Overcoming Current Content Creation Challenges of Posting on LinkedIn

Many LinkedIn members are experiencing significant challenges in successfully creating content.

There has been a dramatic decrease in organic reach which means fewer people are seeing our content, giving us fewer opportunities to showcase our skills and expertise. Engagement is often lower, too.

Compounding the lower organic reach is increased competition from the 25 million new members joining the platform every quarter, many of whom are content creators from other platforms.

When you add that to the fact LinkedIn is reducing the number of organic posts that show in your newsfeed in favour of paid ads, the challenges are starting to mount!

What options do we have to work with and how can we use them to regain lost ground?

Before we get to that, it’s important to note organic reach is NOT the holy grail of success on LinkedIn.

In fact, it’s an unreliable vanity metric because it estimates the number of feeds your post has been delivered to, and not the number of people who have read it or even seen it. Only videos show the number of real views. This metric hides in the Analytics section and is different to the post impression numbers.?

Instead of using views as a KPI, you are better to measure engagement – i.e. reactions and comments. Also, reposts are a good indicator, as are the number of invites you receive from people you want to connect with, and inquiry DMs.

Ever since I started taking LinkedIn seriously in 2016, I’ve been a fan of creating content. In fact, it was the opportunity to publish posts that other professionals could read that got me hooked.

To this day I believe publishing quality posts is one of the best LinkedIn strategies there is.

?? It allows you to become visible to those you want to do business with.

?? It builds your credibility as an authority in your field.

?? It allows you to share your knowledge and experience with others who may be wanting to learn what you already know.

You will have your own reasons for publishing content but underlying what we all do is the fact we need people to know how we can help them.

The key is in explaining this in quality posts that people want to read – or videos they want to watch.

But challenges are coming thick and fast.

?? The algorithm

This seems to have begun downplaying organic posts in favour of sponsored and paid-for content.

If you look at your feed, you’re likely to see that the second post is always sponsored content of some kind. Continue down and you’ll see even more of it in between non-sponsored posts (organic content). This means you’re seeing fewer organic posts.

The net result of this is lower organic reach or views or impressions.

?? Increased competition

Every quarter LinkedIn gains another 25 million members. It’s predicted that the one billion mark will be reached early next year.

That means there’s more competition for space in the feed because a lot of these newcomers are creating content just as we are.

They’ve often come across from other platforms where they might have been successful and they know how to grab attention.

?? Boosted personal posts

This is when the post you upload via your profile is picked up by your company which pays for it to be seen by a targeted audience.

Your name is still front and centre but the post displays as sponsored content in addition to your organic post. This is still in beta testing but below is an example of that. You can see the line ‘Promoted by Microsoft’.

This is a controversial move by LinkedIn and there is speculation it could signal the beginning of the end of organic reach for posts as we know it. We will have to wait and see.

?? New Activity page

This is both a challenge and an opportunity. By displaying our content by format type, visitors to our profiles can choose to see our posts by format. They can go tab by tab to see our video and image posts, then go to the end to see our document posts or slideshows.

If someone only wants to watch videos, they’ll make judgements about your content by what you have in this section. The same with the other types of posts.

This means if you want as wide an audience as possible to see your content about a particular topic, you’ll need to produce a post in each format to cover it. But if you do that in consecutive posts, you’re likely to alienate those who aren’t looking at your content this way, but by what appears in their feed.

This is a conundrum because it also represents opportunities. More about that shortly.

?? Personal content

It now appears that personal content is being shown to 1st degree connections at the expense of professional posts which are being placed in the feeds of those further out in your network.

Kevin D. Turner highlighted this in a recent post in which he said: ‘I prefer seeing the Professional Knowledge Shares of my 2nd and 3rd Level Connections, because I don't know them well enough to want to see their personal stuff. I also want to see both Personal & Professional Shares from my 1st Level.’

This means that if you were to post about an incident in your personal life it would be more likely seen by first degree connections than those further out in your network.

You may be fine with that but people connect to learn from you and have already shown interest by doing that, so they’re the ones you want to impress with your knowledge and ideas.

Of course, the counter-argument is that by showing your professional posts to those not connected with you, it encourages them to reach out and connect.

Here's a recent personal post that attracted a surprisingly number of views.

Now we’ve identified the challenges, let’s look at solutions.

?? Know your target audience

In a recent post, annual algorithm report creator Richard van der Blom said the reason content often fails is because it’s not aligned with your target audience. He says people follow trends on how to publish – that’s formats and other ideas – but forget to align their content with the needs and challenges of their ideal client profile.

This makes sense to me because in my 20 years as a copywriter I found the biggest problem with most material was that clients wanted to talk about what they thought was important and not what their clients wanted to know. Always put yourself in the shoes of those you want to buy from you.

Know who your ideal customer is and the challenges they’re facing. Align your content with that and you will build trust. And that will turn you into the go-to person in your industry.

One final quote from Richard’s post:

‘The most successful content is not measured by impressions or likes. It's measured by incoming invites and DM's from potential customers!’

?? Knowledge transfer

Mark Williams , Mr LinkedIn, host of the podcast LinkedInformed which I highly recommend, recently talked about knowledge transfer being gold for content.

He said: ‘There are plenty of signals coming from LinkedIn to suggest that content they categorise as 'knowledge transfer' will be treated favourably by the algorithm.’

Mark suggests we start producing more of that type of content by sharing what we know. Not in a preachy way but by teaching through shared experiences.

For instance, use an incident that happened to you or a client and build a post around it that identifies a problem and shares the solution, but without being promotional.

?? ChatGPT

This new method of creating content has attracted a lot of attention in the media, with varying opinions on how useful it is.

Generally, other LinkedIn authorities aren’t in favour of using it for posts unless it’s to generate ideas. The problem with using ChatGPT for posts is that you need to either rewrite them in your voice and using your own knowledge or risk sounding like everyone else.

Training it to sound like you takes time.

Plus you also have to fact check everything it says because there are many instances of it producing inaccurate content.

If, like me, you want to actually help people do better by sharing your opinions, ideas and experience, you’re best doing it yourself.?And the same goes if you want to develop credibility in your particular space.

?? Activity page opportunities

The new Activity page which, while presenting challenges, is also an opportunity. Why? Because you can repurpose your content into different formats for each of the different tabs.

Say, for instance, you have connections who prefer to watch video rather than read text. What are you offering them if you just write text posts? Most likely not enough to build trust and show them the scope of your knowledge and experience.

But what if you were to repurpose your text content into different formats? So, from a text post you might get a video, document post, an image post and your newsletter too. That gives you 5 posts for the price of 1.

You just need to make sure it’s not repetitive. Perhaps add a different point to each one or re-angle it to give it a different focus.

?? Engage at a relational level

US LinkedIn trainer JoAnne Funch tells me good content is important.

Don’t get on LinkedIn and try to sell, sell, sell.

Instead, she says, you need to engage people at a relational level. You need to connect with them in some way whether that’s through a shared problem, showing you understand their frustrations or simply turning up in their LinkedIn feed regularly with something useful to share.

JoAnne adds that your content needs to align with your goals.

If, for instance, you want to build credibility with a target market, resharing other people’s content, uploading funny videos or publishing irrelevant polls are not the way to go about it. Instead, you should be adding value in your posts by sharing ideas and useful information that helps others.

?? Commitment

Don’t give up. Too many people try LinkedIn, expecting the moon and stars but quit when they don’t get near-instant results.

LinkedIn is a marathon, not a sprint and if you’re going to leverage the opportunities the platform provides, you need to be in it for the long haul.

As JoAnne Funch says: the algorithm favours consistency so stick with it.

Many people are going to give up because of the current challenges, don’t be one of them. Keep creating quality content that your audience wants to read.

Publish as frequently as you can but don’t set yourself unrealistic expectations. If you consistently post once a week, and engage on other people’s posts much more often, you’ll start to see results.

Summary

There’s no question that organic content is under pressure. The decline in reach hit company pages last year, now it’s hitting posts from profiles. With increased competition for space in the feed, the potential arrival of sponsored personal posts, the new activity page and connections not seeing professional posts – our posts are under pressure from all sides.

But don’t despair.

In fact, see this as an opportunity to stand out from others by producing quality content that attracts your target audience and shares useful knowledge, repurpose your content into different formats, use ChatGPT wisely, engage at a relational level and don’t become a quitter.

??????

About Lynnaire Johnston

A New Zealander, Lynnaire Johnston is ranked among the?top 20 LinkedIn experts internationally.

She is the author of?Link?Ability, 4 powerful strategies to maximise your LinkedIn success, listed by BookAuthority as one of the best LinkedIn books of all time, and co-author of the best-seller,?Business Gold – Building Awareness, Authority and Advantage with LinkedIn Company Pages.?Both available at?Amazon.

?A regular podcast guest, Lynnaire hosts FREE?weekly events. These include a fortnightly LinkedIn audio event, a monthly FREE webinar and a LinkedIn Live with a guest – all focusing on LinkedIn and how to leverage its power for professional success.

She is a prolific publisher of value-added content on LinkedIn through posts and?newsletters?and is the founder of a?private membership site?for those serious about LinkedIn.

Lynnaire and her team work with business professionals worldwide to enhance their presence and personal branding on LinkedIn. They provide a number of?services?including LinkedIn training, coaching and mentoring, a comprehensive network building and content marketing programme, and profile makeovers. DM Lynnaire to find out more.

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