Best of LinkedIn: Social Selling CW 43/ 44

00:00:00: provided by Thomas Allgaier and Frennix, based on the most relevant LinkedIn posts about social selling in calendar weeks.

00:00:05: forty-three and forty four.

00:00:07: Frennic supports clients with identifying target attendees for events crafting outreach that cuts through the noise And driving qualified registrations through strategic linkedin engagement.

00:00:17: you can find more info In the description.

00:00:19: so picture this first.

00:00:21: second You log in, you check your marketing dashboard and you realize that the corporate playbook you've been relying on like for years to build a massive B-to-B audience is now the exact reason the platform is actively suppressing your content.

00:00:35: Yeah!

00:00:35: That's a brutal wake up call from anyone at B-To-B Marketing right now.

00:00:38: I mean...you aren't just losing to your competitors anymore ...you are literally loosing to the platforms new architecture.

00:00:44: Exactly Right

00:00:46: Which is why today we're dedicating this deep dive basically mapping out this new reality for you.

00:00:51: If you're trying to figure how actually cut through all the noise and generate real revenue on LinkedIn today, well...you are in a right place!

00:00:58: For sure.

00:00:58: or going to unpack the top social selling trends across the platform now?

00:01:02: Yes specifically tailored for strategic B-to-B marketing professionals we look at three main things today.

00:01:08: first fundamental shift of how algorithm measures credibility.

00:01:13: Yep The New Rules Of Engagement.

00:01:15: Second, we're covering the massive pivot away from corporate brand pages toward employee and executive advocacy.

00:01:21: And then third will get into the actual content and outreach playbooks that are converting attention in to pipeline right now.

00:01:28: And honestly?

00:01:29: The overarching theme we're seeing across all of data.

00:01:32: it's basically a platform fighting an existential war against automation.

00:01:36: like LinkedIn is just terrified at becoming this bot wasteland which makes sense with AI everywhere And Santiago Faus highlighted a massive shift recently.

00:01:47: Users can now explicitly report content as AI slop.

00:01:51: Wait, an actual slop button?

00:01:53: Like you could just flag it!

00:01:55: Yeah exactly the platform is essentially crowdsourcing its quality control by handing users a button to just you know flag.

00:02:02: low effort machine generated noise.

00:02:04: Wow which means all those old growth hacks are suddenly incredibly toxic to your account.

00:02:09: Oh yeah completely dead

00:02:11: Like those engagement bait posts that used to completely dominate the feed.

00:02:14: The ones that were always like, uh comment yes if you agree.

00:02:18: Ugh!

00:02:18: The worst

00:02:19: Yeah Those are being actively hunted and suppressed by the algorithm.

00:02:22: now Because I mean think about it a quick thumbs up or one word comment.

00:02:26: It's the weakest possible signal of human interest Right?

00:02:29: The algorithm has totally pivoted into different kind of behavioral economics.

00:02:33: Its heavily optimizing for saves And dwell time now.

00:02:36: Dwell Time right.

00:02:37: So how long do actually look at screen?

00:02:40: Exactly.

00:02:41: So if someone just scrolls by and clicks like, they haven't learned anything you know?

00:02:46: But if the actually stops scrolling read a long post for two minutes And then hit save That tells the algorithm that the platform has functioned as high value utility.

00:02:55: It's demanding actual participation

00:02:57: And it is doing this in comment sections too Not just posts.

00:03:01: Oh Yeah

00:03:02: Uri Zesser pointed out this fascinating mechanic recently.

00:03:06: He had posted four comments On little counter Right?

00:03:10: But when he scrolled down, you could only see two of them.

00:03:12: Weird!

00:03:13: Where were the other to

00:03:14: right?

00:03:15: so to see that missing ones He had actively switched his sorting option from most relevant To Most recent.

00:03:20: and what did That he found at?

00:03:22: The Two hidden comments Were just blatantly written by AI.

00:03:25: Wow yeah.

00:03:26: So the platform isn't Just ignoring automated engagement anymore it is Actively burying It so human users don't even have to See.

00:03:33: That is a massive barrier to entry for lazy marketing.

00:03:37: Oh, for sure!

00:03:38: But you know the filter actually goes even deeper than just the content of the post itself.

00:03:42: Alicia Teltz who by the way used to work at LinkedIn she shared this insight about credential matching.

00:03:48: that completely changes how you have to set up your profile.

00:03:51: This was part really caught my attention in research.

00:03:54: it's literally checking your background

00:03:56: Yes.

00:03:57: So if you suddenly start publishing, I don't know deep dive analysis on B to be SaaS marketing right but your profile headline and your past work experience say you're a crypto enthusiast.

00:04:09: the algorithm flags that mismatch.

00:04:11: it knows You Don't Have The Chops

00:04:12: Exactly.

00:04:13: Yeah It evaluates Your Historical Footprint And Basically Asks Does This Person Actually have The Verified Credentials To Be An Authority On This Topic?

00:04:25: Like your reach is confined strictly to your existing first-degree network.

00:04:30: It flat out refuses to push content onto new feeds.

00:04:33: It's ruthless!

00:04:34: You know, it operates like a strict bouncer at an exclusive industry club.

00:04:39: Oh I love that analogy.

00:04:40: Right...like the Bouncer isn't just looking at nice clothes you're wearing today.

00:04:44: They are literally pulling up your resume At The Door To make sure professional credentials actually match expertise inside the Club.

00:04:53: Yeah, and if you don't match.

00:04:54: You're getting tossed out

00:04:55: exactly.

00:04:56: which is brilliant for the user experience obviously But man it introduces a major hurdle for marketers

00:05:02: For sure because of the bouncer.

00:05:04: Is that strict?

00:05:05: And reach is getting that suppressed.

00:05:07: how do you actually successfully drive A prospect off the platform and onto your own website to capture lead?

00:05:13: ah

00:05:14: Yes The dreaded link penalty.

00:05:17: yes

00:05:17: this has been the bane of social selling for years but the recent data is just Daggering.

00:05:23: Rand Fishkin analyzed his own performance metrics and found that posts containing outbound links received one-twelfth the impressions of this post without links.

00:05:34: One-twelve?

00:05:35: That is insane!

00:05:36: It does, but let's unpack the platform psychology.

00:05:39: there I mean every social networks primary metric for valuation as user retention.

00:05:43: right time on site.

00:05:45: yeah keep them scrolling.

00:05:46: So if you drop a link to your company blog, You are actively trying to steal their user and take them To your own real estate.

00:05:53: Of course the algorithm punishes you for Trying to break its retention loop.

00:05:56: But marketers tried out smart that right with The classic Link in the comments.

00:05:59: work around?

00:06:00: Oh yeah everybody did That.

00:06:02: but Jennifer Bershina found this tactic is now deeply penalized too.

00:06:06: Her data shows it putting A link In the comment drops Your overall post reach by like sixty to eighty percent.

00:06:11: Wow

00:06:11: Sixty-to-eighty.

00:06:13: Yeah The system just scans the comment section for outbound URLs and throttles the parent post accordingly.

00:06:19: That is brutal.

00:06:20: However, there's a very tactical loophole that Richard van der Blum just identified.

00:06:25: Oh do tell

00:06:26: so.

00:06:26: LinkedIn recently brought back the ability to pin a comment to the top of a thread.

00:06:30: Okay

00:06:31: And he found that if you drop the link in a comment and then actively pinned that comment It has successfully bypassing that heavy penalty and driving reach again.

00:06:39: wait really?

00:06:40: Just by pinning it.

00:06:41: yeah

00:06:42: His pinned link comments were reaching roughly seventeen percent of everyone who saw the original post.

00:06:48: See, that is the exact kind of granular tactic you need to survive today's feed.

00:06:52: but looking at this strategically there isn't even bigger reason to play by these new algorithmic rules and it goes way beyond just getting likes on a Tuesday morning.

00:07:01: Yeah Justin Girard brought up point completely reframes stakes here.

00:07:05: LinkedIn has basically become primary training ground for large language models.

00:07:09: Yes

00:07:10: This Is The Critical Shift.

00:07:12: Tools like chat GPT and perplexity are actively citing LinkedIn as a trusted data source for B to be queries.

00:07:18: I mean, just think about the implications of that posting high quality credential match content consistently.

00:07:25: It isn't just about hacking today's feed anymore.

00:07:27: You were literally feeding training data to AI search engines

00:07:31: Exactly.

00:07:32: When a future buyer asks an AI agent to recommend and expert or vendor in your specific niche, Your historical LinkedIn footprint is what dictates whether you're name surfaces in that AI's output.

00:07:43: So if the algorithm is brutally penalizing generic corporate content And demanding verifiable human expertise To feed these models.

00:07:52: That puts traditional marketing departments In incredibly vulnerable position.

00:07:57: Incredibly

00:07:58: The error of hiding behind A corporate logo is just over, which I guess brings us to the second theme.

00:08:04: The massive shift toward employee advocacy

00:08:07: Yeah and vulnerable.

00:08:09: isn't understatement here that performance gap between a brand page in a human being Is widening at an alarming rate?

00:08:17: Anilora McGranahan shared some data showing company page.

00:08:20: organic reach has literally plummeted by sixty two sixty six percent.

00:08:24: That's rough.

00:08:25: And meanwhile, personal profiles are now commanding roughly sixty-five percent of all distribution.

00:08:30: in the feed The company page gets maybe five percent of the pie

00:08:34: and Devin Reid backed this up with hard pipeline data from factors dot AI.

00:08:38: Oh I love actual pipeline data.

00:08:41: Right when they analyzed what actually drives business They found that organic social posts Are What Persuade Buyers Accounts that engage With Organic Post From Individuals.

00:08:50: When Significantly More Deals Paid ads, they just buy reach.

00:08:56: But when it comes to actual clicks and engagement a human face dramatically outperforms the corporate logo.

00:09:02: You completely upends the traditional marketing hierarchy.

00:09:05: Jenny Gurdinsky summed It Up perfectly.

00:09:07: I think she said brand accounts have Just been demoted.

00:09:10: They are no longer The main character of your strategy.

00:09:12: so true

00:09:13: you really only exist to act as amplifiers for the Human voices in Your company

00:09:17: yeah?

00:09:17: There's just this support system now.

00:09:19: but okay Let me push back on This first.

00:09:21: second because In theory Decentralizing your messaging sounds fantastic, right?

00:09:25: Sure.

00:09:26: But in practice especially in highly regulated industries This is a corporate communications nightmare.

00:09:31: Like what if you turn every employee into a walking billboard and the sales director goes rogue an accidentally misrepresents a product feature or Wades into a messy political debate?

00:09:41: Yeah that happens.

00:09:42: That's not just a bad post that has any potential lawsuit.

00:09:44: So how does the company actually balance The algorithms demand for raw authenticity with illegal teams to man for zero risk.

00:09:52: it basically the defining tension of modern marketing right now.

00:09:56: Melanie Goodman articulated this beautifully, she said that corporate leaders absolutely love Right up until the moment someone actually uses it.

00:10:05: It's

00:10:06: real authenticity

00:10:08: is messy, but she makes a profound point about The trade-off.

00:10:11: leaders have to actively trade control for Authenticity.

00:10:14: like if you want the deep trust that only A human voice can generate You have to accept That your people are going To write the way they talk and it won't go through five rounds of PR revisions If an employee says something slightly off brand usually isn't a crisis?

00:10:29: It's a localized signal telling you where your internal culture or product messaging needs better alignment.

00:10:35: You just cannot micromanage human connection?

00:10:37: Yeah, really can't.

00:10:38: But companies definitely still try often with disastrous results.

00:10:43: Melissa Rosenthal pointed to massive cautionary tale happening right now with Microsoft.

00:10:47: Oh yeah They are making this big push To get their employees to act as creators.

00:10:51: Right but internally Their communications team Now reports directly legal.

00:10:57: Wow That organizational structure tells you everything you need to know about the content they are going produce.

00:11:02: Exactly!

00:11:03: When your social media guidelines are being dictated by lawyers whose entire job is imagine how a single sentence might read during congressional hearing, You're gonna produce content that sounds completely robotic.

00:11:15: And Robotic Is The Exact Thing.

00:11:16: The Platform Is Designed To Punish Now.

00:11:19: Exactly It Completely Defeats The Purpose.

00:11:22: Well, before we break down how to actually execute an advocacy program without sounding like a robot.

00:11:27: I just want to say if you are finding this analysis helpful for your own strategy make sure you hit subscribe so you catch future deep dives!

00:11:33: We love getting into the mechanics.

00:11:35: Like, you can't just rely on one founder posting a few times a week anymore.

00:11:55: You need to identify a roster of maybe four-to five executive voices and align all of them around one core ideal customer

00:12:03: profile.".

00:12:04: Okay so it's small focus team?

00:12:06: Yeah!

00:12:07: And to get them comfortable Corey Lindsay shared a brilliant internal workflow from Clavio...

00:12:11: Oh what do they?

00:12:12: They use a training wheels approach.

00:12:14: You don't ask a nervous executive or sales engineer to write thought leadership manifesto on day one, right?

00:12:19: That's way too much pressure

00:12:21: Way Too Much.

00:12:22: Instead you have them start by simply resharing an existing brand post but requiring them To add their own personal take Or contextual layer at the top of it.

00:12:31: Oh that is smart.

00:12:32: It drastically lowers The psychological barrier to entry.

00:12:35: Add your perspective to this.

00:12:36: data Is a safer easier prompt Than create something from scratch.

00:12:40: Exactly It builds their daily habit, it builds their confidence in their own voice and once they find that rhythm They naturally graduate to writing original native content.

00:12:50: It's a scalable system And you know if you are rolling that system out across the global enterprise.

00:12:55: Victoria Ivanova highlighted this sort of golden rule.

00:12:58: She says you need one core corporate message But it has to be delivered through a multitude of localized voices.

00:13:05: right?

00:13:06: So what, like the core value proposition is strictly defined by marketing.

00:13:11: But how?

00:13:13: The cultural tone...the local anecdotes....the specific phrasing that has to be fully surrendered to the individual.

00:13:20: I love that!

00:13:21: Let's assume we have a team mobilized.

00:13:23: The executives are posting and profiles match their credentials.

00:13:26: The algorithm is happy.

00:13:29: What exactly should they say in order for them build trust?

00:13:32: Right, let's get into the actual content playbooks.

00:13:34: That is our third theme.

00:13:36: Ryan Musselman pointed out a major shift in buyer psychology regarding tone.

00:13:41: he argues that authority style is becoming deeply cringe on the platform.

00:13:46: Yeah, authority style's when someone positions themselves on a pedestal right?

00:13:50: It's the posts that dictate here as the absolute only way to scale in twenty-twenty six or if you don't do X You will lose

00:13:58: Y. Oh I hate those post

00:13:59: Right.

00:13:59: mechanically it triggers A defensive reaction and The reader makes him feel lectured too Or overtly prepped for a sales pitch.

00:14:07: just feels desperate.

00:14:08: Nobody likes being talked down To.

00:14:09: yeah.

00:14:10: So what's the alternative you suggest?

00:14:13: He advocates for narrator style content.

00:14:16: This is where you position yourself alongside the reader, You start posts with phrases like I'm seeing a strange trend emerge in or i've noticed a disconnect between

00:14:26: No interesting

00:14:27: Yeah!

00:14:27: You basically act as a guide observing The landscape inviting the reader to look at the data With you and draw their own conclusions.

00:14:34: I see It shifts the entire dynamic from A lecture To a collaboration

00:14:38: And it builds incredible trust.

00:14:40: And then in terms of structuring that content, Noah Greenberg found that highly formatted instructional posts perform incredibly well right now.

00:14:48: Why is it?

00:14:48: Because we know the algorithm values saves.

00:14:51: so building a post that functions like a reference manual using bulleted lists bolded takeaways clear steps That drives massive impressions.

00:15:00: people save it because its visually structured to be useful later.

00:15:03: It makes perfect sense.

00:15:04: The psychological framing of a post can change everything, even if the core information is identical.

00:15:10: Matt Williams actually ran an incredible experiment on this.

00:15:13: Oh!

00:15:13: What did he do?

00:15:14: He published a post built around multiple-choice questions for his audience and it completely bombed.

00:15:19: I mean got one hundred seventy five impressions.

00:15:22: Wow barely anyone saw right.

00:15:24: so we took the exact same core concept the exact Same underlying Information but you just rewrote.

00:15:31: instead of a quiz He framed it as a challenge for his audience to rally around and solve.

00:15:36: Okay, that rewritten post jumped over forty three thousand impressions.

00:15:41: You're kidding

00:15:42: nearly two hundred fifty times increase in reach.

00:15:44: Yes solely from shifting the psychological framing from a passive test To an active challenge.

00:15:49: That is wild Yeah.

00:15:52: But you know Discovering of that winning framing requires A lot of trial-and-error.

00:15:57: all The experts we analyzed were Totally unanimous on this.

00:16:00: You have to prioritize reps over perfection,

00:16:02: right?

00:16:03: Just get the reps in.

00:16:04: yeah

00:16:04: Noem Nissan stressed that people waste months obsessing over finding The perfect niche before they ever hit publish.

00:16:11: His advice is to abandon That entirely and just Get fifty posts out into the wild.

00:16:15: just hit published fifty times.

00:16:17: Yeah because you don't know what your voice Is until you test it against an audience fifty Times.

00:16:21: Georgia Tagara is a perfect example of This.

00:16:24: she hit one million impressions In just seven-and-a-half months.

00:16:27: It's huge.

00:16:28: And her primary lever wasn't some magic growth hack.

00:16:31: It was just relentless consistency Yeah,

00:16:35: and Shweta Sharma accelerated her growth in a similar way by finding one specific format that worked.

00:16:40: Just the single image combined with text and repeating it over-and-over while also leaning heavily into controversial myth busting takes to drive engagement.

00:16:50: So okay The content is dialed in.

00:16:52: your team has found their narrator voice They're posting consistently and the awareness is pouring.

00:16:58: But, awareness does not automatically pay the bills.

00:17:00: No it is not.

00:17:01: Which brings up most frustrating disconnect in social selling?

00:17:05: The transition to direct message?

00:17:07: Yes Yeah, people do all this sophisticated empathetic work to attract an audience and then the exact moment they get a prospect in The DMs.

00:17:16: They immediately revert To A hard product pitch In the very first message.

00:17:19: it's

00:17:19: the worst.

00:17:20: It is the equivalent of walking up to a group Of People having a nuanced conversation at a networking event Interrupting them mid-sentence shoving a Product brochure on their face And asking for fifteen minutes On Their calendar basically like proposing marriage on our First date.

00:17:34: it Is just socially tone deaf

00:17:36: exactly.

00:17:37: It happens because sales teams still confuse social selling with cold outbound emailing.

00:17:42: Connor Paulson breaks down the data on why this fails so spectacularly.

00:17:47: if your initial outreach message focuses on your solution and asking for a demo, you're reply rate plummets to roughly five-to eight percent

00:17:55: which is abysmal.

00:17:58: But if you design your outreach to focus entirely on the prospects problem, like if you offer an observation or ask a question about their workflow rather than asking for a meeting.

00:18:08: Your reply rate jumps to twenty to thirty percent.

00:18:11: Wow!

00:18:11: You have to delay the pitch to earn the conversation.

00:18:14: Okay tactically speaking though how are the best teams actually initiating those conversations?

00:18:20: Well Nick Segelsky outlined a few brilliant maneuvers.

00:18:23: The first is bubble hunting.

00:18:25: Bubble Hunting.

00:18:26: Yeah, you open your messages view scan your prospect list for the little green active dot on their profile picture and You send your message at the exact moment.

00:18:35: They are active on the platform.

00:18:37: It drastically increases the chance of an immediate synchronous conversation.

00:18:40: Oh that's clever!

00:18:42: You catch them while they're already in a responsive mindset

00:18:44: Exactly.

00:18:46: He also advises a strategy of matchmaking.

00:18:48: if you are trying to surround a complex enterprise deal Don't just rely on one account executive.

00:18:54: have your sales engineer send a connection request to their technical lead.

00:18:57: Have your VP sent an relevant article to their VP?

00:19:00: I see You create a web of peer-to-peer connections that makes it feel like you're two companies are already integrated.

00:19:07: That totally eliminates the single point of failure.

00:19:10: But, y'know The timing for this outreach is just as crucial As who actually sends it.

00:19:15: Steve Richard provided a benchmark that feels a little counterintuitive but It make perfect sense based on algorithm rules we discussed earlier.

00:19:23: Yeah, he advises that when a prospect finally accepts your connection request you should not message them immediately.

00:19:31: You wait?

00:19:31: You wait two full weeks.

00:19:33: That's fascinating!

00:19:35: Let us explain the mechanism behind it.

00:19:36: Why Two Weeks?

00:19:38: Because The algorithm inherently prioritizes showing content for people you just recently connected with.

00:19:45: So if hold off on pitching For two weeks Your basically giving the platform time to organically seed their feed With high value narrator style content.

00:19:55: Oh, that is so smart!

00:19:56: Right by the time you finally send that first message.

00:19:59: they already view you as an insightful peer not a desperate vendor.

00:20:03: he says.

00:20:04: if you follow this discipline You should be targeting a thirty two percent connection acceptance rate and a fourteen percent actual reply rate.

00:20:12: That requires immense discipline though

00:20:15: which aligns perfectly with David JP Fisher's core philosophy on this.

00:20:19: He says none of these tactics work if you treat social selling as a separate isolated task on your calendar.

00:20:25: Right, it's not a chore

00:20:26: exactly.

00:20:27: You don't just log in on Friday afternoons to do Social Selling.

00:20:31: It has to be seamlessly integrated into your daily sales workflow.

00:20:34: operating the background of everything else you Do

00:20:36: okay?

00:20:37: So synthesizing Everything we've unpacked today for this strategic marketer The platform is actively hiding bots and demanding verified human credibility.

00:20:46: Corporate brand pages are losing massive reach to personal employee profiles.

00:20:51: And narrator style content is building trust while aggressive pitches in the DMs, or just killing pipelines?

00:20:58: Yeah and if we pull all of this together I think that most provocative takeaway brings us right back to Justin Gerard's insight about artificial intelligence.

00:21:07: If large language models are actively scraping and training themselves on LinkedIn data right now, then your social selling strategy isn't just a tactic for winning today's newsfeed.

00:21:17: It is so much bigger than that!

00:21:18: it really is.

00:21:19: You're actively writing the script that AI agents will use to evaluate and recommend vendors to B-to-B buyers tomorrow.

00:21:27: Think about the gravity of that.

00:21:28: Yeah... if you executives were silent today If your team is too afraid of legal to publish their actual expertise, you won't even exist in the AI's consideration set.

00:21:39: Your company will simply be invisible

00:21:56: and channel marketing and partner ecosystem.

00:22:01: Thanks for joining us on this deep dive!

00:22:03: Don't forget to subscribe, we'll see you in the next one.

00:22:06: And remember keep your credentials ready with that algorithmic bouncer.