Posting for Engagement
Whilst the title for this episode is about posting, I actually have two main topics to cover this week.
- Posting for Engagement – A case study
- A closer look at new LinkedIn Events
I also have a ‘not’ post of the week as well as a post of the week!
But as always, before we get to that……
Interesting Stuff I Saw This Week
- UK top voices list is now out. Congratulations to Alex Galviz and Simon Chan, both excellent content producers. I’m still scratching my head at some of the winners though. No offence to the individuals concerned (it’s not their fault) but I would love to understand how Lynda Gratton and Mark Gregory made the list. Lynda writes few articles with low engagement and her posts rarely create any buzz at all. Her best post got 12 comments! At least Lynda has the excuse of fewer followers whereas Mark Gregory has 87,000 followers and is lucky if he gets 3 comments on a post. He does, however, work for one of LinkedIn’s biggest customers…although I’m sure that’s completely irrelevant!
- Wow! Irina Shamaeva has done it again and has come up with some amazing Boolean operators that can be used to search LinkedIn on a free account and give results comparable to LinkedIn Recruiter (bar the visibility benefits). You can read the full article here
- It would appear the rumour about LinkedIn Stories is true as several media outlets have been reporting about it this week. The frustrating thing is that LinkedIn seem to be aiming this feature purely at students! As usual, they are way off the mark in that their version of stories stays on your profile (recent activity) whereas they will be used to Instagram and Snapchat stories that disappear quickly. This is an issue because that demographic will largely view LinkedIn as a career/job seeking site!
- The Kids Love LinkedIn and the Stories Format. Now They Can Do Both!
- LinkedIn launches its own Snapchat Stories. Here’s why it shouldn’t have
I loved this story from listener Niall Parfitt
I’m based in Ireland and have been working on LinkedIn on both the client side and most recently as a consultant/trainer. I’m an hours drive from EMEA HQ and have been down numerous times in the offices. I also went through a 5 month job application process with the company last year. It was Xmas Jumper day and I rocked up with a suit, shirt and tie and got interviewed by a Xmas Elf and Guy in a Xmas jumper. It was then that I realised that I wasn’t the right culture for the company!
Classic LinkedIn! ??
New Features
Emails are no longer included in your connections download. Actually to be more accurate, there is now a setting that gives the choice to your connection and the default is that their email is not included.
This settings change has a few people unhappy. Personally, I think it’s the right move and probably wise with GDPR.
Connecting with someone does not give anyone the right to add you to their email list and this feature made that far too easy to do.
I have downloaded my connections many times in the past but have never had any reason to use that information so the file has just sat there, unopened.
I’m not going to miss it and I’m not going to miss the spam I receive from new connections!
InMails now appear to specify that they come from a Sales Navigator account. I wonder if it’s the same for Recruiter and more importantly, why is this important?
Location in Messages
The point of this feature is that you can send a location in a message, not necessarily where you are but any location. Nice feature, I doubt it will be used much.
LinkedIn Rumours
It has long been rumoured that LinkedIn will at some point introduce live video streaming to the platform.
This got me thinking….Do we really need live video on LinkedIn?
Maybe I’m missing the point but I am really struggling to see how live streaming could add value and be useful on LinkedIn.
- Why does a video need to be live?
- What is the appeal to the viewer?
- Would LinkedIn users really stop what they are doing (usually at work) to watch an impromptu live stream?
I can definitely see a use for live video calling, a two-way conversation in the messages app would make more sense to me.
I’m told you tend to get better engagement from people if you answer questions live, people enjoy the ‘instant reaction’ element to it plus other people have stated that the viewer prefers live because it’s more authentic – the presenter can’t edit and has to respond immediately.
I would love to hear your opinions on this. Send me a voicemail (ask me a question link on the right edge of this screen) or contact me on LinkedIn
That’s a great, timely post from Paul, the following post, however, is quite the opposite!
NOT post of the week!
To me this story seems somewhat unconvincing, I’m not even sure it’s a good story if it were true, unfortunately, it seems that thousands of people have fallen for it. Is this another example of dodgy practice from BAMF media (remember that dodgy algorithm post?).
LinkedIn Events
Fan of the show Sandra Clark has kindly helped us all by giving detailed feedback on her experience within the pilot group who are trialling the new events feature. Sandra recorded this short video which demonstrates how a new event is created.
You can invite connections directly to an event or promote it via a post.
When you receive an invite to an event it appears in your ‘My Network’ page along with invitations to connect
Once you accept you are encouraged to promote the event through a post to your followers
By clicking on the attendees you can view a list which is effectively a search result including all the normal filters plus an ‘Events’ filter but you can only see a list of attendees from events that you are listed as an Attendee.
Once you have accepted an invitation, the event then shows in the left-hand panel underneath ‘communities’
The worst feature is that ‘posting’ in the event is not like a group post (only seen within the group) but actually a public post. This is crazy because attendees will want to use this as a way of engaging with the attendees and the result will be strange looking, non-sensical posts to their followers (see below)
Here is another review of events from someone else involved in the pilot group Germain Louie
A Review of LinkedIn Events – What’s Next?
It’s a promising start but they clearly have a lot of work to do!
My main issue is that they haven’t gone the ‘whole hog’ and included a ticketing an attendee management feature. Attendees should have to be approved (as with groups) and it would also make sense to have a Q code type scanning feature on the mobile app to ‘check in’ each attendee when they arrive, this could automatically tag them as having attended and that could be a way to filter the attendee list.
The rumour is that LinkedIn are in discussion with Eventbrite to blend their ticketing into the feature. That could work.
Posting For Engagement
Something I am always asking people on my courses is “How do you know anyone is seeing your posts?” View numbers mean very little. The key is in engagement
Shares are bronze, Likes are silver and comments are GOLD!
This means that EVERY post should be designed to attract comments, if you get Likes as well, that’s great but the focus is to attract comments.
I recently received a message from a connection of mine Lisa Rabone
Hi Mark, could you help me refresh my LinkedIn presence? I feel it has gone a bit stale and I’m not sure it is appealing to the right audience
So I replied to say I was happy to help her provided that I can publish my advice on the podcast…..she happily agreed so here we are with the first instalment of what will be an ongoing project to refresh Lisa’s presence on LinkedIn.
We have already had a couple of conversations about her profile and she has made a few amendments but I wanted to start by featuring one of her recent posts and providing my feedback;
The first and most obvious issue with this is that it is a shared post. Sharing simply doesn’t work on LinkedIn so my advice is don’t do it…not ever!
The original poster gets nothing from it and neither do you so why bother? It’s just a waste of time!
The right thing to do is to comment on the original post (more of your followers will see that anyway) and if the post has been successful then take the subject as inspiration and create your own new post.
Remember the aim is to engage so a post needs to attract comments.
This is what I would do instead;
I was tempted to use an image for this post, images grab attention but they do take up a lot of space which can hinder their distribution. So I went for a few colourful emoji’s to help pull eyes onto the post.
The first 3 lines are designed to create enough intrigue to make the reader click on ‘see more’, this tells the algorithm that people are reading my post.
The copy is designed to stimulate the reader to think…agree or disagree, it doesn’t matter but they must feel the desire to want to comment.
The length of the post is only relevant in that it needs to be longer than 3 lines to trigger the ‘see more’
It’s important to finish with a question to encourage comments.
Try to think of 2-3 people you can @mention
Always add a few hashtags, they may make little difference but you never know and they don’t have any downside.
Finally, I would post this in the morning, ideally between 8-9.30 am or alternatively at lunchtime. Afternoon posts do less well unless you have an engaged following in a different time zone!
I’m hoping to persuade Lisa to post this, or something very similar in her words next week and it will be interesting to see the results!
OK folks, that’s all for this week.
Remember
- If you like the show, write an iTunes 5 star review. It really does help us get noticed.
- If you have any topics you want me to cover, get in touch
- Get in touch if you have a nominee for post of the week, just send me the posts url and why you think it should be featured.
