For the last 3+ months I have been running a very unscientific experiment with a clients LinkedIn account. We are looking to raise their visibility in their space and sector so have been posting regular updates with their thoughts, comments and sharing of information related to this. The client is providing us with content and comments (it needs to be their voice) and then we are scheduling the posting of the content in their updates.
Sometimes we have run out of new content so we go back to past ‘ever green’ content and re-post it. The ‘experiment’ highlighted that not everyone saw the posts the first time around as they garnered new likes, comments and shares. Some subsequent research discovered this “20 posts a month to reach 60% of your network” stat. Although there does not seem to be any real data to back this up the ‘client experience’ seems to validate it to an extent.
This is good news for you and your LinkedIn activity and presence for 3 reasons;
- You don’t have to be constantly posting new content in your updates, that is often a barrier for many people because they think they have to.
- If you have content that proves popular you can re-use it at a later date. Be conscious it needs not to have an ‘expiry date’.
- You can perhaps worry less that you are inundating your network with updates, chances are most are not seeing all of them.
Three tactics you can implement to make this happen:
- Have regular time put aside each week to identify good content. There are plenty of useful tools like Feedlly.com and Evernote Clipper that you can tag and save interesting pieces found on the web to go back to later, so you do not have to be trawling all the time. Put aside half an hour a week to collate and choose the best pieces.
- Schedule your content updates so that you do not suddenly appear in someones news feed with post, after post, after post – there is a chance they will block you if you do this. Again technology such as Buffer and Hootsuite can do this for you very easily. When you have something more immediate to post then use the standard desktop or mobile app in LinkedIn to do this.
- Track your updates over a period of time to see what their effectiveness has been. For this client we have an Excel sheet with the posts and then a week later we go back in and check to see what has been the engagement on those posts. The ones with higher engagement and ever green content can be scheduled again for a future date.
This is not a case of gaming the system, although more activity is definitely rewarded by the LinkedIn system. It is more about working smarter and ensuring your personal brand becomes known on LinkedIn for the areas and expertise that you want to be known for.
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