EP #014: Using comments to grow your following

Executive Summary

• Commenting on LinkedIn is often overlooked but can yield significant results, sometimes even surpassing the impact of original posts.
• Personal anecdotes, like landing a $60k contract from a single comment, emphasize the potential value of strategic commenting.
• Strategies for effective commenting include targeting influential users with large followings, aiming to be among the first few comments, and keeping comments concise and insightful.
• Sorting your newsfeed for recent posts and focusing on topics relevant to your target audience enhances the impact of your comments.
• Efficiency is key; setting aside dedicated time for commenting, summarizing posts, and making it a daily routine can lead to consistent growth in visibility and engagement.

Deep Dive

Many people struggle to post original content on LinkedIn, so they give up entirely. But they’re overlooking a valuable resource: commenting. It’s accessible to virtually every LinkedIn user. And when you do it correctly, your comment can get more visibility than many people’s posts.

Personally, I’ve landed a $60k contract from a single comment. A prospect saw my comment in his newsfeed, liked what I had to say, saw my title (see also: last week’s newsletter), clicked through to my profile, requested a demo, and became a client the same day.

Here are a few ways to use commenting to gain followers, grow your visibility, and benefit your business.

#1: Use a list for commenting

Take 20 minutes to find people who (1) have a similar audience to yours, and (2) have 50,000+ followers.

For me, three examples are Ray Dalio (Founder of Bridgwater), Davis Smith (Founder of Cotopaxi), and Adam Grant (Wharton professor).

Most people with a large following post consistently at the same time each day. So I create bookmarks for the people I follow, stating the time at which they post.

I aim to be one of the first to comment on their posts. If I can be in the first three comments, my comment will be visible to hundreds of thousands of people.

I also aim to keep my comment insightful and < 3 sentences.

A thoughtful, well-timed comment can gain you hundreds of followers (and might even land you a sale).

#2: Sort your newsfeed for recent posts

Once a post has gone viral, it’s unlikely that many people will see your comment. That’s why sorting your newsfeed for recent posts can be helpful:

When you combine this with hashtag searches, you can find relevant and recent posts, which make great targets for commenting.

As with posting original content, it’s best if you stick to your own swim lanes. Comment on topics that are important to your target audience.

My target audience is mostly CEOs… so I comment on posts I think other CEOs will find valuable, or people whom other CEOs follow.

#3: Be efficient

Commenting is like eating your vegetables - it leads to growth, but not many people like to do it.

Set aside 10 minutes, and see how many comments you can leave in that time. Every comment can lead to relevance or reciprocation. The point isn’t to study every post as if you’re preparing for an exam - it’s to get enough context to provide a valuable insight.

Summarizing posts works well too - it makes the next reader’s job easier by giving them a brief synopsis of a post’s key points.

As with most things, commenting is a numbers game. Start with a short amount of time, get more efficient, but make it part of your daily routine.

The takeaway

The key to growing an audience on LinkedIn is high quality content posted frequently. Commenting, however, is a way to expedite that growth (or replace posting entirely if you don’t yet have the time or courage to publish original content).

I hope these three tips help you get started - there’s little risk in commenting, and a lot to be gained. I hope you give it a try this week!