How To Live Off A Social Media Bestseller

Let me start by saying that I have never written a bestseller or even just a book for that matter but in this social media quarterly update I wanted to discuss "social media bestsellers" and how to capitalise on a post or update that go viral. I have not analysed a lot of posts or updates at great length but will share a few examples which I have observed and compare with results from my own writing and publishing activities. Let’s first agree on the definition of a bestseller, though.

”A bestseller is a book that is included on a list of top-selling or frequently-borrowed titles”

Now you can't apply this definition to social media as such. Social media content is not “sold” as such and certainly can’t be borrowed. Moreover, it typically has a very short lifespan so you can’t just lean back at home waiting for all the royalties to come in from your “social media content sale”. No, you need to move fast if you want to capitalise on content that goes viral on social media. Let’s take a look at a few examples.

Columnist at Inc. Magazine, Brand Ambassador at beBee, 35K Followers

This person started out publishing on LinkedIn on April 3, 2014, at the same time as other non-INfluencer pioneers. He actually also had quite decent success, to begin with, as his first 6 posts got ~14,000 views. However, on April 28, 2014, he hit the jackpot when publishing “7 Management Traits That Will Make All Your Employees Quit”.  631,479 views (and counting)! Nearly 7,000 likes and almost 2,000 comments.

That’s an instant boost to your following and a great chance to capitalise on a post that’s gone viral. Just 3 days later another post published with nearly 180,000 views and many subsequent posts enjoyed a tonne of success as well. What a way to make your name heard. Now John White wasn’t a columnist at Inc. Magazine nor a Brand Ambassador for the hot social media start-up beBee and certainly didn’t have 35,000 followers before going viral on social media.

INC Columnist, Disrupter, Click Follow To Learn More

Now you don’t even have to write a full post to go viral even on LinkedIn. This particular person got there by posting pictures of girls in bikini. Your first thought would be how is that related to LinkedIn? Well, if you own a bikini company it would seem appropriate but to 1,000s of users it seemed quite inappropriate and from there the battle raged between those that supported her and those that wanted her off the platform.

Only later she started publishing on LinkedIn and now also on multiple other sites. In the process, she’s gone from a social media unknown owning a bikini company to someone with 48,000+ followers and a superstar social media brand. Candice Galek certainly divides the waters but I have no doubt that it’s been great for her business.

So how can you capitalise off a social media bestseller?

To start with you need to have a social media bestseller. I told you, to begin with, that I don’t have one but still, there’s plenty of initiative you can take with your content to make an impact (for others) and yourself. Last quarter I wrote about why every writer needs to be like a portfolio manager because if you don’t go viral per default you need to be active spreading your content yourself. If I look at my own content (on LinkedIn that is) my best performing post currently has 6,921 views which a like a drop in the ocean compared to the numbers that John White had, to begin with, in his social media publishing career but still that’s almost 7,000 people having read a post that I published! I’ve probably shared this post at least 100 times in various ways by don’t do any active promotion for it anymore. Despite that, it has still gotten almost 2,000 views in the last quarter alone. It still gets likes and comments so it’s almost like sitting at home on the couch seeing your personal brand grow and creating opportunities without having to do anything. It’s hardly a bestseller but looking at all my content I have almost 37,000 views in total in 2016 but close to 50% of those views come from posts published prior to 2016. There’s no doubt that even at my level I still see a lot of opportunities come through whether it’s discussing finance transformation with other companies, participating in panel discussions around business partnering or even being part of writing a book it has all come from my social media activity. The numbers might not look as great as they used to and Pulse (LinkedIn’s platform for featuring content to millions) might have abandoned me completely but it still sends tonnes of interesting opportunities my way and it could do that to you too! Just don’t aim for the kind of success that John White, Candice Galek or other social media hot names have seen. Then you’ll most certainly be disappointed but less should also be able to do it wouldn’t you say?

Enough talk lets look at the numbers

In my quarterly posts, I always share the latest numbers with my followers and this time around is no different. Below you can see the quarterly performance followed by a comparison between 2015 and 2016.

As you can see I didn’t have a single Pulse feature in Q3 and my quarterly numbers also dropped -22% vs. previous quarter and -37% vs. the same quarter last year where I was featured almost every week. Despite the drop in features I still manage to increase my views per published post (meaning total views on all posts in the quarter divided by the number of posts published in the quarter) with 4% vs. previous quarter and experienced a much less significant drop vs. the same quarter last year. That’s the power of the portfolio strategy and naturally also a larger following. In fact, just at the end of this quarter, I reached 1,000 pure followers which in itself is quite humbling. You can connect with 30,000 people on LinkedIn somewhat easily but you can’t make a single person follow you. They follow you because they want to see more content from you. You can’t buy them. You can’t force them. You can only persuade them with your content and every single follower is hard earned and can easily leave you again. Just like they could leave John White or stop buying Candice Galek’s products. You have to continue earning them every single day. So my numbers might be down but their impact is not and I want to take this opportunity to thank all my followers and I hope you continue to follow me into the fourth quarter and beyond! And by the way I didn't even have to write a social media bestseller to get there ;).

Are you also dreaming about going viral on social media? Well, you need to start by putting yourself and your thoughts out there. That’s really the only way to do it! I hope you’re a little more inspired after reading this but otherwise, don’t hesitate to reach out if you want to discuss how you can become a social media superstar yourself! As always please help spread the content by liking, commenting and sharing. I really do appreciate it. You can also continue reading below for further insights about social media and LinkedIn in particular.

7 Steps To Improve Your Personal Brand

Did I Start Publishing Too Soon?

5 Insights From A Year Of Blogging

7 Reasons Why Your LinkedIn Posts Will Fail

Here’s Why You Shouldn’t Publish On LinkedIn

How LinkedIn Changed My Publishing Strategy 

How Is Your Social Media Business Going?

How To Use Social Media For Career Building

Hi, My Name Is. The Powerful Self-Introduction 

How To Rock LinkedIn In 2016 

Have You Gone Viral Yet? If Not, Read This!

What If I Had Never Pressed Publish?

Anders Liu-Lindberg is the Senior Finance Business Partner for Maersk Line North Europe and is working with the transformation of Finance and business on a daily basis. Anders has participated in several transformation processes amongst others helping Maersk Drilling to go Beyond Budgeting and transformed a finance team from Bean-counters to Business Partners. He would love the chance to collaborate with you on your own transformation processes to help you stay out of disruption. If you are looking for more advice on how to get the most of LinkedIn Anders also has a few tips to share as well as if you want help in your job search. Don’t be shy! Let’s get in touch and start helping each other.