The anatomy of a social media like — why do people hit like on a post?

Recently I downloaded my data from LinkedIn to see what my biggest posts of all time were.

As an analytical person, I was curious to see if there was a pattern, something I could learn from in terms of improving my posts.

Regular readers will know that I like a bit of LinkedIn but, as I wrote last week, LinkedIn is more of a journal than a marketing tool for me as I love being able to document my life, sharpen my own thinking and it allows me to look back at all I have experienced (who knows in years to come when I am long passed from this world, future generations may be able to use it to understand more about me and my life ??).

That doesn’t mean that I don’t want my posts to be the best they could be; if there are lessons to be learnt then I shall damn well learn them, hence why I looked through my data.

What did I learn?

Not much to be honest!

Sure there are nuances like the importance of having a catchy opening line and how having a photo is more likely to get more engagement. There’s definitely a difference in what time of day and what day of the week you post but I don’t have enough data to really draw conclusions about the hashtags that I use, the benefits of tagging people or not, etc.

I realised that if you want that kind of insight, you can read about it on far smarter posts than mine that claimed to have cracked the LinkedIn algorithm.

What looking at my data did get me to think about most is:

What really sits behind an engagement (a like, an emoji, a share, a repost, a comment) on LinkedIn?

Some of my posts with the most impressions (i.e. lots of people have looked at it) actually have very little engagement (i.e. very few of them bothered to interact with it).

The ones that have a lot of engagement tend to be either:

a) more personal (e.g. a big job announcement, life event, etc.) where people want to add some support or positive words or

b) ones that they see themselves in (e.g. polls, inspirational quotes, observations about life, etc.)

c) ones that they feel they have something to add to (e.g. discussions, disagreements, etc.)

d) ones that are funny (e.g. funny videos, silly jokes, etc.)

In these different contexts, when people hit the like button they are doing it for different reasons.

What are the reasons behind a like?

Nothing brought this home to me more than a recent post that went on to be one of my highest engaged posts of recent years; a post about someone else.

A few weeks back I went to a talk from John Amaechi, a former NBA player and Dr of Psychology. I made some notes during his talk and shared these as a post after the talk .

The next day, my post was flooded with likes, comments and reposts.

It wasn’t down to me, it was down to John and his fans; this made me think about the real reasons people will hit like.

In my mind it could be any of the following:

1. They like you and want to demonstrate that — this is probably why my dad likes all my posts irrespective of what they are about [thanks Dad!] but it could also be because they are your friend or because they fancy or admire you [that’s why attractive and powerful people get lots more likes]; this is all part of the power of liking
2. They want to support you or your cause at that particular moment — this may be why I got a lot of likes on my posts about my recent experiences of being a Palestinian and when I have announced celebratory moments
3. They see themselves in the post — either in what they already do or what they aspire to do [this is particularly the case with inspirational posts or polls ]
4. They like or agree with the content of your post — this post where I reintroduced myself fits squarely in this category
5. They like your picture (whatever it may be) — I suspect that this cute dog is why I got a lot of likes on a recent post
6. They like the subject of your post — be it a person such as John, or a place or such
7. You tagged them or other people they know — I regularly get lots of likes when I post about the specific clients that I work with
8. They are returning a like you sent them previously — this is part of the power of reciprocity
9. They are being tactical and want your attention or to make you feel positive about them — e.g. they are trying to sell to you or want you to reciprocate the like on their post
10. They have previously liked similar posts — this is part of the power of consistency or commitment
11. Other people in their network have liked it — this is where the power of social proof and unity kicks in
12. You tag infrequently so when they see a post from you more people are likely to pile in — this is part of the power of scarcity
13. They are bored and randomly, or accidentally, liking
14. They are being paid to like or are part of a like pod — these are where you all agree to like each other’s posts irrespective of what they are about; this is more common than you think, the most common being when employees of a company feel obliged to like each other’s posts, especially if they come from someone senior]; this is part of the power of authority
15. They are a bot
16. They are your ex ??

So, what conclusions can I draw?

Ultimately it is nigh on impossible to determine the specific reason a person likes one of your posts; I doubt most people even know themselves why exactly they hit that like button.

What is for sure is that very few people think about it as much as me ??

If nothing else, this is a fascinating insight into how my brain works when confronted with identifying how people make decisions; fortunately this aligns itself perfectly with the work we do at Shiageto Consulting and is very useful in getting teams to work better together.

Maybe I should just chill out a bit and just enjoy the likes that I get, for whatever reason.

One thing is for sure; I will carrying on posting everyday so let’s see what happens like-wise.

Follow me and come join the liking fun ??

Faris is the CEO and Founder of Shiageto Consulting , an innovative consultancy that helps firms and individuals sharpen their effectiveness. Connect with him here

Success = IQ x EQ x FQ