I recently received the following message from LinkedIn.
Hi Mark,
I'm excited to let you know you've been selected as one of LinkedIn's Most Engaged Marketers in the UK for 2015.
Our list of the top ten Most Engaged Marketers was determined based on a number of engagement factors including connections, group membership, companies followed and content sharing on LinkedIn.
We are finalizing a media advisory to share with marketing trades our 2015 list. Would you have any concerns about being mentioned in our media outreach? We may also want to use a quote from you so let me know if you'd be amenable to that.
We'll be in touch soon regarding details on a celebratory gathering at our office where we'd love to welcome you and the other Most Engaged Marketers this year. Please feel free to reach out if you have any questions at all, and once again congratulations!
This was quite a pleasant surprise. I was not expecting this news. Naturally, I responded by confirming I would be delighted to accept, and happy to meet up.
The meeting was at the LinkedIn offices in London. The offices just off Oxford Street were very swanky. They had just been refurbished, and had all the funky design of a tech company. Including classic red London telephone boxes, free food and drink fridges, chill out zones and mood lighting.
I spent around 40 minutes with them. The meeting was essentially a product workshop. They gave a bit of insight into the roadmap. They also wanted feedback on how we were using the platform. It was good to connect with peers from different industries. The breakfast was also decent. Before departing we were given our gift of an umbrella, moleskin, pen and a year's subscription to LinkedIn Premium.
How do I think I achieved this? Here's the lowdown:
1. Used many LinkedIn tools. This year I was pretty active using all of the tools LinkedIn had to offer. I started using Sales Navigator and also took a trial of Recruiter to hire. This in addition to generally good discipline to keep networking and connecting.
2. Hired through LinkedIn. I think this was a pretty big contributor. I used LinkedIn to get in touch with potential candidates. This put me in direct contact with a lot of people. It was a successful project, although more time consuming than using an agency.
3. Published an article. I only posted one article. It got a few likes, comments and views. It didn't exactly go viral. I assume it did so enough to bump up my ranking.
4. Changed jobs. At the start of 2015 I moved roles. I think a combination of congrats, views and recommendations would have bumped up my rankings.
I don't think there was any more to it than that. I don't spend all that much time on LinkedIn. I think that the activity was across all of the tools on the platform probably met LinkedIn's 'engaged' criteria.
