I’m a relatively normal, 28-year-old chap living in a small village outside Cambridge.

But I do have a bit of a secret.

I really like Linkedin.

OH. The shaaaame (although to be honest I’m not ashamed).

I like it because it is the best place to build a ‘personal brand‘ (I know, I know) which I believe to be ‘the answer’ to the question of ‘how do B2B brands smash social media?’

But if you’re not in B2B, it’s also the place where posts operate with the broadest reach – opening up new connections unlike any other social platform in a context where people want to chat buz-i-nusssss.

And that’s where the opportunity lies. 

It goes against every British sensibility in my body to share this, but I need stats to prove the point.

So, using Shield*, I pulled my stats from this year (Jan 1st to yesterday). The result? This year, Linkedin has generated over 2,000,000 views on my posts.

Does that change my business overnight? No.

But, it’s little micro-moments that contribute to the bigger picture and I would take a guess that a large amount of the TMM community either heard from me or one of you about what we’re up to, through Linkedin. In a COVID marketplace, I think we can all appreciate the difference any small bit of awareness can give us.

So, I thought I’d share some thoughts on the things I’ve learned about Linkedin. I would also highly recommend listening to John Espirian’s session with us from earlier in the year, should you want to look into this in greater depth.

1. What results can you expect from posting on Linkedin?

Your goal should be as personal to you and your business requirements. But for my mind, if you are just posting organically, then you can expect more ‘top of funnel’ based results: awareness and reputational but less in the way of conversions. Just have in mind whatever you’re hoping to achieve takes time – John Espirian recommends a 30-month mindset in his book Content DNA which gives you time to really start seeing results.

2. Give, give, give. 

It’s interesting that the posts that ‘do well’ are very rarely ones which are promotional in nature. The attitude, therefore, is not ‘what can I do to speak about my product’, but instead ‘I am the living ambassador for my product, it’s values and more’. Without meaning to go ‘Social Dilemma’ about it, on Linkedin you are the product. I love Claudia Cardinali’s approach to posting for that reason.

3. What should you post on LinkedIn?

Your LinkedIn feed is a representation of you, so post things that represent your personality, values, and what you believe. The best strategy I’ve found, shared by Ash Jones, is to create a number (ideally no more than 3) content streams and become the person known for those three things. To paraphrase answer the question: ‘what do I want to be known for?’ and double down on those things. This also protects you from more ‘faddy’ content types which come and go but do nothing for long term brand building. This is basically a content pillar strategy, explained here.

4. Copywriting tips for posting on Linkedin. 

The text before the ‘read more’ is hugely important – treat this area as your ‘headline’, setting context, offering a preview or teasing an interesting story. Joe Gannon does a great job of this with his opening line of ‘ Why I started posting on LinkedIn and the RESULTS so far!’

Secondly, optimise your content for mobile. Short, snappy paragraphs (as opposed to big blocks of texts) really help. Although do your best to avoid ‘Linkedin Broetry’ where

you

write

a

new paragraph

for every

word or phrase.

5. Should you use hashtags? 

It’s worth inserting 2-3 hashtags at the end of each of your posts, but no more than that. I’m not sure if they do a lot.

6. How often should you be posting on Linkedin? 

Don’t let people fool you – there is no ‘perfect’ amount you should be posting on LinkedIn. Do what feels comfortable with you. However, if you’re serious about it, I would recommend trying to make it a daily practice so you get momentum behind it, and then scale back over time when you find your groove. It’s easier to take your foot off the pedal than it is to start again. Momentum, in my experience, in the keyword to any kind of ‘Linkedin success’.

7. Video works great on LinkedIn but never EVER post a video without subtitles

Keep it to less than three minutes, and be sure to use subtitles! Rev.com is a great place to get your video transcribed, and here is a video which shows you how to upload your subtitles to Linkedin.

8. The best engagement to encourage on LinkedIn in order go: comments, likes, shares.

This means to say you should be looking to maximise the conversation opportunity on your posts. Shares, unusually, do next to nothing. Don’t bother with them!

9. Company pages vs personal pages?

Some people say don’t bother with company pages. I agree with them in the sense that the main driver of interaction is through personal pages and y’know… humans. HOWEVER, I would recommend still using a company page as a stream of content you’re producing elsewhere: blogs, resources etc. While it won’t necessarily get huge amounts of traffic, it’s better than not doing it at all.

*(unpaid plug for Shield – the tool I used to pull the Linkedin Stats: MARKETINGMEETUP for 15% off on checkout)