Richard van der Blom

Tired of LinkedIn™️ not delivering the leads you need? Struggling to stand out in all the noise? Too much advice, not enough results? Running out of time to land new clients? Wondering how to turn connections into paying customers? I’ve got exactly what you need!  ☎️ 𝘁𝗲𝗹. +𝟯𝟭 𝟲 𝟱𝟱𝟭𝟭 𝟳𝟮𝟴𝟮

𝗪𝗵𝗼 𝗔𝗺 𝗜?
I'm Richard van der Blom, born in the Netherlands 🇳🇱, currently living the Spanish 🇪🇸 life. My world revolves around my partner Evelina 🇦🇷, our delightful doodle Siena 🇩🇪, and an undying love for international cuisine 🍲 , travel, Pearl Jam 🎶 , and yes, a Gin-Tonic 🍸 . Once a technical wizard on the football ⚽️  field, now I get my kicks from steering businesses towards success on LinkedIn™️.

𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗪𝗲 𝗗𝗼
We specialize in leveraging comprehensive, evidence-based strategies to enhance LinkedIn™️ engagement and effectiveness for B2B clients. Our partnerships with a diverse clientele of over 900 companies and the mentorship of more than 300,000 professionals have enabled us to develop a robust repository of best practices and actionable insights. Our commitment to ongoing research in social selling, content optimization, and staying ahead of LinkedIn’s algorithmic updates ensures that our consultancy and training services are at the forefront of the industry, delivering customized solutions that drive tangible business outcomes.

𝗛𝗼𝘄 𝗖𝗮𝗻 𝗬𝗼𝘂 𝗕𝗲𝗻𝗲𝗳𝗶𝘁?

𝗝𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝗻𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗛𝗨𝗕
An independent 100% dedicated LinkedIn™️ training and consultancy agency. Founded in 2009, we empower our clients with insights-based LinkedIn™️ training for sales, marketing and recruitment professionals as executives and consultants. In 7 native languages, online and on-site.

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗧𝗥𝗜𝗕𝗘
Join my vibrant online community of 150+ members. We're all about leveraging social selling to amplify your online presence through continuous training, community events, and masterclasses. Learn from industry leaders and become part of a groundbreaking training community.

𝗞𝗲𝘆𝗻𝗼𝘁𝗲 𝗦𝗽𝗲𝗮𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴 
I bring the stage to life – either live or virtually – with insights that 99.9% of LinkedIn™️ experts can't match. Rated as the Best Keynote Speaker in over 80% of my engagements, I'm here to deliver strategies that truly make a difference and inspire business growth

𝗦𝗼...
Dive into the transformative world of insights-based LinkedIn™️ strategies and training – to see more results, with a more efficient and less time-consuming approach

📞 +31 6 5511 7282
✉ Or share your ambition with me via richardvanderblom@justconnecting.nl

Public Speaker / Keynote Speaker

Renowned international keynote speaker, deeply passionate and knowledgeable about a range of topics including LinkedIn, Social Selling, Content Strategy, and the evolving landscape of Sales. My expertise is in delivering insights-based, engaging, and impactful keynotes.

With a track record of delivering 60+ keynotes across cosmopolitan cities such as Buenos Aires, Marrakech, Austin, Paris, Copenhagen, Athens, Vienna, and Dubai, my global experience enables me to bring unique perspectives and insights to every event.

I'm proud to have been rated as the best speaker at 80% of all events I've attended, with an impressive average rating of 9.1 out of 10. As a speaker, I am dedicated to not just sharing knowledge, but also inspiring change and action. My talks are a blend of current trends, practical strategies, and forward-thinking ideas, designed to empower professionals to thrive in today's dynamic sales environment.

Dannos Tsakalos (CEO)
Richard was one of the 10+ international speakers who took the stage at our annual Social Media & Influencer Marketing Conference (Athens October 2023). He was the last who took the stage, yet he managed to captivate the audience and received an impressive rate of 9,5/10. Why? Because, in a nutshell, he is a gifted presenter, a true expert who delivers tons of actionable insights and useful tips around LinkedIn and how to stand out on it.

Michael Geary (CEO - SMPS)
I have had the pleasure of witnessing Richard in action at our annual marketing conference, Amplify A|E|C, and I am was impressed by his ability to captivate and engage audiences. He's a true master of a stage presentation and communication skills. Richard possesses the talent for making complex ideas accessible and compelling. He has the the ability to distill intricate concepts into clear, concise messages that resonate with our audience.

5 ways LinkedIn silently kills your post. 
No warning. No explanation. Just... gone.

Analyzed 600,000+ posts, found algorithm behaviors that LinkedIn will never publicly acknowledge. Some are brutal. Some are bizarre. All are real.

1.     The 60-Minute Cliff

Your post gets 50+ engagements in the first hour. Comments flowing. Likes stacking. You're thinking "this one's going viral."

Then... nothing. Complete flatline at minute 61.

We've tracked posts where 50%+ of ALL lifetime engagement came from that first hour — then the algorithm just... stopped distributing. No second wave. No extended reach. Dead.

Why? Our theory: LinkedIn's "quality gate" triggers at the 60-minute mark. If engagement velocity doesn't hit a specific threshold relative to your follower count, the algorithm assumes the content peaked. Distribution stops.


2.     The “See More” Shadow Ban

This one's eerie. Post something critical about LinkedIn, gender issues, religion, or politics. Get decent engagement. Someone clicks "see more" to expand your post and...

It vanishes. Not scrolls down. VANISHES. Gone from their feed entirely.

We've replicated this dozens of times. The post still exists on your profile. But it's been quietly removed from active distribution. No notification. No policy violation. Just algorithmic erasure.

3.     The Ambassador Penalty

This one breaks my heart. You have 15-20 loyal supporters. Real people. Genuine fans of your content. They comment on everything you post — manually, thoughtfully, because they actually care.

And LinkedIn punishes you for it.

When the same accounts engage with your content repeatedly, the algorithm flags it as "artificial engagement patterns." Your reach gets throttled. Sometimes immediately. Your biggest fans are accidentally killing your distribution.

4.     The Ghost Follower Drain

You have 10,000 followers. But only 2,000 are "active" (logged in within 30 days).
LinkedIn doesn't care about your total count. It calculates engagement rate against your 𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘳𝘦 follower base — including the ghosts.

So your 200 likes on a post? 
LinkedIn sees that as 2% engagement on 10K followers. Mediocre. Distribution slows.

Meanwhile, someone with 2,000 active followers gets 200 likes and LinkedIn sees 10% engagement. Exceptional. 


5.     The Hashtag Trap

Using hashtags should expand your reach, right? Not anymore.
Posts with 3+ hashtags now consistently underperform posts with 0-2 hashtags. But here's the strange part: it's not gradual. At exactly 3 hashtags, we see a 15-20% reach drop. At 5+, it's 35%+.

LinkedIn's spam detection now treats hashtag stacking as a manipulation signal. The very feature designed to help discovery is now triggering suppression.

The algorithm isn't evil. It's just optimizing for metrics we can't see. Understanding these hidden rules won't guarantee virality. But ignoring them guarantees suppression.

Which of these surprises you the most? Drop a number (1-5) in the comments

Helping B2B Sales & Marketing Teams Turn LinkedIn into a Lead Generation & Business Growth Engine | Social Selling Expert | International Keynote Speaker| 4x Investor

Your 2024 LinkedIn tactics are killing your 2026 reach.
Lifespan of posts have changed, and this is how you can extend them

Please understand this. The algorithm didn't just update. 
It fundamentally shifted — from network-based to interest-based.

Here's what that means for your post lifespan:

𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟰 𝗣𝗼𝘀𝘁 𝗟𝗶𝗳𝗲𝘀𝗽𝗮𝗻:
• 20% of total reach in first hour
• 65% in first 24 hours
• 85% in first 48 hours
• Post dies around 84 hours

How to extend it? Likes, comments, engagement from your connections and followers. Being relevant to your inner-circle.

Boost tactics? Pods. Replying to every comment.

𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟲 𝗣𝗼𝘀𝘁 𝗟𝗶𝗳𝗲𝘀𝗽𝗮𝗻:
• 40% of total reach in first hour (2x faster!)
• 55% in first 24 hours
• 65% in first 48 hours
• Last 5% often comes after 6-8 days

How to extend it? Saves, reposts, comments from 2nd and 3rd degree connections. Being relevant to your Interest Cluster.

Boost tactics? Paid promotion. Getting into Suggested Posts.

See the shift?

In 2024, your network decided your reach.
In 2026, your topic relevance decides your reach.

Your connections don't matter as much anymore.
Your content's fit to interest clusters matters more.

Pods? Mostly useless now — the algorithm sees through same-network engagement patterns.

The new currency? 
Strangers saving and reposting your content.

𝟰 𝗧𝗶𝗽𝘀 𝘁𝗼 𝗘𝘅𝘁𝗲𝗻𝗱 𝗬𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗣𝗼𝘀𝘁 𝗟𝗶𝗳𝗲𝘀𝗽𝗮𝗻 𝗶𝗻 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟲:

1. Write for saves, not just likes. Ask yourself: "Would someone bookmark this to reference later?"

2. Create repost-worthy content. Give people something they want to share with their audience — not just react to.

3. Target interest clusters, not your network. Your ICP might be a 3rd-degree connection who's never heard of you.

4. Front-load value in the first hour. 40% of your reach happens there — make those first 60 minutes count.

The algorithm isn't broken.
It just stopped caring about who you know.

Now it only cares about what you know — and who needs to hear it.

Still optimizing for 2024? 
You're already behind.

Which shift surprises you most — the speed (40% in first hour) or the extended tail (6-8 days)?

Tidewater Productions, LLC - "Helping Writers Become Authors!" 

Book Editor

Self-Employed

Freelance Copyeditor, Editor, Proofreader and Content Provider. 

Recently finished a six book contract with "Living Water" Christian Ministries. The six books are now available on Amazon and Kindle.  It went so well that they gave me another contract for several new books by Dr. Phyllis Jackson-Hamilton. I am now working on other books for other ministries.

Wordsmith

Took some time out to complete several refresher courses that will help me get my hand back into Technical Writing and Management.

Sabbatical

Completed 
* a biography for a celebrity. 
* a textbook/workbook for that same client. 

Experience includes these areas, plus legal documentation, technical writing, support documentation.

Ghost Writer

Rich Marsh & Associates

Providing consulting assistance in multiple fields for small clients including: 
- Technical Support
- Management
- IT Security
- Quality
- Cross-Cultural Adaptability 
- Marketing

Technical Consultant

Kroger

Duties 
Responsible for customer service, daily store operations, hiring and training associates, product stocking, loss prevention, and  ensuring compliance to the marketing plans, as well as compliance to all local, state and federal laws and regulations as well as union contracts. 

Accomplishments
- Saved the life of a customer who was having a heart attack. 
- Formally commended for my leadership during a serious Freon gas leak and during an armed robbery. 
- Helped lead the restoration of a store that was damaged by Hurricane Ike.
- Performed an internal audit that found fraud by a senior associate. 
- Saved the store more than $62k of frozen products that would have been thrown away, through the use of a new technology thermometer test system.

Co-Manager

Fastteks

Duties	
Provided on-site support and consulting for hardware and software problems. Educating customers on the many kinds of system problems caused by internet use, including criminal activity and user mistakes.

Accomplishments
- Solved numerous customer problems.

Lead Field Consultant / Web Site Developer

Digital Archiving

Duties  
Business development and process design for a small firm that organized, digitized and annotated photographic images. Consulted on technical, security and archive issues for our customers.

Accomplishments
Business was successful, but we closed following the serious illness of my partner.

Part-Owner, Technical Mgr, Consultant

Dynegy

Duties 
Concurrently ran two development teams and did all the project management for their work. The Analytics team provided direct programming support for Dynegy's Strategic Marketing and Traders. The Notes team did all of Dynegy’s internal Lotus Notes®/Domino® business process development work.

Accomplishments
- Completely reorganized Dynegy’s dysfunctional Lotus Notes development team, implementing new RADD methods, cutting development time by nearly 40%, improving customer satisfaction and saving costs of $116k(annualized).
- Implemented RADD methods that cut response time by 39% and also dramatically improved customer satisfaction for Dynegy’s Trading Floor Development Team.
- Delivered Lotus Notes/Java tools to track all the Power and Gas energy trading positions on a central VPN web-site. This enabled the expansion of daily trading volume from $450k to more than $1.5m while dramatically reducing financial risk and giving an immediate savings of $88k through the use of RADD methods. 
- Ran 7 other major projects, and 11 minor ones.

Analytics Manager (TATSRAD)

Duties 
Managed the Tools Development/Support Team that implemented tools for an IBM development site that was part of a larger multi-continent development group with simultaneous work being done in New Zealand, Canada, the Philippines and France. 

Accomplishments
- Successfully led the cross-functional Y2K effort for IBM's only "Critical Site" in SE Texas. Cited internally as “among the best” in IBM and passed Y2K with no issues.
- Helped design and then implement IBM’s ATLAS® Software Development & Project Control tools, for development teams based in multiple locations around the world.

Software Tools Manager/Advisory Professional

DPI/TFS - A wholly owned subsidiary of IBM

Duties 
Created and ran the Quality/Internal Audit group for an IBM development site that was part of a multi-continent development group. Also ran several cross-functional Process Improvement teams and Project teams, and consulted on ISO 9001®. 

Accomplishments
- Led the design and implementation of ISO-9001 certified development system for our site, 5 months ahead of schedule and well under budget. Our auditors, Underwriter Laboratories , cited us for  “Leadership” and “Excellence” out of all the IBM sites that they audited. 
- Ran a cross-functional project team that re-engineered our development methods using CMM standards, resulting in an average 35% cost savings per project. Then led them into RADD methods, resulting in quality software doing for 80% less than it had at the start. 
- Created and taught classes in Cross Cultural Adaptability so that our English-speaking sites were able to exploit our cultural differences to the benefit of the larger organization.  
- Twice in four years ranked the "Top Manager" out of 22 on site, both by direct management evaluation and by internal confidential staff surveys.

Quality Manager (DPI/TFS)

NYNEX / DPI

Duties 
Ran the Customer Service group for a large software development team and ran the Service Marking group.  When IBM purchased the firm, also took over responsibility for the Software Documentation group. 

Accomplishments
- Turned around the overloaded support department. Reduced the backlog of customer cases from 398 "open" problems by over 90% while producing an major improvement in Customer Satisfaction indexes, and reducing service costs by almost 50%.  This improved staff morale and productivity while customer satisfaction survey results shot up 69% to the point where 89% of respondents described themselves as “Very Satisfied.” 
- Created and implemented new tools to manage and measure Service Resource Allocation, Failure/Mode Defect Analysis, Customer Issue Resolution, and Customer Satisfaction.
- Eight months after starting, assumed additional responsibility managing the technical writing group. Within six months, customer surveys showed a 14% improvement in satisfaction with their work while staff retention also improved.

Manager, Client Services

Author, Writer, Book Editor, and Professional Researcher. Helping Writers Become Authors. Also assisting those between jobs, unemployed, find new jobs!

I help Writers become Authors!         #BookEditor #ghostwriter #researcher
◉ I've been researching, copy-editing, proofreading, layout, fonts and final formats for my clients. Recent examples include: A popular book on Executive Leadership by the Director of a Veteran's Organization, six books for an international Christian Ministry, and several other books by new authors.  I specialize in Ministry, Business, and History, and other non-fiction topics.  

◉As a book editor, I hammer words into clear, concise communications. I’ve learned to solve the hardest problem of every book editor – how to retain the author’s voice, while enabling the author’s words to be easily read.  

◉ I have learned to be flexible, and to handle many roles in my considerable experience in many roles in technical industries. At the same time, I’ve learned to lead in some of the toughest situations imaginable. 

◉ Learning is a skill I have mastered. So, for example, I am a past master of all versions of Microsoft Office (from Word 1.0 on). Currently, I am learning Scrivener PC, Scrapple, Calibre and improving my skills with Zotero and Adobe Acrobat. 

◉ Naturally, I have extensive writing experience in many roles in the Computer Industry. This includes technical manuals, service manuals, white papers, service bulletins, press releases, business process details and systems, sales support documentation, service documentation, service information tools and warranty programs.  In the process, I've frequently evaluated and implemented new technologies to provide cost-effective solutions for business issues. I'm also a successful project manager, software developer and instructor. Finally, I'm also an experienced and very successful manager in customer service (including Retail) and quality systems.

taplio

The Battle

Richard van der Blom

RICH MARSH

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taplio

The Battle

Richard van der Blom

RICH MARSH

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Richard van der Blom's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Performance ScoreRichard van der Blom's LinkedIn Performance