.

00:10:03: but how does that actually turn into revenue?

00:10:05: because broadcasting is really only half the battle.

00:10:07: true

00:10:08: this brings us to actual one-to-one outreach and The absolute consensus across weeks nine in ten Is that the spray and pray cold direct message is officially dead.

00:10:17: buried

00:10:18: buyers Have developed this permanent digital callus two automated outreach sequences.

00:10:23: Daniel Dele offered a really sharp perspective on this.

00:10:26: He argues that the problem isn't cold outreach itself, The Problem is random Outreach.

00:10:31: Random Outreach?

00:10:32: Yeah!

00:10:32: Sending generic pitch to someone who has never heard of you Is just complete waste of bandwidth...

00:10:37: He highlighted the concept behind platform called First Touch in his post right?

00:10:42: Yes The premise there is that your next customer's actually already interacting with you.

00:10:47: They are lurking in your feed, they're reading your posts maybe their visiting your profile quietly but...they just haven't raised their hand yet.

00:10:55: Annabelle Pickens refers to this as the hidden pipeline.

00:10:58: Yes

00:10:59: Her strategy is to engage with a prospects content.

00:11:02: first You go leave a thoughtful comment on their post or maybe reply to something they commented.

00:11:24: It sits in other people's comment sections.

00:11:26: He focuses entirely on leaving highly detailed, cheerleading comments on his prospects' posts and this generates what he calls second-degree

00:11:35: exposure.".

00:11:36: Oh that is a brilliant mechanic because the prospect's entire network sees your company name alongside it.

00:11:42: genuinely helpful insight.

00:11:44: Exactly!

00:11:45: Liam Darmady and Raeke Adler have both been very vocal about this strategy too.

00:11:50: they're essentially stating that commenting.

00:11:52: I saw Rake even admit that when his own post saw a drop in algorithmic reach recently, he just started using the slipstream of larger accounts.

00:12:02: The slipstream?

00:12:03: Yeah!

00:12:03: Just like in racing you draft behind a larger vehicle... He leaves these high-quality fifteen plus word comments on massive industry posts and he just siphons that audience's attention to revive.

00:12:17: It's so smart, it all comes down to treating the digital space with the exact same social dynamics as a physical networking event.

00:12:24: Daniel Disney highlighted fascinating interaction recently.

00:12:27: that illustrates this perfectly.

00:12:28: I don't know if you saw this but it started when sales author Jeb Blount Jr posted a meme.

00:12:34: Yeah!

00:12:34: The meme was basically poking fun at lazy highly automated non-personalized sales pitches

00:12:39: Which is a sentiment most of us completely agree with.

00:12:42: Right obviously But Dale Dupree who is another prominent figure in the sales space, he completely misinterpreted the meme.

00:12:51: He thought Jeb was broadly shaming hardworking salespeople.

00:12:55: so Dale aggressively defended the profession and The Thread just started heating up.

00:13:01: other users were jumping in taking sides that had all the ingredients of a talk to an internet pile on.

00:13:06: We see those escalate every single day on the platform.

00:13:08: People just love professional train wreck.

00:13:10: They do, but instead of fighting a public proxy war in The Comments Jeb did something amazing.

00:13:16: He took it offline.

00:13:17: he sent Dale A direct message and they jumped On a phone call to actually talk It through.

00:13:22: wow yeah.

00:13:23: And once Dale understood?

00:13:24: The original context Of the meme he went back To the platform and posted a very Public Very genuine apology.

00:13:30: he completely acknowledged his misinterpretation.

00:13:32: that level of humility is incredibly rare online

00:13:35: It is, and Daniel Disney's point was that this interaction is the gold standard for social selling behavior.

00:13:41: Treat people like human beings.

00:13:43: don't perform for the crowd.

00:13:45: however disney also noted that during that original heated thread a different sales expert josh brawn jumped in trying to demonstrate what he considered a quote-unquote.

00:13:55: good cold pitch

00:13:57: oh no.

00:13:58: And ironically, the example he shared read as highly spammy

00:14:06: to driving all this upstream traffic to your page, Your profile has be ready.

00:14:27: convert that attention.

00:14:29: If a prospect clicks you name after reading great comment and your profile just reads like dry third person resume the friction is way too high.

00:14:37: You lose deal before conversation even starts.

00:14:39: Mandy McEwen & Matt Williams had some very direct advice regarding profile headlines in week ten.

00:14:45: Mandy points out BWB space is drowning in vague meaningless buzz words.

00:14:49: right now You see headlines everywhere, like empowering efficiency and synergy for enterprise clients.

00:14:55: Which means absolutely nothing?

00:14:56: Nothing at all.

00:14:57: Mandy says buyers are skimming.

00:14:59: they just need to know who you help in how you do it period.

00:15:02: And Matt Williams goes a step further.

00:15:04: he calls your headline A Tattoo.

00:15:06: Yeah!

00:15:06: You have to commit something memorable.

00:15:08: He said.

00:15:09: instead of generic internal title Like commercial real estate broker...you NEED A REAL HOOK.

00:15:14: His example was I find nine five dream homes with dock doors.

00:15:19: it is incredibly specific.

00:15:21: It tells you exactly who the target market, what he does and adds a little bit of personality.

00:15:26: clear beats clever every time.

00:15:28: now once that profile has locked in The top performers are leveraging AI but not on the way.

00:15:35: most people think they aren't using to write spam.

00:15:37: Carson V. Hetty broke down a workflow that is frankly astounding.

00:15:41: He's a twenty-five year enterprise sales veteran and he claims this process Is landing him executive meetings at an nearly one hundred percent success rate.

00:15:50: wait A hundred percent conversion rate on executive outreach?

00:15:53: That sounds impossible.

00:15:54: Yeah, how was he prompting the AI to achieve that?

00:15:57: is it just writing the emails for him?

00:15:58: No, no.

00:15:59: The writing is completely secondary.

00:16:00: He uses a I for what he calls Executive Intelligence Compression.

00:16:04: Okay So he takes a prospects company website their latest annual reports the raw transcripts from Their quarterly earnings calls and there are recent LinkedIn activity And he feeds all of that raw unstructured data into a secure AI model.

00:16:17: That is an immense amount of data to process.

00:16:20: It is!

00:16:20: He then uses highly specific prompts, he asks the AI to synthesize the executive's top three strategic priorities for the fiscal year just based on their earnings call... ...he asks it to analyze the executives tone-of voice and most importantly.. ..he asked the AI identify potential strategic blind spots that the company might not be addressing.

00:16:38: Oh

00:16:39: man....that is ultimate cheat code for relevance.

00:16:41: It gets even deeper.

00:16:43: He then prompts the AI draft a two sentence outreach hook utilizing the executive's own specific vocabulary.

00:16:51: And finally, he asks the AI to pre-handle objections.

00:16:54: He prompts it to list five most likely reasons this specific Executive would delete his message and then he refines His outreach To neutralize those exact concerns before they are ever even raised.

00:17:07: This workflow turns a three hour deep dive research task into about fifteen minutes of precision engineering.

00:17:14: That is crucial distinction right there.

00:17:16: AI is not replacing the craft of sales for him.

00:17:18: It's amplifying his research capacity, he still making this strategic human decisions.

00:17:23: Exactly!

00:17:23: The opposite to that as letting the AI write your actual content which is polluting feed right now.

00:17:28: Noam Nephan shared a startling metric.

00:17:31: over fifty-three percent on the LinkedIn feed is currently AI generated and the problem is Human Buyers have developed an instinct for it.

00:17:39: they can spot instantly

00:17:40: because digital callus we talked about applies just as much as direct messages.

00:17:45: Yep,

00:17:46: no one combats this by using a strict humanizer prompt whenever he uses AI for drafting.

00:17:52: He literally programmed the prompt that forbids the AI from using its favorite vocabulary!

00:18:03: Foster, Testnet, Landscape.

00:18:05: All those classic AITELs?

00:18:07: Exactly!

00:18:07: Furthermore he commands the AI to eliminate those preachy generic TED Talk style summary paragraphs that always seem to cap off an AI post.

00:18:15: you know.

00:18:16: in conclusion Let us embrace.

00:18:18: Yes,

00:18:18: it forces the output to be clean specific and stripped of that synthetic gloss.

00:18:23: Taz Burwest added a very philosophical layer To this technological arms race too.

00:18:28: he pointed out That AI by its very nature creates correct but completely forgettable content because

00:18:33: It averages out human knowledge.

00:18:35: Exactly if you want a memorable brand in B-to-B today You have to make bold Human decisions.

00:18:40: you have to take calculated risks?

00:18:43: a clear worldview.

00:18:48: An AI model is programmed to avoid taking the controversial stance.

00:18:51: It really all circles back to the core theme of this deep dive.

00:18:54: We have The Three Sixty Brew algorithm demanding real thematic authority, we have the necessary shift toward genuine employee ambassadorship.

00:19:02: letting your experts be experts...we see the death of the automated pitch in favor high-value slipstream commenting.

00:19:09: and finally we have use AI as an intelligence compressor rather than just a lazy ghost writer And

00:19:14: when you synthesize that it really points into singular reality for BtoB professionals.

00:19:21: software can mimic basic competence.

00:19:23: A bot can generate endless outreach sequences, it can perfectly format a post and it can optimize the headline because competence is now commodity-the only currency that will actually close complex B to V deal in twenty twenty six is trust.

00:19:36: The algorithm requires authenticity to grant you reach and buyers require demonstrable effort

00:19:43: which leads.

00:19:46: If the algorithm is currently rewarding human imperfections, like strong opinions unique frameworks and conversational language just to prove that we are authentic.

00:19:56: How long until AI tools specifically prompted engineer those flaws?

00:20:02: What happens when outreach bots are programmed to add strategic typos use casual grammar and feign emotional vulnerability?

00:20:12: When the bots inevitably master authenticity, how will buyers be able to tell?