Gareth says his focus is the monetisation of this autism. One of his obsessions is LinkedIn. And he decided with his knowledge of LinkedIn he should help people get better with Linkedin. Gareth is also a percussionist. Marcus explains we do have a show about what we can learn from the music business.
Gareth has been on LinkedIn just a year after I began. He has been on it 14 or 15 years. LinkedIn has been owned by Microsoft for quite a long time. More recently Microsoft has been getting more involved and they have been pushing users into paying for the use of the platform. Gareth says that up until recently it’s been possible to use LinkedIn as a free user. And if you use Linkedin to find a job then you can still manage free. But if you are trying to grow your tribe and your business it is very hard now without premium. It effects now even how much your posts are seen. LinkedIn give you a score your SSI score which you can find here. Having premium effects that score.

Gareth says that connecting with people is important and he has an connection message he thinks you should use. Gareth says an initial message ensures you get a higher connection rate and you get more of a response after the connection, if you started with a connection message. He thinks now up to 20 touches are needed on LinkedIn before you can get someone to do something you have asked.
Gareth says commenting on other peoples stuff is really important. He also says posting about other peoples work and asking questions is a great way to go. Gareth recommends having a camera in your LinkedIn profile photo. That enables connections to know what you do almost instantly.
Gareth says he works on the principal that he gives away 80% of what he does. He wants people to see him as an authority in this field. So he gives them stuff people can test him on. They use it and then they start to trust him.
Gareth then talks about the SSI. This is based on 4 different scores added together. Those four scores are different aspect of LinkedIn such as interacting and connecting. Posting regularly and commenting and liking other peoples content is another part.

Gareth also recommends resisting using AI to create content. But says it’s great for structure and helping to improve your content.
Top voice is the next topic. For anyone with over 1000 followers you get asked by LinkedIn to comment on some things. You can use this to become a “top voice”. To do this you have to answer and write comments on AI generated content. So Gareth recommends follow the link when you are asked to comment, but then within that topic do not comment and move up to the top level where you can chose topics. You can then see all the topics A-Z. Pick one that is close to you, then in that section pick a sub-section relevant to you. Then comment only on topic in this area. Gareth recommends in these area to be provocative and ruffle some feathers. That will get responses. You only get top voice if your comments get further comments and interaction.

Gareth’s final tip is ensure you have the odd spelling mistake in some things you do to show you are not AI. Also avoid “Z”s in your work, which shows that content has been made by AI using American spelling.