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LinkedIn posting tips

LinkedIn posting tips

LinkedIn posting tips


Content Matters

Why should I create and share content on LinkedIn? Can I do without this “content marketing” thing? Well, these are frequently asked questions among those who are just getting started with inbound marketing on LinkedIn. 

And when I say content I am talking about creating your own unique content, your own insights, findings, results and not reposting other people’s content. I mean you can, of course, syndicate other sources, there is nothing wrong with that. However, I think if you are an expert-entrepreneur and position yourself as an authority in your own segment, creating and sharing your own content and voice is the best way to get recognition and help people along the way. 

Otherwise, how else would you showcase your expertise, how else would people know you’re skilled or expert in something if you keep silent. If you know a better way, please share it with me, I’d love to know. Not only that, I think it’s even selfish not to share what you know with the rest. It is some type of disservice to the public, so to speak.

Ok, what type of content to share in order to connect and engage with people? Typically you want to share something educational, something of value – it’s just the nature of this platform. 

Here are some ideas to get started. You can share something which you think your industry will look like in 2, 5, 10 years and how it will get there. Share important trends that people in your industry or area of expertise should know about. What are the challenges or opportunities you have faced or seized? What’s the biggest problem your ideal client has? What are their frustrations? And finally what concrete advice would you give someone who is getting started in your field? I am always for one or two concrete and actionable things, tips or techniques that people can take away and implement right away. 

But talking about the types of content more specifically post types, I’d like to share three main post types method that I learned from legendary Frank Kern about what to share on social media. His 3 post method gives some general guidelines for posting 3 times a day on social media for building your personal brand but I think LinkedIn has its own way and I’d modify and adapt it to this very platform. I mean you cannot post 3 or 6 times a day on LinkedIn as you would typically do on Instagram or Facebook. Though I see some people try to replicate this frequent posting behaviour from other social media platforms to LinkedIn. Maybe they’re testing something, I don’t know. I am curious to see the results if you could share them with me.

What I suggest my clients do and this is what I typically do myself is the following cadence 1 post a day with a rotation of three types of posts throughout a week. 

Connection Post

So, the first post type is a ‘connection’ post. The goal of this post is to create an emotional bond with your brand because people buy from people with who they resonate and feel understood. People buy from people when they feel understood not when they understand you. So that’s important to keep in mind when you try to connect and engage with your audience. 

‘How-To’ Post

The second type is the ‘how-to’ post. The goal of a ‘how-to’ post is to demonstrate your expertise, substance and create trust by delivering results in advance and by actually helping people. Well…, this is what I am currently doing with this video, hopefully, I provide value and create trust and goodwill and help along the way with my advice. Well, there is more than that which goes into what we teach at LinkedFormula such as your core messaging pillars that are actually the main things your audience needs to do or to know in order to get what they want. 

Offer Post

And, lastly, the 3rd type is an ‘offer’ post. What? Wait a second! You said an offer. Don’t you dare to make an offer and sell on LinkedIn! 

Well, while some folks preach not to make any offer or sell anything on LinkedIn, I think it’s totally ok and there is nothing wrong with that. As long as you provide value, you connect with your audience and create goodwill you still can make offers why not? After all, if we’re in business let’s not pretend that we are running charities (which is by the way nothing wrong with charities, I’m just saying this to underline that whoever is in business is not a not-for-profit organization).

And besides that, if you know your service or product is going to help someone why wouldn’t you? More than that if you see a right fit with a prospect you know you can help him or her why wouldn’t you? 

Nooo! You still should not pitch on LinkedIn! 

Really!? Seriously? And what about your LinkedIn messages, isn’t it a part of LinkedIn? Look at what’s happening there. I receive daily cold messages and I am sure you do as well from strangers who bluntly pitch their services in their very first message. 

Well, doing so is one thing, which is not the greatest experience – I agree. But creating goodwill over time and providing value in advance and then making offers is a totally different thing.

And by the way, an offer can be as simple as a newsletter sign-up or an invitation to a webinar. The bottom line is you still can make offers as long as you provide value and create goodwill and affinity with your brand. 

Just keep common sense and balance your content with a ratio of 3:1. For example, every other 3 days I would include some call-to-action in my posts on LinkedIn. For the rest of the days of the week, it will be content to connect and provide just value to my audience.

Sharing Content Consistently

Sharing content consistently has two goals. 

Goal #1: It helps you be on top of the mind of your audience all the time and build relationships with them. I call it top of a mind awareness farming strategy. Like a farmer, you have to take care of your garden, nurture, water it so you can reap the fruits of your work later. In a current noisy and overcrowded market, it’s hard to get and keep attention for a longer period of time. So you need to be constantly in front of your people so they keep consuming your content and if it resonates with them they can start working with you. 

Goal #2: Posting content consistently and regularly creates a habit around building your content. It’s a matter of habit like pretty much everything in this life. It is scientifically proven, in the beginning, it feels uncomfortable but when you keep doing something uncomfortable for a longer period of time, you now start feeling uncomfortable not doing the same exact thing that was uncomfortable to you in the past. This is how it works. This worked for me as well. I remember when I was uncomfortable sharing content but now I can’t wait to create more in order to share more because it’s now uncomfortable for me not to do it. Don’t believe me, do yourself a favor — start creating your own unique content and start sharing it for a few months consistently. 

@Mentioning In the Content

Even though LinkedIn encourages us to invite people in our conversations, posts, comments by mentioning them, I think we should not overuse the mentions as it gets annoying to some point. Well, if you comment or like it will notify the person anyways so they know, no need to mention them every single time. However, if this is something which is directly related to that person or you want to give a shoutout then yes definitely utilize that feature. 

Hashtags

Another way to get your content found and bump your discoverability is to use hashtags. Use a # number sign plus the topic of your content to indicate what your post is about. Hashtags are searchable and help your content get discovered. 

Usually, you want to use hashtags at the end of a post or an article. There is actually a separate section on LinkedIn where you can find and follow any hashtags you want so you can keep up with the content you’re interested in being shared by other people. It can be found in the bottom-left section of your LinkedIn homepage, called “Followed Hashtags.”

One thing to highlight here I wouldn’t go more than three hashtags maximum per content piece. Do not do hashtag stuffing because it’s not an Instagram and by doing so I believe you confuse LinkedIn algorithms as well, so one thing to keep in mind.

I typically go with two main hashtags for my topic, in this case, it will be for example #linkedin #contentmarketing and I will add my personal brand name as a hashtag or my company name as a hashtag just to give some visibility and love from algorithms to my brand awareness.  

Post With Images

Use your posts with images. The text limit is 1300 characters. If your content exceeds 1300 characters, LinkedIn suggests writing an article instead, using LinkedIn’s Publishing Platform. This way they encourage users to utilize different features of their platform which is great. But for some reason posts with images get more views. It seems like posts with images are being favored by the LinkedIn algorithm. Of course, nobody knows 100% but LinkedIn what’s out there and how it works – all we can do is to guesstimate.

But what I can tell from my own experience, common sense and logic I apply is when you scroll your feeds an image takes up the bigger space on the screen especially when you’re on mobile and IF the image is compelling enough and fulfills a pattern interrupt requirements to make a viewer stop scrolling then the chances are that your content will get more engagement. 

Interestingly enough my videos compared to images do not get that much engagement and views. Again I am talking from my own experience and I do not represent LinkedIn’s official standpoint obviously and nobody can, to be honest. Maybe my videos are not engaging enough. Who knows? Let me know down below if that’s the case. I’d love to hear your feedback by the way. But this is a topic for another conversation and maybe I’ll shoot a separate video and share my insights and analysis of testing out the videos and what I learned from them so far.


What’s Next?

If you are a coach, consultant, trainer, speaker or author, you want to discover the faster, easier way to get prospects and sales-qualified leads on LinkedIn today.

At LinkedFormula we help our clients sell their digital products and services on LinkedIn and shorten the sales cycle.

This system and processes we have at LinkedFormula can put you on track to hunt down your ideal clients relatively FAST.

If you’re interested in learning more about how we can solve your lead generation problem the first step is to get this FREE LinkedIn Guide

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