Creating Viral Contents on LinkedIn - Do's and Don'ts

There are persons whose causal posts end up becoming Linkedin sensations drawing in thousands, if not millions of engagements and reactions. We regard this set of people as Linkedin influencers, content gurus, tribe leaders etc. They feel like demi-gods on social media platforms and we aspire or love to have that overnight success as they have.

The biggest wish of a Linkedin user is to create that one post that hundreds of connections will like, comment and share. This is one of the newest sets of self-actualization rubrics of the 21st century - commanding an influence on social media.

In speaking plainly - everyone has something to share on LinkedIn. It might be how a busy day at work went, the newest degree bagged, the pay raise, or the latest investments in personal development. In fact, Linkedin is always interested in helping with spreading the word especially if one gets a new role. But the reach for a new role only gets a small portion of the reactions expected, although the Linkedin algorithm does an excellent job of sharing the news with each and every connection.

Also.

There are a number of reasons why content posted casually doesn't trend. Some reasons are directly proportional while some are inversely proportional. Yeah, everywhere mathematics seems to crop in. I will posit some of the reasons why some content performs better than others and we would go through the best practices to up on the content game (think struggle) being played fiercely on Linkedin and across all social media.

So why, why is your content not trending?

Follow me.

1.?Post-quality content: A lot of posts get shared on Linkedin daily and many of them are very basal. The casualness involved undermines the content being shared. Think of different way announcement are made. I am sure you have been to either a church, cocktail party or variety show where announcements are being made. You'd agree that the show starts and ends with the master of ceremony popularly known as the ''MC' or compère. A compère's job is to introduce the performers or contestants in a variety show. People react positively and directly to the enthusiasm of the master of ceremonies and it makes them excited to receive with glad hearts the artists being called to the stage to perform. Your job on Linkedin is to shawl your content with enough enthusiasm that people are always eager to read what next you will post.

2. Insufficient Early Engagement: Your first 2 hours matter. This is called the threshold of engagement period on Linkedin. If a LinkedIn post is insufficiently engaged in this period the likelihood of it becoming a viral post is not halved but zeroed. The reason for this is that the LinkedIn algorithm promotes your content to a broader audience when you've reached a certain threshold of attention in the first two hours after posting. You wouldn't want to get a few engaged to start your viral engine. Lending help from other social media can do this trick and help you with leveraging the algorithm.

3. Type of Content and Update Peak Periods: According to HubSpot, the best times to post content on LinkedIn are between 12 to 3 pm, 3 to 6 pm, or 6 to 9 pm.?Wednesday, Saturday, and Sunday and native video posts are quickly becoming the most popular content format on LinkedIn, performing very well for a majority of users.

4. Content Flagging: Your post will either be deemed spam or authentic information by LinkedIn. The algorithm used by LinkedIn evaluates a number of variables to determine how relevant a certain post may be to your audience. Your material will be divided into one of three categories: spam, low-quality content, or high-quality content. According to LinkedIn, your post should go here:

• Spam: If you use poor grammar or include several links in your message, you risk being marked as spam. Publishing too frequently (i.e more than once every three hours) may also indicate to the algorithm that you are spamming your network, and trying to tag a lot of people who will later not engage with your post is a red flag for Linkedin too. The way to start out with your post is by limiting the number of individuals you tag (not more than five) and avoiding these sets of hashtags #comment, #like, and #follow which can also alert the system.
• Low-quality:?These contents are not in the spam category. However, they also do not adhere to the best practices for content. The system will rate your content as low quality if you can't make it engaging. There are two approaches to gauge this "chance of engagement" component. First, what is the likelihood that a user will interact with your post? (This is based on how they have previously behaved and interacted with your postings.). The second indicator is how much interaction the content is getting overall. A lot more people are probably going to want to weigh in if the piece is very hot-hot-hot and generating a lot of discussions.
• High-quality: These are posts that follow all LinkedIn content recommendations: The post is easy to read, encourages responses with questions, uses three or fewer hashtags, incorporates strong keywords, and Only tags people who are likely to actually respond.

General rules for upping your content game, em!

• Know thy audience: Start by conducting thorough audience research. Analyze and gather information from your other platforms. Graph interests to better understand the interests of your audience. Even a competitor's audience can be used to create personas.
• Publicize your articles (on LinkedIn and off): Increasing the audience that sees your content is one of the best methods to enhance engagement. The following strategies may be used by artists to increase their LinkedIn traffic: Use intelligent keyword placement to identify related businesses and community members. Branded hashtags may be quite effective in this situation. The algorithm is likely to show posts that contain your hashtag to its followers if you make one that is worthwhile.
• Attempt novel forms: The algorithm often promotes new formats that LinkedIn provides. So, try something new! Being an early adopter pays off with everything from LinkedIn Live to LinkedIn Articles to LinkedIn Slides. Even if the features themselves don't end up enduring, this is still true.
• Write clearly.: One of the key components of information posted on Linkedin is formatting. Avoid condensing your thoughts into one block if you have a lot to say. Put them into comprehensible sentences. You should guide your viewers to the point where they will interact with your content. People often read from top to bottom, and the content you publish helps them judge whether or not the piece is worthwhile. Be human and human-centric at all times!

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