The LinkedIn growth secrets nobody talks about
A viral sensation reminds us that LinkedIn growth depends on a secret sauce that includes timing, engagement, and persverence.
This headline isn't clickbait. And I'm not selling you any LinkedIn consulting services! But I just had something really weird happen to me and it points to a few important LinkedIn growth secrets nobody talks about.
The crazy thing that prompted this article was, last week I had a LinkedIn post receive 100,000 impressions (104,833 and counting). On the surface, it looks like I'm killing it. Obviously, there was some luck involved. Nobody can plan viral. However, there are bigger lessons here about LinkedIn success, and I wanted to use this as a teachable moment.
The surprising post
It's important to start with the actual content, and you'll be surprised. The post that went viral was under 100 words. It wasn't an in-depth article -- I wrote it in five minutes. It wasn't controversial. It didn't have any photos or illustrations. And I posted the darn thing late on a Saturday night!
Before I tell you why it picked up steam, here is the entire post:
I have a sinking feeling of being left behind.
I'm reading about big companies and their AI re-invention and startups being "AI first."
But here I am as a small business, fully immersed in the smart ideas of AI and using GPT as my sidekick every hour of the day. Yet the foundation of my business is Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and a Wordpress blog/website. This is CRUDE.
AI is creating iterative improvements but I am not TRANSFORMING. I am augmenting, not reimagining. I sense that as a small business, I don't have the ability to really LEAD with AI except to maybe be a little better at prompts than the next guy. Thoughts?
Not that exceptional, right? So let's see what happened ...
The first rule of LinkedIn growth success
First, let's remind ourselves of the first rule of LinkedIn success -- create conversations.
The number of likes doesn't really matter. The number of shares doesn't matter so much. Are people leaving lengthy comments? That represents a conversation, and LinkedIn loves that.
Specifically, when you first post content, LinkedIn only shares it to a small percentage of your followers. It wants to see if people are interested ... do they comment? So those first few hours are key. If conversations (meaningful comments) happen, LinkedIn shares it to more of your followers, and if the comments continue, it might even get shared beyond your audience. Open waters!
Why did people start leaving comments on my post? Because I ended the post with a question. People just love to answer questions. If they leave the post without answering the question, it seems like the interaction is incomplete.
The post itself was honest, relevant, and vulnerable, something rare for LinkedIn, where everybody seems to be only interested in selling stuff. So, interrupting the flow with a short vulnerable post ending in a question started the conversations. And the first rule of LinkedIn success is, START CONVERSATIONS.
The other key is that I responded right away. This encouraged other people to converse, and then the ball was really rolling.
The viral moment
I've had many posts on LinkedIn create conversations and earn 30,000 views and more, but I think tipping 100,000 was a record for me. I can only guess why, but here is my theory.
First, it was short. There seems to be a trend on LinkedIn toward exceedingly long posts, but who has time for that?
It was a sincere cry for help that hit a nerve. It was unusual in its raw humanity.
It was timely. Let's say I posted a little rant about an algorithm change that happened a month ago. Nobody wants to hear about it. It's old news. But at this moment, much of the world is feeling a little stressed about AI and keeping up. So my timing was right. Be current.
The outfall
On several occasions, I've written that "engagement" is a lousy metric, and this viral hit was proof. With more than 300 comments, this would be deemed a major success by most businesses, but answering even most of them in a meaningful way was a distraction for my business. I've often said that you can engage yourself broke.
I tried my best to keep up because I always do. It's an honor to earn a person's attention and I don't take that for granted. But another part of LinkedIn success is, don't be fooled by engagement as a meaningful metric. There is no research I can find that correlates engagement to profitability or loyalty.
The responses were pretty evenly divided into:
You're doing OK as you are
You're doing it all wrong
Let me sell you something
The business benefit
I had a viral success. What was the business benefit?
I certainly earned some awareness and about 1oo new followers. But the true benefit is unknowable. Allow me to explain.
I once had a client who told me, "Blogging doesn't work."
I asked him why.
"Because I wrote three blog posts in 2017 and nothing happened."
Well of course not. Creating content that leads to a powerful personal brand is the long game. I teach a Personal Branding Master Class and I repeat over and over that "consistency is more important than genius."
The LinkedIn post that went viral was not an act of genius. It was act of perseverance.
If this was my first post on LinkedIn, or my fiftieth, it would not have gone viral. But I have been publishing several times a week for 20 years, and I always provide helpful, quality content. I've built an audience who looks for my content and is ready to respond. That takes time.
The long-game nature of LinkedIn growth
Let me conclude with a final thought about benefits of content over the long term.
Many years ago, I received an email from a person who said he had been reading my content for three years. And based on his affection for my articles, he bought one of my books. He just wanted to tell me that this was the best business book he had read in 10 years. I didn't know this person. As far as I knew, this had been my first contact with him, and the email was signed with his name and title -- he was the CMO of a Fortune 100 company.
About two years later, I heard from him a second time, He wanted to hire me to help him re-organize his corporate content marketing effort. I didn't have to bid on the contract. After reading my content for what was now five years, he knew I was the right person for the job and I just named my price.
And that's how it works.
There is no get-rich-quick scheme for LinkedIn. You build an audience. The audience trusts you, and they become your customers.
The greatest secret of LinkedIn growth is perseverance.
I appreciate you and the time you took out of your day to read this! You can find more articles like this from me on the top-rated {grow} blog and while you’re there, take a look at my Marketing Companion podcast and my keynote speaking page. For news and insights find me on Twitter at @markwschaefer, to see what I do when I’m not working, follow me on Instagram, and discover my RISE community here.
Illustration courtesy MidJourney.
Mark, thank you for those insights. I have a love/hate relationship with LinkedIn. Most of my business-related social media content is posted there and, on rare occasions, it generates conversations.
I'd like to ask (respectfully): Doesn't your considerable following and influence also contribute to your posts' getting numerous responses? That's not to suggest frequency, creativity, topic, etc, don't play a role, but it does seem to me that the number of connections and followers is a factor. Am I wrong?
Never forget the power of just reaching out for even five minutes to just say hi to someone and offer support. I tell all my authors Mark how you are truly one of the top three marketing experts in the world. I appreciate most the dedication you have to help others and that you are driven by this passion of yours.