Welcome to episode 258. We all know that post engagement is crucial for you to become visible on LinkedIn but not all ‘engagement’ types are equal. We know shares are pretty useless to you but what about Likes and Comments. Which one is best?

Following some interesting research I saw this week, I thought that would be an interesting topic to explore.

But first…..

Interesting Stuff I Saw This Week

• Researchers map global economy in collaboration with LinkedIn
• World Bank partners with LinkedIn to research the relationship between international connectivity and economic activity
• John Espirians LinkedIn fix list
• LinkedIn update their member statistics page

Why do people mass post?

The top five posters of those I follow;

Seeing these numbers got me thinking so I posted about it this week. The comment thread makes for some really interesting reading.

My conclusion is that the likes of Guy Kawasaki have that many followers, they will probably gain something from this strategy because new followers will almost certainly see at least a couple of posts initially and if they have enough new followers, it will likely generate a return.

Matt Navarra only has 9300 followers but he explained that he is not focussing on LinkedIn and only uses it as a way of posting relevant articles via Buffer. This is fine but annoying that LinkedIn penalises him – some of the content he shares is very useful but we never get to see it! I don’t know Adi Gaskell but my sense is that he is using LinkedIn in the same way as Matt.

As for Lisa and Ted, I’m less sympathetic. Both have businesses highly relevant to LinkedIn, Ted even claims to be America’s leading LinkedIn coach! So visibility should be very important to them – they both have a lot of followers but not to a level where the number of new ones would justify this strategy….so I’m rather mystified by their posting strategy!

A Question I’m Pondering

Are followers treated the same as connections by the algorithm? This is especially interesting with regards to Likes/Comments

I’d love to know what you think, drop me a DM on LinkedIn

Organic Reach on LinkedIn Won’t Last

I was frustrated to see yet another influential social media expert stating this again in this post;

Stevens advice in this video is sound, if a bit basic but that may fit with his audience. My issue is this lazy assumption that LinkedIn organic reach will drop….just because that is what happened to Facebook!

• LinkedIn has a completely different monetization model to Facebook and other SM sites
• He compares the reach he used to get on Facebook Pages to LinkedIn reach from personal posts…that is not a relevant comparison
• LinkedIn company page organic reach is also pretty poor (and somewhat dishonest!)
• Organic reach on personal posts compliments LinkedIn’s subscription products and even it’s ad business
• Organic reach is more likely to drop because more people start posting because experts like Steven keep warning them..it’s now or never!
• I’m not stating it won’t drop, it’s possible I just think the Facebook argument is a weak and lazy comparison.

Likes Vs Comments

This topic was inspired by this post from Denis Zekic.

This is an interesting and potentially important piece of research however the lack of source data concerns me. I have written to him asking for;

How many posts were analysed? – How many accounts and from what locations? – How many people did these accounts follow? – Split between personal and company posts? – What % of posts were video, doc, text only, image? – What % were analysed mobile vs desktop – You state company updates are improving. what data do you have to support that?

As you can see, there are so many variables at play with this type of analysis not least who the hugely important factor – who’s feeds were analysed?

This is critical because their activity – who they engage with ‘in the feed’, who they DM, whose profiles they visit etc all have an impact on the results.

I haven’t received a reply as yet but I’m typing this just hours after sending the request!

Many of his conclusions make a lot of sense to me but the one that stands out as different to other surveys I’ve seen is that Likes have a much greater impact on views – therefore he encourages posting for Likes to gain better visibility.

This is in some part due to the fact that c60% of LinkedIn access is via mobile where Likes are 4x more visible. That seems pretty compelling but only if your ultimate aim is page impressions.

LinkedIn have commented publicly that the order of preference in the feed is;

1. Comments
2. Likes
3. Shares

Although in my experience there is little between them.

The reason likes work better for views is that there is less friction in the action, they are just easier to do, especially on mobile so they always outnumber comments.

So does that mean that Likes win?

Not really!

Advantages of Likes

• Easier to achieve (less friction)
• Less time-consuming – they require no action back from you
• Greater impact in the critical first hour (because of the above two points)
• More views (in the feed)

Advantages of Comments

• Conversations help break down barriers and build relationships
• Participants in the comments thread are often much more relevant than casual ‘Likers’
• Lurkers who just observe see what you have to say, what you stand for and can form an opinion of who you are
• Comments encourage more comments
• Organic reach is more targeted – people who comment are usually relevant to the post and their followers are likely to be the same.

So for me, comments always win but in truth, you need both to be successful

Many people complain that LinkedIn posts are becoming too lightweight and more suited to Facebook. It’s partly true but that is simply a reflection on what people are interested in, especially as they are typically short of time on LinkedIn. That said, more serious business-orientated posts can work and I’m so pleased to be able to show you this one;

What I like about this post;

• Great structure – critical for text only
• A clearly visible question in the first five lines
• ‘I bet those words don’t excite you’ is a great line to get attention
• Nicely laid out and easy to read
• Michael replies to most comments
• Self tagging (@mention) is a new one to me but it’s a technique worth trying!

Michael hasn’t been using LinkedIn for very long and now has 4000 followers, this post increased his profile views by 523%!!

This questions came from Sara (pronounced Sarah!) Gallagher;

Can you type bold or italic font in LinkedIn posts or comments?

LinkedIn do not have a facility for this type of font formatting but you can get around it by using something called unicode…not sure what the magic is behind this but it works and these days it works across all mobile and desktop Operating systems.

The one I recommend is called Unicode Text Converter

That’s all for this week.

There won’t be an episode next week as I am going away for a long weekend but don’t let that stop you getting in touch with any questions about LinkedIn or suggestions for the show.

Have a great week.