Create Your LinkedIn Social Engagement Strategy
If you’re like a lot of other experts I know, you may have jumped headfirst into 2022 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 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, we discuss exactly what it means to be strategic with your engagement on LinkedIn, so that you can stop wasting time commenting on the wrong posts and start attracting more business opportunities instead.
PLUS, I'll share my four favorite groups to follow on LinkedIn to help you kickstart that engagement!
Why You May Be Wasting Time Engaging
If you’re like a lot of other experts I know, you may have jumped headfirst into 2022 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 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?
That is the real question.
Engagement for engagement’s sake will only waste your time and energy on low value dopamine hits and maybe a few more fans along the way.
Social Engagement Feels Productive
Now I mentioned that engaging on LinkedIn can be a good thing, but it’s easy to overdo it when it comes to “how much is enough?”
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.
Yes, you don’t want to “post and ghost” as we call it in the social sphere, but you also don’t want to look too engaged at all hours of the day on LinkedIn.
Why is that?
If you’re too busy commenting on other people’s posts on LinkedIn (you know what I’m talking about here!) then that could be signaling to your audience that you don’t have much business, are desperate for new clients and might have a bit too much time on your hands.
In-demand experts don’t spend an hour a day commenting on 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 LinkedIn 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, and how much time do they spend on social media engaging with their comments?
Brene Brown
Glennon Doyle
Simon Sinek
Seth Godin
Just to name a few. Imagine if they had set aside their most important work to focus on answering and seeking out posts where they could insightfully comment… we never would have known their names.
Instead, they each took 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.
Those opportunities did NOT come from commenting on social media!
Engage With Precision 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.
You’re going to be proactive instead 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?
How To Create Your LinkedIn Social Engagement Strategy
Now that you’ve probably figured out that you want to start engaging more strategically on LinkedIn (and everywhere else, for that matter!) 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 - Identify 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 - Identify 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 - Identify Good Thinkers Outside Your Industry
It’s easy to overlook people outside your industry because you think they may be irrelevant, but there can be a lot of overlap with different audiences and interests.
For example, you may be in SaaS sales, but what could you gain from following and interacting with marketing agency owners? Sure, some of them might actually be prospects for your SaaS product, but you can also learn how marketers think and how you can adapt your messaging for your own audience.
I’ve made a lot of business connections with people who are not directly related to my industry and may never refer business my way, but I’ve learned a lot from them in the way they approach their areas of expertise, how they write, how they engage their audience, how they sell, how they share ideas.
Why not follow and engage with them, too? Sometimes there’s an immediate business benefit from direct interaction with them or their followers, and other times it’s simply business inspiration that we gain from following what I like to call “good thinkers” in various industries.
#4 - Intentionally 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 recognition or award. Use those moments to intentionally engage with them.
These four categories of people to engage with will empower you to start creating an engagement strategy that feels more intentional and aligned with your business goals, rather than just engaging on LinkedIn because you’re supposed to. This type of energy 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.
Seek out good thinkers outside your industry.
Engage with your current and past customers.
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 2022, 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.
