Why do you post?

Serious question...why do you do it?

What are your objectives and are you achieving them?

This week I received a message which challenged my views on posting content on LinkedIn??. I disagreed with the points made but that doesn't make them wrong or inappropriate, just different and a good challenge to my thinking.

So I thought I would share my thoughts in this weeks episode.

That plus;

• Drafting a post with AI?
• Premium perks
• Forwarding DM's
• More thoughts on organic reach (the lack of)
• Post of the week

Informed is a weekly podcast which you can listen to and subscribe to for free on any podcast app. These notes are merely brief overview of what I covered in the podcast so do listen to the full show on Spotify below or simply search for LinkedInformed on your podcast app of choice.

Drafting a post with AI.

I discovered a new AI post drafting feature on LinkedIn, this was new to me but you may have had the feature for a while...seems like I have to add that disclaimer now on anything new as I always people responding with 'That's not new' or I've had that for months!' but it didn’t function as expected!

After attempting to use the feature and reviewing LinkedIn's help documentation, I found that the AI-generated draft option didn’t appear, even after following the instructions correctly (note 20 words min). The feature then disappeared from my account, leading me to speculate that LinkedIn may be fixing it.

I like that LinkedIn?? emphasize the importance of adding personal input to AI-generated posts.

Do you have this feature yet and if so, does it work?

Premium Perks

Also new to me, or at least I haven't seen it before, but you may have had the feature for a while. Either way, they are likely to add new perks in the future so it's worth keeping an eye on.

If you have a premium account go to the 'Me' menu (swipe right on mobile) and 'premium features' then look for 'Premium perks'.

At the time of writing and in the UK the following perks are available for premium subscribers (only if you have paid, not on a free trial).

• 4 months of Calm
• 3 months of Microsoft 365 Personal
• Up to 4 free therapy sessions with BetterHelp

Maybe these perks are widely available elsewhere, I'm not sure but they all seem like fairly generous offers to me. It will be interesting to see what additional perks are offered in the future.

Forwarding Direct messages

I'm not sure I can see a reason for me to use this one (DM's are supposed to be private) but perhaps there may be an occasion where someone sends you an inappropriate DM that you want to show to others or the sender gives you permission to share it.

You can now forward the message to other connections and more interestingly you can email it.

Organic Reach

Returning to this topic again because it seems to be very important to listeners and I keep getting feedback on the drop in content reach.

My thoughts;

• Organic reach drops every year as more and more people start posting on LinkedIn??. In addition, the quality of the content is always improving, so we have to keep on our toes and look for new ways to grab the attention of our audience. This has been the case for years but doesn't really account for the more significant drop in reach this year.
• Pods. As discussed last week, LinkedIn?? appear to have either given up on stopping pods or the pods are winning the battle as they get more sophisticated with AI automated commenting tools. Whilst this engagement isn't real and in fact, many of the posts are AI generated, the pod boosting is taking up space on home page feeds. Unfortunately the cheats are reducing the reach of genuine content.
• LinkedIn?? have publicly stated in the past that they are against viral content and it seems that they are tweaking the algorithm to support this process. This may be, in part, an anti-pod measure but I suspect they are using a sledgehammer to hit a small pin and that means that all content reach is reduced. This may be the main factor in the more dramatic drop in content reach.

Let's also address that word dramatic. People are reporting a 30-50% drop in impressions this year vs last year, which is undoubtedly dramatic but only if you are primarily focussed on impressions, I don't believe the reach of your content to the right people is quite so dramatically impacted.

Let's take an example.

A post gets 1000 impressions (30% less than last year). This is not good news and will have a negative impact but I would argue that, if a post is produced correctly for your target audience it won't be read by 30% less of your audience. Remember an impression is only the opportunity for a view and that opportunity increases if the posts is produced in an engaging, interesting style and is about a topic that is of high importance to your audience.

So a poor post with 1000 impressions might only be seen by 50 people (mostly followers) whereas a higher quality post could achieve 100 actual views (not just followers as engagement helps it reach further).

These are just random figures to make the point. The reality is that we can only control those things we do - not the pods or the algorithm tweaks but the quality of our content and if the quality is high, the drop in reach won't as bad as 30-50%.

Why do you post?

Here's a DM I received this week following last weeks epsiode where I had a real go at an article I saw in the Guardian.

Firstly I want to make the point that I really enjoy and welcome feedback like this. Thoughtful and respectful feedback, positive or negative is most welcome.

I think it's really healthy to have your views challenged and it's something that really adds value to the listeners.

I do however, totally disagree with the points made!

• The point of content is for it to be seen. By the right people for sure but you still do it for it to be seen.
• 'Direct response copywriting' is all very well (whatever that actually means) but you won't get a response if people don't see it!
• The assumption that all new connections will see your content is incorrect. Some will but not all of them and the variables at play make this very unpredictable. New connections are reasonably high priority for the algorithm, not the highest (regular engagers) but still more likely than no active older connections but what happens if they have recently connected to lots of other people who are also producing content? They won't see all of those posts and in fact, the ones they are most likely to see are those that have attracted comments.
• They went on to state that 'playing the algorithm game' is pointless but that is exactly what you are doing by assuming that your new connections will see you posts.
• A deliberate attempt to discourage engagement in your posts is crazy. Engagement is the main distribution channel for your content this making it visible.
• Content should be carefully targeted to appeal to your target audience and if the topic is on point and it's designed to attract engagement then the likelihood is that it will have been seen (see above point regarding views vs impressions) by the right people who comment on it and pass that content on to their followers and the chances are that they will also be interested in your post.
• Conversations via DMs are excellent - no argument there but I think it's less likely that someone that doesn't know you will send you a DM because they saw your 'Direct response' post. More likely that they will follow you and engage with your content or connect with you which then facilitates a DM opportunity.
• I'm not sure what 'direct response' copywriting is anyway. I checked their content and didn't see one post that encouraged the reader to send them a DM. I did see several posts that linked to their website which suffer from a similar problem - the lack of engagement that occurs with linked posts restricts the visibility and I find it hard to believe that the amount of website traffic would justify the tactic of posting external links.
• The argument offered regarding engagement being a vanity metric is poor. No sensible person aims for their content to go viral, it's usually counterproductive (see the post of the week below) but they do want as many of the right people to see their content as possible. This is not vanity, it's targeted and purposeful and a good objective.
• He also went on to explain that he utilises outbound sales techniques such as cold calling and handwritten letters. I'm no fan of cold calling (unproductive use of time) but handwritten letters are a quirky and interesting method of directly approaching someone but all inbound techniques are always supported by having great visibility and obvious influence on LinkedIn??.
• He uses his profile as a landing page and puts excellent, value add content (not promotional) in his featured section. That is a good thing to do but wouldn't those posts appear more credible if they had a comment thread underneath them? Why not make these posts more engaging as well, so long as it appeals to the right audience?
• I have discussed the pro's and cons of outbound sales strategies in Episode 444 when I had a brilliant chat with Gillian Whitney about this topic. My issue with outbound is that it potentially creates a mindset of your subservience in both your prospective customers and your mind (often subliminally). I believe that an inbound sales strategy creates and maintains a winning mindset. You can listen to that conversation below.

• He stated that 'engagement on content does not equal business success'. Of course that is true but in my experience conversations in comment threads, leading to DM's are where the magic happens in business. Engagement stimulates the algorithm to allow more reach but it also establishes and develops relationships and because it's visible, more people learn about who you are, what you stand for and what you can do for them.
• Being an effective content creator isn't all about understanding the algorithm, it's also about understanding your audience, your target customers. If you produce content that engages the right audience then you are clearly hitting the right notes and this is helpful in many other aspects of growing your customer base - marketing - cold calling (if you must) - handwritten letters - meetings etc.

There are no right and wrongs here though. Different strategies suit different people and the above views suit my personality and belief in what works for me. The important question this raised for me is the ask ourselves why we post in the first place.

What are our objectives and are we achieving them?

I hope this debate has at least, stimulated you to be clear on that.

Post of the week

I love it when a nominated post is highly relevant to main topic of an episode and this cracker from Lessa Raebiger definitely hits the mark this week.

This is not just great advice and highly relevant but also a very well structured post.

It has a great hook, remember you only see this, plus the image in your feed;

It's the first time I have come across Lessas content and looking at her feed, this is not an outlier, her post are really good and she's well worth a follow.

I Hope you found that valuable, enjoyable, and interesting. Let me know if you did or you didn't. Please get in touch it's what makes the show.

Take care, catch up with you again soon.