“I am publishing content but just not getting any engagement.” is a popular refrain I hear. People want to know how to get more engagement with their posts, polls, articles and newsletters. Here are six ways you can help yourself.
1) Grow your network
This is both remarkably obvious and remarkably overlooked. And it completely has to do with LinkedIn’s algorithms. When we publish, LinkedIn puts our content in front of a small percentage of our connections and followers, thought to be somewhere in the five to seven percent range. Let’s say it is six percent. You have 500 connections and followers. I have 5,000. So LinkedIn puts your article in front of 30 people for you and 300 for me. Advantage: me. For publishing on LinkedIn, the more connections and followers you have the better. Having more people that can engage with your content is a good jumping off point for actually getting that engagement.
Note that the only real loophole you can use with this is by using a LinkedIn newsletter. If you have a newsletter with 500 subscribers, LinkedIn promises that 500 subscribers will be notified when you publish. That’s a huge advantage that newsletters have over all other types of content on LinkedIn.
2) Have your own voice
When I write, I poke fun at just about everything, including myself. The comment I get more than any other about my writing is that I am different from most everyone else. I don’t write clinical boring prose, and I don’t just regurgitate LinkedIn’s press releases. I write about what I think. I have opinions.
My main suggestion for most people is to write like you are speaking with a friend. Be engaging. Tell stories. Let your personality come out. Don’t be a robot. If you come across as interesting and engaging people will be more disposed to read and comment on your content.
3) Be a specialist
Find your niche, the part of your work that really intrigues you and write about that. You do need it to have broad enough appeal though to attract the interest of enough people to be worthwhile. I suppose you could sum up what I do as being “studying the way LinkedIn works, and helping people translate that into making LinkedIn work for them.” I avoid parts of LinkedIn that I think are flawed or have little value. You may have noticed I rarely mention LinkedIn Groups (now there’s a topic for a future newsletter) and that’s because I don’t think they will help my clients and readers. I don’t try to be everything. You shouldn’t either.
4) Be regular
It’s hard for people to comment when you don’t publish something for them to comment on. If you have problems coming up with ideas, sign up for ChatGPT and use it to come up with ideas. You just feed it prompts like “Give me ten problems quality control managers have to deal with.” It’s a terrific tool for people with writer’s block. Just don’t use it for the finished article. That’s your voice, as I mentioned earlier.
Also being a regular publisher helps people set expectations. I usually publish on LinkedIn every second Tuesday. If I alter my schedule I actually get messages from people asking where my latest article is. If you are writing genuinely interesting content that people want to read, you will develop regular readers.
5) Invite your readers to comment
Ah, the CTA – Call To Action. If you want comments, you need a call to action. What not to do: ask a question that is easily dismissed or results in an answer that will go nowhere. An example of this that I often see is “Do you agree?” Which results in a yes or no answer. Hardly a compelling piece of engagement.
Instead, think of your Call To Action as an invitation for your readers to tell a story. Then, word your Call To Action in that manner. Close your article or post with something, like one of these:
“What would you add to this list?”
“Based on your experience, is there anything I have left out?”
“When faced with a similar situation, what have you done in the past?”
You want to get across the idea that you welcome their ideas and that you consider them additions to your original content.
6) Lastly, when you do get comments, be responsive
If someone takes the time to read your post or article and then takes the additional time to write a thoughtful comment, reply to it. First, thank them, and then add something further – respond to their question or point, putting your take or spin on it, and then maybe add another question back to keep the conversation going.
Three good things happen when you respond to your commenters: LinkedIn thinks your content is more relevant, and puts it in front of even more people, the person you responded to is encouraged to continue the conversation, and is more likely to comment on your next article, and also more likely to become a follower or connection (maybe that’s four things, but they are all good).
And that’s it. I was trying to come up with an acronym for these six ideas, but “ghbbib” sounds more like someone clearing their throat or maybe the name of a town in Wales.
Have a look at your last few pieces of content against these six ideas and see if there are places you can shore up your posting. And of course, I would be remiss if I didn’t ask, what would you add to this list?
Want more like this? I publish a weekly email newsletter on using LinkedIn effectively for Sales and Marketing. Each newsletter typically contains two articles like the one above, it’s free, and you can unsubscribe anytime. Here’s a link to the sign up page: https://practicalsmm.com/contact/
Obligatory boilerplate: I do not work for or have any association with LinkedIn, other than being a user who pays them for his Sales Navigator subscription every month.
