3 Ways to Personalize Your LinkedIn Feed
The next edition of The Mango Effect is out! 🥭 If you're new, this is where we talk about all things related to growing our businesses and personal brands "the mango way" on LinkedIn -- from personal branding to growing our networks to attracting more ideal clients to optimizing our profiles... and everything in between!
Each week, I share ONE strategy that you can use to optimize your personal brand or grow your business on LinkedIn. Whether you're a subject matter expert at the top of your field, a business leader looking to get on more boards, or a gritty entrepreneur trying to craft an ideal sales & marketing machine -- you'll find one action item you can take away and implement each and every week to get you one step closer to your goal.
No topic is off-limits. We discuss the good, the bad, and the fugly. I do take topic recommendations, too!
My mission is to help more professionals learn how to use LinkedIn, so we can all "up our game" on the platform, build thought leadership, and grow as leaders in our careers and businesses. And, I like to keep things fun, practical, and inspiring.
Now, onto this week's topic!
3 Ways to Personalize Your LinkedIn Feed
If you’re like a lot of other experts I know, you may have jumped headfirst into 2023 with the intention to start engaging MORE in your LinkedIn news feed.
➡️ You’re sold on the fact that your target audience is here.
➡️ You’ve been putting together your content strategy.
➡️ You’ve spent the time writing really thoughtful posts that aim to engage the right people.
➡️ You learned all about hashtags and how to use them on LinkedIn.
➡️ You’ve scrolled your news feed and noticed what seems to be working in the comments to get people talking.
➡️ You’re SO ready to start engaging on LinkedIn!
And that’s an amazing feeling, but is MORE engagement on LinkedIn actually going to drive personal brand awareness or attract more high-quality leads for your business?
In this episode of Mondays with Mindi Replay, we discuss exactly what it means to be strategic with your engagement on LinkedIn to improve your news feed so that you can stop wasting time commenting on the wrong posts and start attracting more business opportunities instead.
PLUS, I'll share my three favorite groups to follow on LinkedIn to help you kickstart that engagement!
Why Your LinkedIn News Feed is Likely Wasting Time
If you’re like a lot of other experts I know, you may have jumped headfirst into 2023 with an intention to start engaging more on LinkedIn.
You’re sold on the fact that your target audience is here.
You’ve been putting together your content strategy.
You’ve spent the time writing really thoughtful posts that aim to engage the right people.
You learned all about hashtags and how to use them on LinkedIn.
You’ve scrolled your newsfeed and noticed what seems to be working in the comments to get people talking.
You’re SO ready to start engaging in your news feed on LinkedIn!
And that’s an amazing feeling, but did you notice that your feed is not showing you the people you actually want to see or feeding you the topics you care about?
As much as we’d like to complain that it’s all irrelevant… it’s not LinkedIn’s fault.
You must take charge of your news feed if you want to turn from a time waster into a goldmine of opportunities!
Your LinkedIn Feed Is Actually Not Random
Now I’ve mentioned before that engaging on LinkedIn can be a good thing, but you must engage with the right things and the right people if you want your news feed to serve up the right type of content.
I get that you may have heard that more engagement is better and shows that you’re deeply engaged with your audience.
That seems completely logical, and it’s correct to a point.
The thing is that you want to only engage with the content that is related to your niche, your industry, your prospects, or your profession.
Why is that?
If you’re too busy commenting on other random people’s posts on LinkedIn (you know what I’m talking about here!) then that could be signaling LinkedIn that it’s the type of content you want moving forward and from those people.
In-demand experts don’t spend an hour a day commenting on random LinkedIn posts or replying to every comment in a back-and-forth diatribe!
If you’ve got that much free time to peruse LinkedIn, you’re not practicing your areas of expertise or growing your business strategically.
And your audience will pick up on this vibe when they see your activity on LinkedIn. Trust me.
What I like to call Visible Experts treat their LinkedIn news feed differently than what the common advice out there tells you to do.
They treat their Linkedin news feed with precision. Every comment is calculated. They only share where they can add value. They understand the repercussions and ripple effects of each engagement.
You may think they are just engaging naturally, but that’s just how it appears to you because they’ve got this down to both an art form and have the data to back it up.
Think about some of the top experts that you know in your industry. Look them up on LinkedIn to see how much time they spend engaging with their comments?
I’d hesitate to guess that it’s not very much, unless it’s on a discussion-type post.
Instead, they likely take a strategic approach to focusing on their most important work as an expert and then found a few ways to “break through” in their niche to get the opportunities they wanted.
And, I bet their LinkedIn news feed surfaces only the prime content they care about because they are so picky about the people they allow into their network AND the type of content they choose to comment on.
Precision Tops Volume on LinkedIn
Now, am I telling you NOT to engage at all on LinkedIn? Definitely not.
You likely don’t have the clout of a national or world-renowned expert quite yet.
So where is the middle ground for those of us who are still growing our personal brands and looking for new clients or gigs because we have not yet had our “breakthrough” opportunity?
Instead of trying to engage A LOT on LinkedIn, I want you to think about how precise you can be with your engagement.
You’re not going to wait for the LinkedIn algorithm to deliver you content that it thinks you want to engage with.
Rather, you are going to train LinkedIn to show you the best of the best content from people you care about in your network.
You’re going to be proactive by seeking out the types of engagement that will serve your personal brand and your business.
If you have 5-10 minutes per day to engage with your LinkedIn news feed, you’re going to think about the people, leaders or organizations who post the most relevant content for your areas of expertise.
You’re going to have about a dozen or two of these that regularly share content. You’re going to focus your efforts on engaging with their posts.
Once you’ve engaged with them multiple times on LinkedIn, they will automatically start to show at the top of your news feed to prompt you when something new has been posted.
This type of precision will allow you to engage minimally with maximum impact.
From time to time, you might want to switch up the types of accounts you’re engaging with to keep things fresh and attract new audiences.
When you go about precisely engaging on LinkedIn, you will notice that you don’t fall into the “bottomless news feed scroll” or get stuck trying to find something to comment on and settling for a low value piece of content.
Or you can continue to do what you’ve been doing and allow social media to simply be a time suck and devalue your expertise because you’re too active or too casual with your interactions.
Which sounds like a better option to you?
3 Steps to a Better LinkedIn News Feed
Now that you’ve probably figured out that you want to start engaging more strategically on LinkedIn to get a better news feed (and attract more opportunities, of course) what should you do next to choose the right people or accounts to engage with?
Identifying the right people is what can make or break this strategy, so pay close attention to who makes it onto your lists moving forward.
#1 - Engage with Industry Influencers
These are a given, and we tend to think of these the most when we are considering those who would benefit from engaging with because they often have very large followings.
The key in engaging with their content is that you want to add value or perspective and avoid hijacking their posts for your own benefit. People see right through this approach!
There’s also a lot to learn from how influencers craft their content to pique interest and get people to engage with them, especially if they have fewer than 20K followers. Those with tens of thousands of followers can sometimes get away with posting less interesting content because their following is so huge.
#2 - Engage with Up-and-Coming Experts
Now that you have a good idea of the big industry players, who are those up-and-coming experts that may not have a massive following? They likely have what I like to call “it” which you can easily spot online.
Engaging with these experts will allow you to get on their radar because they likely are still small enough to pay close attention to those who comment on their posts. If they are direct competitors, please be cautious in how you engage because you don’t want to be perceived as someone out to steal their ideas or their audience.
If they are simply other players in the industry, then there are likely a lot of beneficial reasons to get on their radar and on start engaging with people who find their content interesting. Maybe you can collaborate with them for your podcast, your blog, or your YouTube channel.
It’s much easier to engage with them before they get incredibly popular, so don’t feel like you’re wasting your time by building these relationships now.
#3 - Engage With Customers & Collaborators
This may seem to be obvious, but I like to be sure to engage and support my past and current customers when I see them posting and sharing on LinkedIn. Even something as simple as a “like” can let them know that I see them and support them from afar.
Don’t take for granted the people who have already trusted you enough to work with you or collaborate with you because as the saying goes, “what goes around comes around.”
Since I work with people on helping them to optimize their LinkedIn profiles and grow their networks in my programs, I try to be intentional about engaging my students on LinkedIn in the months after we work together inside The LinkedIn Accelerator program or in my membership, especially when I can tell they’re making an effort to grow their network and engage thoughtfully on LinkedIn.
It’s a win-win. I’m encouraging them to keep going, and they’re getting those positive behaviors reinforced. You may not be interacting with your customers in the same way, but look for those highlight moments when they get a spot on the news, hit a company milestone or receive a recognition or award. Use those moments to intentionally engage with them.
These three steps will help you engage better on LinkedIn and create a better news feed that always serves up content from the people who matter most to your business or your profession. This type of precision is going to come through when you post and support the people who matter inside and outside of your immediate network.
Look for industry influencers - learn from and engage when it makes sense.
Get on the radar of those up-and-coming experts in your industry.
Engage with your current and past customers.
What additional questions do you have about engaging more intentionally on LinkedIn to create a better news feed? Leave them below in the comments or shoot me a private message. I’m happy to answer them!
If you’re ready to get started with growing your business on LinkedIn and take the next step to optimize your profile once and for all, so you can start getting new leads or land your next opportunity in 2023, get on the waitlist for the next cohort of The LinkedIn Accelerator! Inside the program, we address how to create a profile that allows you to engage with confidence and be strategic about how you grow your network.
I’ll see you next week on Mondays with Mindi! Feel free to leave questions or comments below - and my inbox is open if you want to message me directly! :)
