LinkedIn Questions Answered #1

This week Alex and I hosted our first #VirtualLinkedInClub, I’ve pledged to write an article answering the questions brought up in the chat… so here we are!

How do you measure success on LinkedIn?

If we asked you the question: “How do you measure success in business?” the obvious answer might be the amount of money you make… But there’s also more to it; staff happiness, environmental impact, personal fulfillment etc. Similarly, the most obvious answer to ‘measuring success on LinkedIn’ is the amount of engagement (likes, comments & shares) and the number of leads you get. But please also consider the following:

• LinkedIn is about the long game, don’t expect to maintain high engagement on every post because you had a successful one (the next one might only get 3 likes!) It’s much better to compare your results month-on-month.
• Comments are more important than likes/reactions. Clicking the like button is easy, leaving a meaningful comment means that the audience member cares more about your post enough to read it and leave that piece of feedback.
• 10 engagements from your target audience are more important than 100 engagements from randomers (that’s why you should never ‘spam connect’ with people without checking what they do… I made that mistake 4-5 years ago!)
• Arguably, the most important factor in LinkedIn success is your own motivation. Do you feel like you’re making that post because it feels ‘right’ or are you just doing it to get more likes? If you don’t enjoy LinkedIn, it will be very difficult to keep up the posting.

How do you be the person when you are representing a company? I am very happy engaging personally on my own page, but I am not confident being so casual when representing the council online for example. So in these sessions, key tips on corporate content will be very useful too?

Your LinkedIn voice needs to be consistent. You can’t post a bubbly family-related post on a Monday, followed by a cold corporate message on a Tuesday. A good way to think about this is “How would I speak to a group of people at a networking event, where both; a corporate exec is listening - as well as someone who might be interested in my consultancy business.” the most obvious answer to this (for me) is to just be yourself. Once the voice is established, it’s much easier to find messages which suit it. Here are some ideas for corporate content:

• Celebrate colleagues: new ones joining, anniversaries, education successes etc.
• Make life easier for people - what questions do people always ask your company/organisation? Don’t wait for them to ask again - become ‘proactively helpful’.
• Celebrate the successes of other businesses and organisations
• Share opportunities and helpful resources

I struggle with linked in layout, had a personal account for some time but only very recently tentatively started to use it. Do regularly post about podcasts and newsletters for real employment, try to make it as relevant as possible but also trying to break it up with more lighthearted content

All social media platforms will continue to change (I still can’t get over Facebook’s new layout!), so we have to adapt to them. The best advice I can give on this is to simply Google the function you’re struggling to find or ask someone - Alex and I are always happy to help.

Being more real is a good and true way forward if you're a human... but what if you're a corporate identity? How can a corporate (like IW Council for example) be seen as 'real'?

As cleverly pointed out by another member on the call, the first step is to understand why the IW Council is on LinkedIn, what sort of audience are you trying to reach, and (more importantly) what you’d like that audience to do after they read your posts. For example, if you’re trying to improve employment prospects on the Island by finding new companies to work with, start to share real-life successes that businesses are having. Celebrating, helping, engaging, informing, being truthful & honest… giving value to Island employers will encourage them to follow your page. You can even take it a step further and think ‘How do I attract new employers to the Island? What’s great about the Island’s economy that I can share?’

Why is my private account receiving more views/reactions than our company account?

My gut feeling is that there are three possible reasons for this:

• Your personal profile is followed by more people who would say hello to you on the street, therefore it’s much easier for them to make a comment on your post. Your company profile on the other hand probably hasn’t got a ‘face’ to associate with, meaning that the people don’t know whom they’re speaking to. Do you prefer to email matt@ or info@? People like to engage with people.
• The company updates are written in a less friendly or less ‘engagement friendly’ voice than what your personal updates are.
• From an algorithm point of view (like Alex discussed), if your post is shown to 10% of your audience and only a small cohort reacts - LinkedIn will not show it to more people. Your company profile might have more inactive or unengaged users compared to your personal account.

Is LinkedIn the right social media platform for a business?

It depends on how you use it and what industry you’re in. For example, do I believe that a make-up company can be successful on LinkedIn? Yes… but NOT if they’re going to post offers on 2-for-1 lipstick discounts. However, if that company posts about culture, their journey, lessons they’re adapting in business etc. then there’s no reason they can’t connect with a new packaging supplier or attract amazing industry talent.

LinkedIn generates (on average) 3x more B2B business than other platforms. It’s also currently one of the best social networks for organic attention (people seeing your posts without you paying for it). If you use it consistently, are honest, and create value; I absolutely believe LinkedIn is right for business.

Quite a lot of job titles these days don't give a clue as to what the job is or am I the only one who believes that?

I’ve recently changed my job title on LinkedIn from “Founder of NOSY” to “Let’s form genuine connections & tell stories”, but does it really matter? I don’t think so. You can have the most impressive job title in the world, but if your posts are rubbish and you don’t engage with other users - your LinkedIn profile will not grow. My advice on this is changing your job title to whatever makes you feel good, don’t worry about what other people think.

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Thank you for reading - I hope you found these useful and as always, I invite you to the comments section under this article for feedback and any other questions.

The next #VirtualLinkedInClub is on Wednesday the 21st of October at 12pm. Add this Zoom link to your calendar and join us! https://zoom.us/j/98428268966

Event link: click here