Nick Powills: The Insider Tricks to Making LinkedIn Really Work

Attention social media content creators. While it may not be completely there, LinkedIn has neared zero reach – a social movement where the network creators limit the reach of a post to be virtually nothing unless you spend money on advertising.

This is a little backwards, if you ask me. On Facebook, zero reach has hit businesses hard. Why? Facebook is in the business of making money and monetizing Facebook advertising is a smart business model. A few things I would encourage brands to think about with Facebook:

1. Boosting posts to your audience makes sense if you actually create social content. Maybe brands write about eating their burger and use a picture of a burger. Problem is, if you went to a party and just ate a burger without talking about it with someone who would be labeled as media, it’s not social. So, when your content is bad, boosting a post just doesn’t make sense. I would recommend boosting the posts that get some organic climb, meaning likes, shares and comments, before spending $$$$.
2. Facebook was smart. They made brands create pages for all of their locations. But here’s the problem. With so many locations, the value of your ad spend is less. Why? If you have 10 location pages and each spends $10 on boosting content, the reach will be very limited versus spending $100 to boost and including each of the locations in your targeting. Facebook was smart because they got brands to spend more to reach the people they spent money attracting. But that’s something to think about as you define your true social strategy and persona targets. Should you have one brand footprint that has a strategic plan to have more reach?
3. Conversation wins the game. Are you having conversations with your audience or simply talking at it? If you are not engaging in conversation, then the zero reach continues. If your fans engage, their friends will have a higher chance of seeing your content.

So, why did I address Facebook first? Well, because LinkedIn is not far behind.

I have done some tests and here’s what I know:

1. I post my column (this column) every week on LinkedIn. I have an audience of 7,000 connections. I posted a content piece on Saturday, May 18, and 24 hours later, had 468 views. I posted a video (uploaded with autoplay) on Wednesday, May 15, and four days later, had 326 views. I posted a column on Sunday, May 12, and a week later, had 710 views. Each of my posts that have content and links are getting about the same results as uploaded videos. So, about 10 percent of my audience is being reached.
2. I posted a picture of my family. It got thousands of views, 70 likes and 10 comments. What? Yes, personal content seemed to connect the most.
3. Business pages are not reaching the audiences that follow them, either.
4. Now, it is worth noting why people are on LinkedIn – most often it’s sales or they’re looking for a job. Thus, your content better match the purposes your audience is on the platform versus a Facebook or Instagram that has more grey area.

Now, here’s the secret to LinkedIn content:

1. It should still be conversational.
2. If you get more engagement, the reach climbs.
3. If you spend ad $$$ as a business, you can get more reach.

This advice is virtually the same advice/secrets that can be applied to Facebook. People love people. They want human interest. They want to engage with you. Give them something to engage with, stop selling them nonstop, be real, be personable and your social content will elevate you and help you reach the purpose of you posting in the first place.