The Content Sweet Spot

You want your posts to be highly visible but you are concerned that if you publish the sort of content that is typically popular on LinkedIn, you might damage your credibility. It sounds like you need to find the sweet spot!

This article has also been recorded as a podcast;

Linkedinformed on Google podcasts?/?Linkedinformed on Apple podcasts

More of that later, firstly…

Interesting Stuff I Saw This Week

LinkedIn have started using auto-generated captions on some of their News posts suggesting that we might all have this facility soon.

Thanks to Clare Carroll for highlighting this is her excellent recent article about LinkedIn video.

Those with Creator mode can expect to see new analytics on their account.

I don’t have this yet on my account so I haven’t been able to play with it but it looks quite promising, especially as they allow you to export the data. It’s still nothing when compared to Shield but a promising step in the right direction. Here’s how LinkedIn describe the new features;

• Updated user experience: New summary pages which add more clarity to the information you're seeing.
• Updated metric definitions: Formerly known as “views,” your reach and discovery are now defined as “impressions.” Note: The entry point for your post analytics also features this update. Instead of clicking on your view content, you now click on your impression count.
• More nuanced insights for articles: In addition to article views, you now get more in-depth insights like post impressions. Wondering what’s the difference between an article view and article post impression? Article views tell you the number of times a member viewed your article itself (often by clicking on it from the post) while an article impression tells you the number of times the post containing your article was displayed on screen.
• More demographics: Improved filtering and functionality are now available across more post and reaction types so creators can see which followers are driving engagement across occupation, industry, location, industry, and company size.

The new profile video feature continues to develop with these new prompts to help create more engaging videos

I don’t seem to have this yet either although I believe my cover story video has converted to a profile video, even though I don’t have the profile video analytics. It’s all a bit confusing as this feature was announced in an article announcing new features for Creators, thus suggesting that profile video is only for those with Creator mode enabled…or do they mean broadly Creators of content? As usual, LinkedIn get themselves tied up in knots with misleading terminology!

I have also been able to add my newsletter to my featured section now though, that’s a feature I’ve been waiting for although I’m going to have to manually move it to the top every time I add a new article or post to my featured section (every week). An option to ‘pin’ a featured item to the top would be very useful.

It looks like LinkedIn are testing or beginning to roll-out a new presentations feature, this is likely a replacement for the link they had with Slideshare who are now no longer part of the group and will allow a post to be created with a powerpoint presentation. I wonder if this will be a replacement for document posts?

LinkedIn have increased their list of ‘Industries’ to over 400 apparently although they haven’t specified which ones they have added other than "Financial Services", "Social Networking Platforms", "Technology, Information and Media", "Technology and Information". Although it might be a fair assumption that they are simply using the Microsoft list It may however be worth updating your company page to see if they have added a new, more applicable industry for your business.

Another welcome change to company pages is the ability for all employees to invite up to 30 of their connections to follow the company page, traditionally this has only been possible for Managers and admins. Whether these employees need to be ‘verified’ is yet to ascertained but it seems that, as promised, they are finally starting the roll-out of employee verification. Thanks to listener Cheleen Botha for heads up and for providing these screenshots

Surprisingly this appears to be personal account-based, rather than by company page. I was able to add my test profile as an employee of WCA without verification so this will only be a full-proof system once it is fully rolled out.

Native Livestream is being tested. I noticed a few dummy Livestream test sessions this week by LinkedIn which possibly shows that they are actively working on their own native Livestream solution. It’s also possible that this test was for the Live video events they have talked about...or both!

Skills Trends.

Sandra Long got in touch about this Future of Skills feature that LinkedIn have published. I heard about this a few weeks back but ignored it as I have little time or interest for profile Skills…a feature you can add to your own profile without verification that are endorsed at will by people with no idea of your level of competency!

That said, despite the inaccuracy of skills, they do become relevant from a big data perspective and that what the economic graph is all about.

You have a play with it yourself at https://linkedin.github.io/future-of-skills/#explore.

The list of industries and job titles seems rather limited to me, they must have more data than this. I guess it might be insightful for technical roles but if you select job roles like Sales manager you get skills like ‘Sales management’ ‘Account management’, ‘sales’ and ‘negotiation’ which isn’t exactly enlightening!

Content Sweet Spot

I was asked this question recently during a training session for a team of management consultants whose target clients are C-level execs in large corporates.

“You really can try too hard with content and thus diminish your perceived worth. I also note that a fair percentage of my more ‘senior’ (and successful) contacts are either not on LinkedIn or are on but are passive.?Any guidance on how to maintain an air of gravitas and ‘seniority’ (in a non-stuffy way) but also get the visibility that we all want.”

Now that is an excellent question!

This strikes me as being a common issue for many people. We see example after example of successful posts that are ‘light’ and lack substance. We know that posts that reveal more about your personality tend to attract more visibility but are we comfortable doing that when our target customer/clients are very discerning.

Whilst this is a genuine challenge for many, I also want to point out that people, irrespective of how senior they are, do business with people and it’s really important to ensure that your clients get to know the real, authentic person that you are. It’s often a misconception that being yourself will damage your credibility, the truth is that if you rely on product/service USP’s and marketing spin to succeed, you’re always going to have an uphill struggle, especially in sectors like management consultancy. You can easily damage your ‘perceived worth’ as much by remaining a closed person that reveals little about yourself.

I hear it all the time from people…” My feed is full of personal content that is more suitable for Facebook”, yet it’s a fact that the vast majority of posts on LinkedIn are serious and business-related. The thing is that the posts we see in our feed are the most popular, the ones that engage with more people and as a result gain greater traction. The majority of content fails to engage, the seeds that fall on barren ground, so we don’t see it.

In addition, C-Level contacts are rarely active on LinkedIn, they log in and scan their home page but they are lurkers and this lack of engagement means that the content we think they will find interesting, rarely reaches them because it’s not as interesting to the more active LinkedIn users.

So we rely on the active users to carry the content to the lurkers and yet they like different things! Hmmm ??

Whilst this seems like a big issue, the interpretation that these groups have opposing interests is simply not true!

The ‘carriers’ of our content (active users) are connected to our inactive target clients (or at least followed by them) and therefore it’s a pretty safe assumption that they have some common interests, there will be some crossover in what content they find interesting and this is, in part your sweet spot.

The sweet spot isn’t just about topics, it’s about the style of delivery. If your content lacks any personality, it’s unlikely to appeal to the active community but if your content is too lightweight, it’s in danger of damaging your credibility.

The key is to make your content widely appealing, it has to satisfy both objectives - credible and engaging.

This is more than possible, not easy perhaps but much easier than people think. The problem is that, because we mostly see content that is too lightweight, we fall into the trap of believing that we have to go to that extreme to gain visibility.

Let me give you an example of the type of post that we often see in our feed but won’t serve you well if your target audience are C-level execs in large organisations.

This doesn’t mean that Tracie’s post is wrong in any way, it clearly serves her audience well. It also doesn’t mean that CEO’s are unable to find babies cute! What it means is that posting content of this nature is unlikely to help you win business with your high-level target clients. It at best will get ignored and at worst, diminish your perceived worth.

It’s extremes like this that tend to make people feel you have to post this way to achieve visibility, but look at this post…

Michael has done a great job of providing enough bait to attract a wider audience, yet still, deliver content that will interest a less engaged audience. OK it’s not as popular as Tracie's post but it’s attracted enough engagement to be highly visible and therefore likely seen by his target audience.

It’s really important to remember that when we post, we want people to see it - obvious I know, but it won’t get seen unless people engage with it so a key objective in any post is to make it comment-worthy, in other words, conversational. Here’s another example of hitting the sweet spot…

This post achieved over 4.5 million views and although that number only represents page impressions, we do know that at least 154,693 definitely saw it. At the time it was posted, she had c14,000 followers.

Maiken has managed to appeal to CEO’s as well as aspiring C-level professionals with this David vs Goliath story. She has used a topical story and used it to reach a wide audience. Her target audience is women in tech, at all levels.

Every market and target audience is different but I’m convinced that everyone is capable of finding their sweet spot…Have you found yours?

Post Of The Week

It would be nice to have a post of the week that was a fine example of someone hitting that sweet spot but alas I couldn’t find one! I guess that shows how rare it is and re-enforces the point that our feeds are full of content that falls on the personal side of the sweet spot!

This however is a moving and important post and deserves to be featured. Mental health is a topic we haven’t featured in potw for a while and I always think it’s especially powerful when it comes from someone in the frontline of dealing with their own demons.

Hannah uses the well known (in the UK) and tragic story of her friend Milly Dowler to get our attention and then openly discusses how her mental health challenges have caught up with her.

It’s not a business subject but many many people in business will be able to relate to Hannahs story and might find some comfort from it.

That’s it for this week, I hope you find this content stimulating and perhaps it might inspire you to find your content sweet spot!

This article has also been recorded as a podcast;

Linkedinformed on Google podcasts?/?Linkedinformed on Apple podcasts