AI on LinkedIn: Authenticity, Automation and the New Rules

This transcript was generated from the episode audio and lightly edited to remove filler words and obvious repetitions. It may contain transcription errors.

Punit Bhatia:
Hi, my name is Punit Bhatia, and you're listening to the FIT4Privacy Podcast, where AI meets privacy. This is not legal advice. Thanks for listening. Every one of us is on LinkedIn, and if you're on LinkedIn, are you concerned about privacy? Will AI keep it a relevant platform? And how do you use LinkedIn to promote yourself, to engage with your customers, or to engage with a prospective employer? These are interesting questions, and how do we get answers to them? Isn't it fascinating to have someone who's a LinkedIn strategist and helps people transform their profiles? I'm talking about Judi Hays, who's going to be with us and share her ideas on how to make these things happen: how AI is changing LinkedIn, the privacy concerns we have, and how to go about making an impact. Hello, and welcome to another episode of the FIT4Privacy Podcast. We are with Judi Hays. Judi, welcome to the FIT4Privacy Podcast.

Judi Hays:
Thank you for having me here.

Punit Bhatia:
It's a pleasure to have you. I know you would not be classified as a hardcore AI and privacy strategist or consultant, but I still like to ask: how do you see this world of AI and privacy from the world you are in?

Judi Hays:
It's hard to ignore it. What I tell the people I work with, my clients, is to embrace it. Don't rely on it to the point where you've offloaded everything, but use AI as a way to analyze, to assist, and to help you become better and more productive. That's really how I use AI.

Punit Bhatia:
Sure. I think everyone will use AI one way or another in the coming years, and it has already started if they're in tech or using tech one way or another. But AI is also changing a lot of things, especially when it comes to marketing, promotion, and outreach. What impact do you see AI already having on outreach and marketing? People are saying SEO is dead, email marketing is dead, and for sending messages on LinkedIn, you just get an AI bot and it'll do it for you. What has already changed, and what will change in the coming months and years?

Judi Hays:
I wouldn't say those things are dead. I would say they have evolved. For instance, SEO has evolved into AEO, answer engine optimization, and that's a good place where AI can help, especially on a website, where you would analyze a blog post and come up with questions and answers. FAQs are really what ranks, so that is delivering a lot of results.

I would also say I had an interesting situation happen not too long ago. I use audio notes on LinkedIn; they're built into the mobile app. When I get a new connection, I will sometimes send them an audio recording, because I believe that helps increase authenticity. It's me. And it was very interesting: the person responded back and said, "Was that you, or did you use AI to simulate your voice?" I was just taken aback. I thought, wow. And I responded, "No, that is me." It's really interesting, because AI probably could simulate things like that at some point, but what's nice about LinkedIn is that it's really hard to fake an audio message because of the way it transmits between people. So it's interesting how people are starting to expect AI in the interaction, and I think that can really diminish authenticity and credibility. So, like I said earlier, use AI as an assistant, not as a replacement.

Punit Bhatia:
That's very well said: use it as an assistant. And I would extend it further. When you use an assistant, you check the work the assistant has done. When you hired an intern, you checked the intern's work. You didn't say, "He's in college, so he must have done a good job." You checked it. Same thing with AI. Don't expect it to be 100% right. Check it, cross-check it, and double-check it. AI is an average intern.

Judi Hays:
Yeah, it's an average intern, and based on your intelligence, what you ask, and how much detail you explain, it gives you a better answer.

Punit Bhatia:
Yes, it's an average intern who can be super intelligent if you ask super smart questions. But there's also this concern about privacy, especially when we talk about LinkedIn outreach or LinkedIn messages. There are two schools of thought. One says, "No problem, we are here to market. Let's send messages and ask shamelessly." The second school of thought says LinkedIn is a professional platform, so let's stick to professional outreach, and if you send too many messages, too many posts, or too many things on LinkedIn, you will burn your reputation and credibility. And of course, the first school of thought will say, "No, no, that will promote you on LinkedIn." So how do you see the concerns about privacy? Are they genuine, an overreaction, or overwhelming?

Judi Hays:
Well, I think privacy is always a concern. One benefit of LinkedIn is that if somebody is going to do business with you, to some degree they're going to Google your name, and your LinkedIn profile is probably going to come up in the first, second, or third result. So they're going to go to your profile. Nobody should be using LinkedIn to actually sell anything. LinkedIn is, in essence, a digital database. It's a database to identify, find, and engage with professionals, and my goal is always to get a conversation beyond LinkedIn. You use LinkedIn for the initial engagement, and then you have a call, like we're having right now, to bring two people together. Because you don't know if there are fake profiles, and you don't know if people are sending you links that are questionable. I don't like any of that, especially without permission. Anytime that comes into the inbox, I would say never click on a link. To me, that's putting yourself at risk.

So use LinkedIn as a way to identify an audience you want to engage with. Use LinkedIn as a way to convey your subject matter expertise. It's a wonderful platform to educate and delight your audience in a way that aligns with your niche, whatever your specialty is. But work toward building that relationship, just like you would in real life. Say you go to a trade show and you exchange cards with somebody. What do you do? Do you put the cards in a drawer and forget about them, or do you follow up, maybe have a call, and then maybe say, "Let's meet"? LinkedIn is no different. It's a delivery system for that introduction.

Punit Bhatia:
So basically, you're saying: connect with people, talk about the right stuff, approach them with the right questions, and if there's an appetite for anything beyond that, take it offline and then evaluate whether it's a sales conversation. But don't start with, "Here I am, I'm here to sell," or go in hard. A few years back, that happened to Facebook. People created pages, they oversold, and the pages lost credibility, because nobody wanted to follow them once they understood that likes were being bought and posts were being promoted. I'd also like to touch on the fact that, with the popularity of LLMs and AI, I think LinkedIn has adapted its approach to how it looks at different content and different people, basically its algorithms. Are you acknowledging that there is a change? And if so, what has changed? What exactly is the new world of LinkedIn?

Judi Hays:
That's a great question, and yes, there's a shift, a huge shift. Microsoft is the owner of LinkedIn, and Microsoft has just about a majority stake in OpenAI, so they have leveraged that tool over the past 18 months or so to teach LinkedIn's model. Recently, there's been a shift in the way LinkedIn delivers content and shows profiles, so it becomes a real visibility question. Several things are important now. Your profile, your headline, and your About section really need to align. Having just a job title and something very generic, like a copy of your CV, no longer flies. It really needs to build your personal brand on LinkedIn.

The next part of that equation is the network: how well aligned are you, and how well curated is your network? The AI behind this engine is evaluating something like 150 billion factors. In the past, you could buy into an engagement pod and get people to like and comment "great post," and that would boost your post, and things would go viral. Or you could stuff your posts with hashtags, and that would pull you into different feeds. That no longer works, and I think it's a really good shift for LinkedIn, because now your profile and your content will be evaluated and delivered based on integrity.

Punit Bhatia:
Okay.

Judi Hays:
And that's where authenticity, integrity, credibility, and trust really hold weight, which is very important in the high-value, high-ticket professional services arena. The other part is engagement. Likes no longer count; what really holds value is saves. You can save a post, and I love saving posts, because I can go back to them and share them. Content that has that kind of value and gets saved tells the algorithm, "Oh, there's something really important here. People are saving this." The other thing that matters is when people comment with some insight and start a conversation. If you're at an event and you're talking to somebody, and then someone else comes in and you start a conversation among all of you, that's what commenting can facilitate. Again, that sends a signal: there's interesting content here, people are engaging with it, people are saving it, and the people invited to this virtual party are part of your network and their network, and your profiles align. All of this comes together, and that's what delivers your visibility.

It's an interesting shift, and I'm really excited about it, because it means you have to take a look at how you're presenting yourself. People who are just on LinkedIn to pitch slap, which is a term we use a lot, where you connect and boom, they go right into a sales pitch: that's no longer working. It's a welcome change.

Punit Bhatia:
So I'm interpreting that it's no longer necessary to do what people were recommending a few years ago, that you must post three or five times a week and use consistent hashtags. Even if you post once a month, if it's authentic and aligned with your profile, and people are saving it and liking it, that's the way to go. It's no longer about the numbers; it's more about relevance, authenticity, and content.

Judi Hays:
Yes. In terms of cadence, I've always been of the school where I post when I have something to say. However, I engage daily. I comment on at least five to 10 posts a day, based on content I find valuable from people in my network and beyond. So the first thing is to stay engaged on the platform. The second thing is that if you're only going to publish once a month, think about a LinkedIn newsletter, because newsletters are now indexed in Google, which is amazing. If you set up a Google Alert with your name, you might notice that when you post on LinkedIn, it's indexed. When we go back to answer engine optimization, search, and visibility, that holds a lot of weight.

So instead of trying to fit into the best time of day or the best number of posts, if you're going to share content, make sure it aligns with your expertise and that you're the authority to talk about it. If you're uncomfortable sharing content, add comments to people who have good reach and a good audience, and get in the conversation. Then look at your metrics. When you engage, how many people look at your profile from that interaction? How many inbound invitations are you getting? See what your activity is catalyzing, and then you can tweak what's working and what's not. I would look at it holistically.

Punit Bhatia:
That makes sense. You mentioned earlier that you help people elevate their brand, expand their reach, and engage with different stakeholders and customers on LinkedIn, and that's also the title of your book, Elevate, Expand, Engage. Let's take two kinds of people: one is somebody looking for a job, and the second is a young entrepreneur or consultant who wants clients to know what they do. The challenge for the job seeker is that they don't want to say, "I'm available in the market." The entrepreneur or consultant usually can do more than one thing, and the challenge is making it clear that they're available and multi-skilled without missing out on opportunities. What would you recommend for these two presences?

Judi Hays:
I look at them with the same strategy. Let's say business-to-business professional services. If you are looking for a job, then you are the product, and the challenge is how to present the product in its best light. Of course, that starts with the profile, and there are so many aspects of the profile you can build out to demonstrate that. You can send signals to recruiters and companies without necessarily saying you're looking for a job. What you're tapping into is the hidden job market. The way you become visible is through commenting. If you find thought leaders in your field, or in the companies you want to attract, and you get involved in the conversation just like you would in real life, people will see it and think, "Who is that person? Very interesting. Let me look at their profile. Wow, they've done all this. Maybe we should talk to that person." That's what I would say for the job seeker.

For the professional looking to establish their brand, it's the same strategy. They need to put their best foot forward. An analogy I use for LinkedIn, which sometimes helps people understand it, is that LinkedIn is a virtual event. We are all invited to this virtual event. What you wear to the event, whether it's athletic clothes, a business suit, or a ball gown, is how you present yourself, and that's your profile. Your profile is all the accoutrements and the way you look: your personal brand. The next part of this LinkedIn event is the people attending. Some of them you know, some are friends of friends, and some are people you want to meet. That's the network: your first-, second-, and third-degree connections. And the third part of the LinkedIn virtual event is the engagement. People always gather around the food or the beverages, talking in a circle, and you want to get into the conversation. That's the commenting, the content, and the messaging, and that's where the magic happens.

All of those things have to work together. You've got to be dressed for the part, the right people have to be at the event, and there has to be engagement. When those three things happen, you have a positive experience on LinkedIn. And the crazy thing is, it's not one-and-done. It's a dynamic, digital platform, so you should often go back and ask, "Am I resonating with the market I want to resonate with?" If nobody is looking at your profile, you're not getting inbound invitations, and nobody is engaging with your content, it's time to assess and make a change. If you're getting a lot of traction and people are coming to you, and inbound is the best, it means there's something there, unless they're trying to sell to you, and that's a whole other story. Not everybody gets LinkedIn, and not everybody likes it, because they feel like, "Oh, I don't do social media. It's too hard." Just dip your toe in and try. Like I said, start with commenting.

Punit Bhatia:
Makes sense. So is that what you do day to day, helping people transform their profiles?

Judi Hays:
Every day. Usually people come to me because there's a specific outcome in mind, and I help them realize that outcome. It could be to find a job, launch a consultancy, bring in six-figure deals, position their company for sale, or recruit employees. But it all comes down to the professional brand they're portraying: Is it valid? Are they connected to the people who will help accelerate that goal? And are they engaging in a way that feels comfortable for them? I help them through those stages to get to the outcome they're looking for. It's fun. I love it. I could spend 26 hours a day on LinkedIn. But like I said, not everybody loves it, and it is a necessary evil in the professional world.

Punit Bhatia:
I'm certain it's a joyful thing to do, because if you love it, you like helping people, you like transforming things, and you understand the context the way you do, it's a joyous thing to do.

Judi Hays:
Yes. The best experiences I've had are when clients realize the outcome they're looking for and come back to me and say, "It's working. It's working." And I say, yes, that is part of this process and the strategy. It's achievable, but it does take effort. And here's where AI can be detrimental: if you're relying on AI and you're not writing your content or editing your content. AI doesn't have emotion. It doesn't have a voice. I can tell when I'm reading certain things: this is just AI slop. I don't want to read this; I'm not interested. People are using Chrome plugins to comment on people's posts. It doesn't help anything, so why do it? It's actually going to suppress your content and your visibility. It's much better to be deliberate, be authentic, and be present.

Punit Bhatia:
I'd like to expand on that. You mentioned using AI to write comments, and I want to go further. Some people say, "We have a bot, a piece of software, that will profile people, send connection requests, send the first message, then the follow-up, and the follow-up, and the follow-up," and also comment, which you've already cautioned against. Are you suggesting that using these tools and bots to manage LinkedIn for you is a good idea? Of course, it's against LinkedIn's terms, so let's be clear on that. LinkedIn doesn't allow it, and they can even block your profile. What is your view?

Judi Hays:
At least a couple of times a month, people reach out to me and say, "I'm blocked. My account is suspended. What do I do?" I think in the long run, it's going to be detrimental. You may think you're saving time, but you have to understand the other side of that coin: the person receiving it. If a lot of people are using these tools, all of a sudden you blend in with everything else, especially if you're trying to reach the C-suite. I would say the best way to do it is to do it yourself, but use AI.

Here's how I use AI. Say there's a post that's really well written, and I want to add something insightful. I'll talk to my ChatGPT and say, "I really like what this person is talking about, and here's my take on it. Help me organize my thoughts." It gives me an iteration, and then I take it, add my own improper grammar or whatever it is I do, and use that as the basis for a comment. I'll also download a PDF of a profile, which you can do. Before I have a call with a prospect, I'll ask ChatGPT, or whichever model you're using, to look at that PDF, and I've written a script for what I want it to evaluate. I think there's a tool called Crystal that does something like that, but I use my own custom GPT to evaluate the profile, and it pulls out some of the key points I want to discuss during the call. That's another way to use AI: to analyze a profile. I'll also tell the AI, "I want to talk about this topic. Here are the key points I want to communicate. Can you generate an outline for me?" And then I write to that outline. In all cases, I'm not replacing my thoughts or my IP with AI. I'm using it as an assistant.

As far as outreach goes, I tell people: don't fall into that trap. LinkedIn has hundreds or thousands of engineers, and they know more about what you're doing in your browser than you do. If they detect any kind of automation, you will get flagged, and now AI is doing the detection for them. It's happening more and more, so tread lightly.

The other thing I tell people is to make sure you download your network. About 75% of the people I train have never downloaded their database. If you got locked out of your account after spending years building those connections, the content, the recommendations, and all of that, and it's gone, what are you going to do? So the first thing I tell people is to download your database and make sure you have a record of all your content and all your connections. From that download, you can also analyze your network and see who's changed jobs, who's in different roles, and who you could re-engage with. And if you feel you need AI to do it for you, there may be a problem, because people can tell the difference between what I call robot slop, things written by AI, and somebody being a real person. There are no shortcuts to building credibility. It takes so long to build trust and a reputation, and it takes one bad move to break it, and it's really hard to recover from that.

Punit Bhatia:
I agree, that's true. You have your book behind you. How can somebody get a copy, and what is it about?

Judi Hays:
This book is the framework for elevating your professional brand, expanding your network strategically, and then engaging with your most profitable and valuable connections. It's available on Amazon, worldwide I think, so you should be able to find it. It's the framework; it's what I teach. And it really isn't just for LinkedIn. It applies to anything you're doing in business. You do have a brand, whether you're writing on Substack or running a YouTube channel or whatever it is. You've got to elevate that brand and be visible. Then there are ways to attract the people who follow you and engage with you. And how you take that and turn it into real-life conversations is where the magic happens. So thank you for asking.

Punit Bhatia:
That's good to know. I would certainly recommend that people buy the book and also contact you if they're looking to transform their profile. And I believe I don't need to ask where people can find you, because the right answer would be LinkedIn.

Judi Hays:
LinkedIn is the best place, because honestly, it's where I spend most of my time. My email inbox is a crime scene, but on LinkedIn, if you've heard me on the podcast, please mention it. That helps, because I like to know how people come to me, and it brings you into my playground.

Punit Bhatia:
Perfect. Thank you so much for sharing your insights and wisdom with us, and for enlightening us on how the philosophy of taking your brand to market is changing with LinkedIn, what has changed recently, and how it should work. It was a pleasure to have you. Thank you for joining us on the FIT4Privacy Podcast. We hope you found today's conversation valuable and thought-provoking. Subscribe for more insights like this, and if you enjoyed this episode, we'd appreciate it if you'd share it and write us a review. Until next time, stay safe, stay compliant, and grow your skills.