Is commenting a good strategy?

This weeks episode is inspired by a post I saw that included this line;

So I thought it would be worth examining this in more detail.

Also in this episode;

• What's going on with Events messaging?
• Services Marketplace - dormant or important?
• Does unfollowing someone will reduce your relevance to them?
• Why I haven't published a book
• Is 'Open for work' worth having on your profile?
• A text only post of the week.

For once I have very little to report regarding new or removed features on LinkedIn.

Angus Grady did get in touch to let me know that we are no longer able to send free DM's to those we are attending an event with. This previously worked in a similar way to shared group members...irrespective of where someone is in your network, you were able to send them a DM in the attendees list. This appears to have been stopped, at least for some people.

When I checked this, I found I could still DM a 3rd+ attendee but not a 2nd tier. When you think about it, that is bizarre so I am wondering if this is a glitch...either they forgot to remove the facility for 3rd+ or they never intended to remove it for anybody! Let's hope it's the latter!

On a more positive note it appears that LinkedIn have suddenly noticed that they have a Services feature again and have improved it...a bit!

Lynnaire Johnston noticed that her services page now shows response time and rate. I don't have this yet on my account but it's encouraging to see LinkedIn finally dust off the cobwebs and start to pay attention to the services feature again!

How useful this will actually be is a different matter altogether. Most people don't even know services exist and even if they do, they tend to DM the person to enquire rather than complete a long 'request for proposal' form. Those enquiries won't register for response time or rate so I doubt we will see much information here until LinkedIn actually make a concerted effort to make the services marketplace actually function properly.

I'm not sure they will, it looks very much like an idea that came out of a brainstorming session but nobody has had the time, energy and will to implement it fully. I expect it to disappear to the graveyard for unfinished, poorly implemented features!

Your questions answered.

Kevin Pickett sent me these two excellent questions this week

The first question is really interesting and I'm not sure I can give a definitive answer, only my opinion. Relevance is built by the actions in one direction meaning that if I engage with your content, your relevance to me increases...but not vice-versa. Only if you engage with my content does my relevance to you increase. So If I unfollow you, there is no impact on your relevance to me. The logic here is that the algorithm is motivated to give you the content you want to see, my unfollowing of you has no impact on your interest in me, only my interest in you.

As for books, I'm not an avid reader of books about LinkedIn but I do think LinkAbility by Lynnaire Johnston and Content DNA from John Espirian are worth reading. Also if you use Sales Nav, then I can recommend Sales Navigator for Dummies by Perry van Beek ??

So why haven't I written my own book? Personally I think books are the worst medium to demonstrate how to use LinkedIn because they are usually out of date before they even get published! I did start to write a novel once - a rags to riches story about someone who achieved their dreams by using LinkedIn but I soon realised that writing a story is MUCH harder than a 'how to' guide! I got to about 28,000 words and had to quit, I just didn't have the time (or skill) to write a good novel about LinkedIn. Maybe I will get around to finishing it when I retire!

Alan Lee also got in touch to ask whether the 'Open to work' frame on profile photos was a good feature.

Personally I'm a fan, there is no doubt in my mind that when recruiters scroll through pages of search results, those with the green slash stand out from the rest. I think the brain adjusts to this quite quickly and before long recruiters are clicking on Open to work (OTW) profiles without giving it any thought.

In addition, Recruiter licence holders can filter searches by OTW and there is a new 'Active' filter that includes OTW as one of it's 4 criteria.

It can be added in your settings but the easiest way is to go to your profile picture and select frames.

The only caveat is confidentiality. If you do not want your current employer to know that you are looking then you shouldn't, under any circumstances use OTW. Ignore what LinkedIn say about you not appearing in searches or that your company recruiters don't see the green slash...they can easily found out or be informed.

Alan mentioned that some people who are out of work are adding an 'Open to work' company as their employer.

This is not a real company of course, nor is it anything that LinkedIn would approve of. I very much doubt it would attract the attention of recruiters either.

Is commenting a good strategy?

This topic was motivated by a post I saw recently. My first reaction was annoyance that someone would dismiss the effectiveness of engaging with comments - a practice I have seen work so well for many people.

The line that got me was "We've been fed lies, it's not about commenting on other posts" but unlike most occasions when I see something I disagree with, there was no way I was going to comment on this post!

Once I had calmed down, I re-read the post and noticed the critical word 'just' before the word commenting. Darren isn't stating that commenting has no value (he comments plenty himself) but that it's not the only thing that matters.

This is true but the way it is written could, and probably did, make people believe that you don't need to comment on other peoples content...that is very wrong!

Darren explains that in a 90 day period he posted 62 times and gained 2200 comments, that's probably over a thousand unique comments (as opposed to replies) which is good (not amazing) although not 1000 unique commenters. It seems somewhat ironic that this post achieved 5x the amount of comments than his average...this was partly due to so many people disagreeing with him!

So Darren wants you to comment on his post, so he can attract more customers to his profile building business but he doesn't do that and recommends you don't comment on anyone else's content either!!

That isn't what he is saying, but the sensationalist style demonstrated in this post, will lead the reader to think that.

He is correct though, you need a good profile that converts otherwise commenting is less productive and you do need to focus on the quality of your content.

But commenting is also an equally important part of being successful on LinkedIn. Here's why;

• We don't just comment of content to boost our connections, that's a minor benefit
• When you search for posts that are highly relevant to your target audience, commenting on those posts exposes your excellent headline (that's the profile bit) to a new and relevant audience.
• These people might view your profile and follow you, even if they don't connect. They might even send you a DM!
• The strategy of commenting on target customers content is perfectly valid but it's very very focussed and time consuming. Great if you are a regional sales person who has a handful of key target customers, not so useful if you are trying to attract a very wide range of potential customers to your brand (as is the case for Darren). This strategy is not about visibility, it's a super-targeted business development technique.
• Commenting with intent requires you to search and seek out relevant content and consume it - this massively helps to stimulate ideas for your own content and also educates you more in the interests and views of your target audience.
• Everytime you comment, that post plus your comment appears on the home page feed of some of your most relevant followers. This, at minimum, reminds them of your existence but also hopefully educates them that you are a thoughtful, wise contributor. Every time this happens, they potentially move closer to wanting to work with you.
• Any comment you make that receives a reply allows you to build a closer relationship with the author. Relationships lead to all kinds of opportunities.
• Commenting is also a great precursor to creating your own content. It helps you build confidence, gain a better understanding of your audience and you start to realise that people are interested in what you think.
• Commenting is also just good networking. It makes sense that if you want people to comment on your content, then you should spend time helping others by commenting on others. It's not direct reciprocity but if you put in the work, you will get the rewards...it's how communities (like LinkedIn) work!

So in summary, I'm not being critical of Darren, I'm not a fan of the wording of his post but other than that, he's done nothing wrong. On the contrary, he raises an important topic and I'm glad to have had the opportunity to expand on it here.

What do you think, are you sold on the idea of commenting?

Post of the week

He likes to be forthright and often controversial but I have to admit that Jonathan Pollard is one of my favourite content creators on LinkedIn.

I often find myself disagreeing with his views (that's no bad thing) but not on this occasion. Jonathan is one of the best exponents of text only posts and this is a great example

Well done for a great post of the week Jonathan.

That is all for this week and I'm about to go away on holiday so there will not be a LinkedInformed next week but I have scheduled an episode for the week after which is the presentation that I recently gave at the Linked Summit in Denmark.

Take care