Not Another Article About “Hacking” LinkedIn: 15 mins with Gary V

There are tactical and strategic ways to “hack” LinkedIn and its algorithm once you understand it. People ask all the time how they can increase their engagement and followers? How can they get a post to go viral?

But the question is, why do you want more engagement and followers? Why is it important for a post to go viral? What’s your goal? Is it personal, professional growth, or business-related? 

These top three pieces of advice I’m going to share with you will help you achieve almost any of these goals, but name it first, and be intentful about the kind of digital presence you want to build.

If you want to post better content, have that content turn into opportunities, and increase your followers on LinkedIn, here’s what you do:

1. Don’t Pander to the Algorithm
2. Think strategic content for execs and tactical content for frontline people
3. Connect with 50-100 people daily

Tip #1: Don’t Pander to The Algorithm Says Gary V in our conversation in 2018

Mix up your post medium. The reason you see so many text-only posts on LinkedIn is because the algorithm over indexes on it. But if you only do what the algorithm is telling you to do now, you’re going to be in boiling water later. 

Because here’s the thing. 

There will be a day when LinkedIn changes. There will be a day when LinkedIn switches to indexing more video posts and image posts. When that day comes, that’s when the water will hit 212 degrees, and you have to rethink your whole strategy versus tweak it a bit.

As Gary V says, “Don’t pander to the algorithm.”

The second reason why you want to diversify your content and not stick to text-only posts is your audience wants to see you. Your audience wants to feel like you’re an actual human.

Connecting with your audience is a big deal with any LinkedIn or digital presence strategy. Unless you’re someone like Bill Gates, people want to get to know you and interact with you in an authentic way. So don’t forget to actually reply and talk back to them in the comments as well.

I also do weekly LinkedIn Lives not because it’s necessarily great for engagement. It’s a new tool that’s actually not that great for engagement yet. I do it because it’s a great way to connect with my audience and give more back in terms of valuable insights, and I invite other experts to give advice in their areas of expertise.

Text-only posts are a very easy way to get engagement now because that’s how the algorithm works, but I’m telling you this will eventually change, and you want to always be thinking ahead.

If you want to know the rules before you break them, check out The LinkedIn Algorithm Explained.

Tip #2: And a 100% Way to Book a Meeting

This is probably one of the best things you can do that I haven’t talked about before.

I regularly mix up my content between strategic and tactical advice. Strategic advice appeals to more executives, and then tactical advice appeals to more people on the frontlines.

I’ve been in sales for a long time. I love the science and the art of it, and I’m a big fan of diversifying messaging that allows you to appeal to a broader audience (but still staying within your industry).

For example, let’s say you sell into manufacturing. Some of your content might be geared towards an operations officer or CFO. You might talk about logistics and six sigma and topics of that nature. While another post might be for frontline factory operators and talk about throughput or uptime.

By diversifying these topics across posts, it allows you to appeal to a broader audience but still within manufacturing.

Here is how doing this can help you book more meetings, 100%.

What I’ve found with a lot of tactical content (because I also put out content that attracts leaders) is leaders will tag their team on these tactical posts indicating or explicitly saying, “hey team, have we tried this?”

The first step is you put out content that engages executives, and then you put out tactical content that they might also want to share with their team. Once you get them to tag and share this content, immediately DM them and set up a time to talk. There is a 99-100% chance they will take that meeting.

Put out content that a chief exec would want to loop in their lieutenants on. Once the chief exec tags their lieutenants, DM them, and set up a time to talk.

Tip #3: Audience Size Does Matter

One of the easiest and most effective tips I have on growing your audience is to constantly be connecting with people. It’s been a controversial topic lately when people ask me if follower count and number of connections matter. The answer is yes, it does. Assuming that you’re being intentional about who you’re connecting with.

If you’re selling to VPs of Sales, and you’re connected with 500 vs. 5,000 vs. 50,000 VPs, the likelihood of activating your network is exponentially higher. My last piece of advice for you is to request to connect with 50-100 people a day if you have the time. Otherwise, you’ll be limiting your reach because you’re limiting your connections. 

A larger pool of the RIGHT audience gives you a larger network to activate.

Final Thoughts on Hacking LinkedIn 

These three tips will help you post better content, generate opportunities, and increase your network, but the last piece of advice I’ll leave you with is consistency. 

To be successful, you have to consistently be publishing content and adding people to your network. It will also take a lot more work in the beginning, but eventually will become easier and a natural part of your day and playbook.

No matter how many hacks, tricks, and tips you read about, there is no hacking great and consistent content.

-Jake Dunlap