5 Reasons To Encourage And Respond To Comments On Your LinkedIn™ Content

We’ve all seen them: posts that are actually pretty good and have a few comments but no responses or further interaction from the author. I suppose that’s okay if you’re Bill Gates, but too many people post on LinkedIn™ and seem to think that’s it. 

And I hear lots of excuses – and that’s what they are – as to why an author doesn’t make themselves available to respond to comments after they post. Most of them revolve around, “I have too much to do, I don’t have time to hang around.” 

Here are five reasons I think you should encourage comments and respond to them: 

1) LinkedIn™ interprets comments as an indicator that your content is relevant, and will put your content in front of more people, typically some from your network and some from the commenter’s network. The result is a slight bump in your reach. Say I comment on your post and LinkedIn™ turns around and notifies only half of one percent of my network. That sounds small, but I have over 13,000 people in my network. That’s an extra 65 people for you. Comments bring more reach.

2) Even better, you should encourage conversations within the comment thread. Based on what I see in my post comment threads, LinkedIn™ ‘s algorithms love these and will really see your content as relevant. I posted a couple weeks ago and eight hours later had around 600 impressions. Then I got involved in a conversation with one of my commenters in the comment thread. We went back and forth around eight or ten times. All of a sudden I had 1300 impressions. Conversations in the comment thread bring even more reach.

3) Responding to comments can build your credibility. Think of your post as a presentation and the comment thread as the Q and A session afterwards. Being able to field questions and comments makes you look like an authority.

4) The comment thread can give you ideas for your next post. My newsletter comment threads are a gold mine for content ideas. Comments often give me ideas for extending my original post into other unexplored or not talked about areas. And when people are always saying they don’t know what to write about next, you should be taking advantage of these opportunities when they come along.

5) Responding to comments encourages people to come back and comment on your next posts. Responding makes you look interested and approachable.

So how do you manage your time to make yourself available to reply to comments? In my case after I post I do my writing for future newsletters. I will work for fifteen minutes and stop and check how this week’s newsletter is doing. Schedule some work that you can set aside for a few minutes in order to reply to your comments.

Writing and posting is only the first half of the process. The other half is being responsive to the people that have taken an interest in your content. So specifically invite comments and respond and interact with the people who do comment. It’s good business.