Converting Commenters into Customers

In a recent post by Richard van der Blom, author of the Annual LinkedIn Algorithm Research report, which BlissPoint co-sponsored this year,? he discusses the importance of engagement on LinkedIn.

I want to expand on his post and share my own thoughts about converting commenters into customers.

LinkedIn calculates your engagement rate by the Likes, Comments, and Shares your content receives, divided by your total number of views, multiplied by 100%.?

A high engagement rate is considered to be around 2%. A post with 1,000 views should have about 20 different types of engagement.?

But not all engagement is the same and? just because someone clicked the “like” button does not mean they truly engaged with your content.?

LinkedIn measures if your post received genuine engagement by whether or not it started a conversation.

To get people to really engage with your content and turn them into customers you need to Give before you Ask.?

Here are some simple steps you can take.

- Participate in the conversation by giving value to your prospect’s and customer’s posts. Commenting on other people’s content will put you in front of your prospects and encourage them to comment on your posts as well. It will also give a boost to your own content as you actively engage with others.

- As you follow your prospects on social media, every time you like one of their posts or make an insightful comment on their LinkedIn, they notice. You become one of those unique individuals and stand out from the crowd. You're giving them recognition.

- Think of a comment on LinkedIn as if you were making a mini-post. Your comment should reinforce the original post and then add to the conversation. This allows your network to understand the context of your comment to the post. Don’t make them hunt of the information.

- At least once a week, create a post on LinkedIn that is interesting and relevant to your prospects. By keeping up a cadence of at least once a week you increase the chance of appearing in the feed of your prospects and customers.

- A compelling text-only post will drive conversation, which will be rewarded by the LinkedIn algorithm, showing your post to a significantly higher number of people.

What Not to Do:

- Don’t create a random Poll and be proud of how many views it received. While polls generate a lot of views, Polls are great ONLY when they are relevant. Without reason behind the Poll it becomes clickbait. For example, a Poll about your favorite breakfast food, while fun, is not going to be relevant to your business or LinkedIn.??

- Don’t use Comment Pods to get engagement from people you don’t know (A comment pod is a group of social media users that systematically engage with each other's posts to artificially game the system) or message up to 50 people with a link to your post and ask them to comment. These engagements will not be genuine and falsely inflate your engagement rate, and your account could be flagged.?

- Don’t tag your entire network in the post to get engagement. LinkedIn penalizes your post for tagging individuals who don’t comment back. Trust that your network will see your post appear in their feed and engage if they are interested in the topic. If you are going to tag someone, use the comments to invite them to the conversation.

- Don’t change your strategy every time your post doesn’t get 100 likes. Stay persistent with your strategy. The Three P’s are what build a brand: Predictability, Persistence, and Presence.

Build your brand on the foundation of trust and perseverance.?

REMEMBER: People gain value from your content without engaging. Sometimes it is a 2nd degree connection that sees a comment from your 1st degree that gets their attention.

In the recent post by our business partner Richard Van der Bom at Just Connecting, he told a story about receiving an email from a Sales Enablement Manager at a well-known international billion-dollar company who has never engaged with any of his posts before.

Here is what they wrote:

“Hi Richard, I am a big fan of your content on LinkedIn and have shared your Algorithm Report with over 500 of our international sales reps. Are you up for a video call next week to discuss your (possible) virtual presence at our Sales Kick-Off 2022 Event and to explain to me your Virtual Selling Program?”

You’re playing a long game when social selling on LinkedIn. Don't become frustrated with a lack of immediate engagement through numerous likes and comments; it’s not an accurate measure of your success. Think quality over quantity. It’s the conversations and conversions that count.

If you show up consistently offering value, it’s only a matter of time before you receive the InMail asking YOU about your services.?