How To Post Content On LinkedIn That Creates Engagement

A look at how to raise your company and personal brand profile on LinkedIn and attract more of the right business contacts.

Recently, a number of clients I've been working with have wanted to better understand how to raise their brand profile on LinkedIn and attract more engagement in the form of likes, comments and shares.

Have you found that you've published what you felt was a really useful and interesting article only to receive a handful of likes, comments and shares and then wondered what you'd done wrong?

Take a look at this screen shot below, posted by my friend and business associate of mine Jeff Smith, when he recently visited the Williams Formula One factory. Note also, the number of likes and comments this post attracted, within the first week!

Aside from almost 7000 likes and 300+ comments, many hundreds of LinkedIn members also shared Jeff's post with their networks - he then began to receive LinkedIn connection requests at a rate of approximately 50 a day!

Let's put this in context for a moment; if you'd paid LinkedIn ￡30-￡50 per day to promote your Ad and you'd received this kind of result, would you be happy? If you'd invested in a PR company to mailshot your personal database of business contacts with a story about your business and you received this outcome, would you be writing them a glowing testimonial? The answer to both those questions is probably a resounding YES!

The post Jeff shared was not a paid for Ad and it was not written by a PR company, it was essentially a photograph, taken by Jeff, using his Smartphone and shared for absolutely free on LinkedIn as a status update.

Can you answer these questions?

Why did this post resonate with so many people? How could your business apply a similar strategy to raise its brand profile with your team's network of professional LinkedIn connections?

There are a number of reasons why this post reached and engaged with so many;

1. The image itself is visually quite stunning, intriguing and of a high quality.
2.  The reference to meeting Mr Williams is also intriguing.
3. Timing - this post was shared just ahead of the Monaco Grand Prix.

Let's examine each of the points above in more depth.

Point number 1; The image itself is visually engaging - it's not obvious either, at first glance, just what you're looking at and so requires closer inspection. Only then do you realise that the bush is actually a Formula 1 racing car, surrounded by members of the pit crew. Curiosity turns into realisation, leading to intrigue and in turn, a need to discover more.

Point number 2. Who is Jeff Smith and why is he important enough to be meeting with Frank Williams, the boss of the Williams Formula 1 Team? It would have been easy for Jeff to have posted a comment which read something along the lines of; "Here I am ready for my meeting with Frank Williams, boss of the Williams Formula 1 team today!" In other words, "Look at me and how important I am!" Maybe you've seen that type of post before and felt the person was simply showing off? However, Jeff is far more subtle than that.

Rather than boasting, Jeff simply tells the story as it happened - a conversation between himself and the security guard who he'd asked for directions from. As you read this short story however, you can't help but absorb the fact that Jeff is there to see Frank Williams. Your curiosity now shifts from the photograph to 'who is Jeff Smith?', hence a significant number of people began viewing his LinkedIn profile, he then began to receive a significant number of connection requests. What if just 1% of these connections were of value to Jeff?

Point number 3.  Social Media platforms almost all measure posts and updates using something known as relevance; how relevant is the post to the person viewing it? Jeff's post was published immediately prior to the Monaco Grand Prix and any LinkedIn motor sport enthusiasts would clearly have found this post relevant. Jeff's target audience is professional contacts in the automotive sector.

How do you get more people to engage with you on social media?

If we consider the example of this one post alone then it's clear that people like posts which:

• Are visually engaging
• Are different
• Are relevant and topical
• Make them smile
• Are intriguing  
• Peak curiosity
• Cause them to ask questions
• Allow them to engage
• Don't blatantly shout 'Look at me, I'm important'

It's about the quality of what you post

We all tire of people promoting themselves or their business and I'm sure you will also scroll past these kind of posts and be more attracted to content which is different; intriguing, engaging and most of all relevant?

Have you ever attended a social gathering and met someone for the first time who you considered interesting, simply because they were different, understated, they seemed like a quality person (high values, extremely well groomed, generally a cut above others in the room - in a good way), they asked good questions, were perhaps a little mysterious? Did you become curious and want to know more about them? When you share content on LinkedIn, why not try and be that type of party guest?!

Many thanks for viewing my post, I hope you found it useful? If you did, would you share it with your network who might also enjoy it and before you go, would you use the comment section, below, to let me know what you found most interesting about what I had to say – how was it relevant to your own circumstances? 

If you have any private questions on the subject matter you can connect with me on LinkedIn and send me a message, or else you’ll find my contact details on my LinkedIn profile uk.linkedin.com/in/stevephillip. 

If you need help to improve your sales and marketing skills, particularly using LinkedIn and social media, then please get in touch and check out our website  www.linked2success.co.uk. 

You can also follow me on Twitter at https://twitter.com/Linked2Steve or https://twitter.com/stevejphillip