Your network ... and why size matters when publishing content.

On a recent call (Zoom, of course) a client advised me that he'd had a cull of his network.

Those unfortunate connections that had been chopped out of my client's network weren't deemed to be of value to business opportunities - so he booted them out.

My response ….

 Let's take a step back.

Here's how it used to be when we wanted to grow our business network - you'd build your relationships face to face, at events, at shows, at meetings, over lunch.

You were networking, building trust and nurturing your connections so that they would become your customers and advocates of you and your business.

And then came COVID and slammed on the brakes for our face to face networking opportunities.

So where are people networking now? Where are they starting their new conversations? Where are they growing their visibility into target accounts and their business opportunities?

Here. On LinkedIn

So, why is your network (the numbers of connections and followers you have) important? Well, for a number of reasons when you are looking at posting content.

Put simply, when you publish content, you have a better chance of it being seen if you have a larger network. And more importantly, the larger your network the better the chance you have of people interacting with it.

People with big networks will invariably get much better engagement on their content than people with small networks. Take a look at content on your news feed. Content that has lots of comments and interactions have 2 things in common - good content and a large network.

You can also think of your of your network as a distribution mechanism for your content and your megaphone to amplify your message.

The larger your network, the louder your message can become outside of your network. 

Again, have a look at your news feed - how much of the content you are seeing is from people that you don't know? 

You are seeing it because people within your network (your 1st connections) have liked or commented on it. And you might decide to comment or engage with it too even though you aren't connected to the author. Which means the author is able to distribute their content through their original audience, generating more views, more interactions and more comments.

So the same principle applies to your content - if you've got a large network and a connection comments on your content, then your content spreads out through your network and into their network.

 And if those new networks engage with your content too, then you've got a brilliant opportunity to connect, grow your network and potentially start up a conversation.

A larger network also drives recommendations - we've all seen posts from people asking for trusted recommendations which results is recommendations way outside of that person's original network.

You could think of your network as a pool of water - your content is the stone which ripples out when thrown in. The larger your pool of water, the further your content ripples.

So if you spend hours on the most amazing piece of content and only have a small network, then you are dialling down the sound on your microphone when you post it. You are reducing the chances of people engaging with your content and you are reducing the chances of your content being seen by people outside of your network.

And even though my client thought some of those in his network weren't of immediate value, it was worth remembering that his culled connections may have had connections in their network that were.

See, size does matter.