3 Social Media Habits Sabotaging Your LinkedIn Activity

You're crushing it on Instagram, have a massive tribe on Twitter, and adoring fans on Facebook. Yet, your LinkedIn activity is a ghost town. No engagement, no Likes, few views. What's going on?

The problem is you! Your LinkedIn activity is suffering because of bad habits carried over from other social media platforms.

Likes, Clicks, and Shares are the normal currency of social media. The belief is the more you create, the more content you produce, the more effective your message and more extensive your reach. Unfortunately, that is wrong.

Here are the three habits you need to break right now to begin enjoying success on LinkedIn.

#1 Stop Oversharing

Most social media wants you to post as often as possible. They want you to keep coming back and adding new content in a constant stream. But not LinkedIn. They want quality content that drives conversations.

This means LinkedIn gives allows you to post once about every 3-4 hours. If you post more often than that, the second post will be hidden from the vast majority of your network. Up to 95% of your contacts won't see it.

Here's an example from my own feed. I shared two posts. The first was a speaking engagement that I was participating in. It received over 6,000 views in a couple of days.

The second was shared within the 3-4 hour window. It was an interesting article about social media activities at events. It received 28 views in the same amount of time.

LinkedIn has over 600 million members. Their algorithm throttles your content so you aren't oversharing to your network.

#2 Stop Sharing Links

LinkedIn is a business. They make much of their money from advertising. Every time you share a link, you are driving LinkedIn's customers to someone else's revenue platform. Heaven forbid you share a Youtube video. There's a good chance that person isn't coming back to LinkedIn for the rest of the day. Opportunity lost for LinkedIn gained for Youtube.

This means your external links are not being promoted or shared with your network. Research by Richard van der Blom shows that LinkedIn will reduce the number of views on an external link by as much as 80%.

Instead, you need to share content that keeps your audience engaged and coming back. Links to articles, videos, and websites are not the way to do it.

#3 Seek Comments, Not Likes

I've covered this in a previous article, but Likes and Shares on LinkedIn do very little for you. When you post, you are looking for people to stop, read, and comment. This means the type of content you need to be sharing is very different from any other social media platform.

Instagram isn't looking for you to engage in lengthy conversations with your followers. Twitter isn't the place to conduct an in-depth discussion on a deep subject.

But that is exactly what you are looking to do with your LinkedIn posts. You want people to see it, read it, and comment on it. And if they do, the LinkedIn algorithm will reward your efforts, driving viewership up by as much as 100x the normal number of views.

Test The Theory

Here's a way to test what I'm sharing. Right now, stop and post something on LinkedIn following these simple rules:

Write 25 to 50 words on any topic. Don't add a picture and don't add a link. Just text. Make sure it is at least 25 words so people have to click the "See More" link.

Ask a question in your post that will generate a conversation. If necessary, reach out to a few contacts and ask them to add their thoughts to get the conversation going.

If you get 10 comments within the first hour, I promise you your post will receive 1,000 views in the first 24 hours. It doesn't matter the size of your network nor the quality of your content. If you can get a conversation going, LinkedIn will immediately reward you.

Summary

Here's a recap on changing your LinkedIn habits

• Post once a day
• Post mainly text
• Generate 10 comments

These three changes will see a remarkable change in the success you have on LinkedIn.