Let's Kickstart Your LinkedIn Engagement
How do we get "real" engagement on LinkedIn with the people inside our networks? With engagement baiting posts still cluttering our news feeds, the challenge to break through the noise is REAL.
Many of the experts I know are eager to connect deeply with their audience, but they don't want to waste time commenting, reacting to, and resharing posts when that activity does not lead to new business.
I get it. Nobody wants LinkedIn to feel like a time suck.
Do we all need to create elaborate spreadsheets to keep track of who to engage with and when? Nope.
In this episode of Mondays with Mindi, we discuss what real engagement is on LinkedIn, the kind that leads to new business opportunities, collaboration and working together with people we actually like.
What Is “Good Engagement” on LinkedIn?
This week’s topic actually comes from one of my coaching clients who asked about getting into real interaction on LinkedIn, and I like the way she thinks because she wasn’t blindly following experts’ advice. She wanted to know where the ROI is?
“How do you get into real interaction? I see people either giving likes , agreeing/disagreeing on something or giving teacher-wise their wisdom and correcting the statements of others.
But I really don´t get the benefit, just by giving my opinion on everything. It’s not getting me any attraction for my business.
Is this really THE way to get known?”
One of the first things I typically get asked by clients who work with me on their LinkedIn profile and presence is about engagement on their posts. They want to know how they measure up.
How often should I post to LinkedIn?
How do I get the algorithm to work for me?
How many impressions should I get?
How many reactions are good?
These are the common questions that we ask because we think that if we simply understand the “how” - we’ll start doing it.
On a side note, this line of thinking reminds me of a podcast I’m totally binge listening to right now, Huberman Lab with Andrew Huberman, and he gets really nerdy into the science of things before sharing his favorite health optimization protocols. He emphasizes the importance of understanding the mechanism before trying to just jump into the doing of things.
This applies to LinkedIn because a lot of us just want someone to tell us the answer. We don’t need think we need to know how it all works if we can follow a simple formula from an “expert.”
What should I write?
How long should my posts be?
Which hashtags should I use?
We’re asking the wrong questions…
You may be able to hack your way to a few viral posts on LinkedIn using these methods perfectly.
I’ve seen it done by self-proclaimed experts and those following their advice.
The problem… highly engaging content does NOT usually lead to better relationships with your tribe, your audience, your potential prospects.
Getting a lot of outward engagement on your posts often does NOT lead to those six- or seven-figure clients and contracts. But it’s keeping you busy, making you feel like you’re working on your business and lead generation.
If you’re in a business with a relationship-based sales process, you must take into consideration that part of the premise to them wanting to do business with you IS to feel like you’re able to get into a conversation with them.
Getting the right balance of engagement on your posts is the key. It’s not necessarily more is better.
As an in-demand expert or business leader, you do not need to become the most popular person in your space. It’s all about finding the right amount of engagement that shows you know your stuff, have a unique perspective and yet are still in touch enough with your audience to engage with them.
The online realm has changed.
People who are seen as “influencers” don’t often hold all the cards when it comes to building a great business any more. We discussed this in depth in last week’s livestream.
It’s the people who are more in the micro-influencer realm who tend to have businesses they love, choose the clients they want to work with, and have the byproduct of enough revenue to specialize.
I don’t know about you, but I’d much rather work with someone who is NOT a major influencer and tends to be more of a micro-influencer because they are not self-obsessed with their own personal brand and focused more on how they look to others versus the results they deliver their clients.
It’s a tricky balance here - your profile needs to be dialed, but you don’t need to become a LinkedIn commenting rockstar.
Think from your customers’ perspective, not what the social media experts tend to tell you. Their goal is often to sell you more products, templates and systems to get you MORE engaged in social media. Keep their motive in mind.
With our world as it is now, we are ALL looking for more of that personal connection with the people we admire, those we trust, and those we want to learn from.
There’s something special about maintaining and valuing that accessibility - if you don’t yet have 10K+ followers on your preferred channel, you’re exactly where you need to be.
Go deeper with your network. Write for THEM. Not to go viral. Kickstarting your engagement should not feel like a Herculean effort, rather it’s an extension of what you’re already doing.
High Engagement ≠ Business Growth
Our obsession with going viral or getting a massive following is crushing experts who are darn good at what they do and wasting WAY too much time doing “content creation.”
Instead of focusing so much on the marketing of their businesses to attract a WIDER audience, they could actually go DEEPER with their current network.
Highly engaged networks are not those accounts who have racked up dozens of reactions and bazillions of comments on their LinkedIn posts.
Rather, they are those who are challenging their audiences to shift perspective, and sometimes this is simply not visible or measurable with the typical LinkedIn engagement metrics.
This topic actually was brought up by one of my program members during The LinkedIn Accelerator, and it had an impact on me.
I was in the middle of explaining how to GROW your network with the right people. Showing all of these high-converting connection requests. Elaborating on the importance of the approach to new connections. Where to find all of these wonderful people.
She raised her hand and said, “Mindi, I know I was supposed to research 5-10 new people I want to connect with on LinkedIn. Instead, I actually made a list of people I’m already connected with who are PERFECT for my business. Is it okay to go deeper with them? Doesn’t it make sense to nurture existing connections above just adding MORE?”
Brilliant question. Very insightful.
This same exact thing happens with our content. We work SO hard to write content that has massive appeal to “build our networks” and “expand our influence.”
But because it’s not written to go deeper with our existing network, we often miss the mark with them. All of those people who want to go down this path with us get stopped right from the beginning because we’re just saying what everyone is saying and staying shallow.
We’re almost afraid to go deeper, like it starts to get a bit more vulnerable for us.
We want to appeal to everyone, and in doing so, we appeal to NO ONE.
We’ve heard that analogy before, but we forget when it comes to content creation.
Stop comparing yourself to that industry peer who’s getting a bazillion likes, comments, and shares on her piece of content.
We then measure our impact by the number of reactions and comments we get on posts, rather than comparing that to the number of 1:1 messages, sales conversations, or calls with our perfect prospects on our calendars.
Sales KPIs are the REAL engagement metrics that most marketers don’t focus on because they either don’t know how to actually help people turn engagement into sales conversations OR they are still living in the matrix of stereotypical marketing metrics.
Going viral on LinkedIn is not a guarantee that you will capitalize on the engagement and actually make money from all that online notoriety.
How many influencers or experts do you know who are struggling with cash flow, yet pumping out the content? I know a lot of them.
What does affect you is that laser focus and deep-seated passion to help those in your sphere of influence with your message, who you are as a human being, what you stand for professionally.
That’s what is going to connect you with the good people who want to do good business with you. And lead to increasing your bottom line.
All right, so are you ready to find out what that looks like?
Recalibrating Your LinkedIn Engagement
You may wonder what it looks like to approach content creation in this way.
Yes, you need to create some type of content for your audience that engages them and gets their attention.
Thing is, you don’t need to get EVERYONE’s attention -- just those to whom your message speaks.
It’s okay if you get a half dozen likes and just a few comments.
Treat those comments and likes as if they are gold because they are.
Follow up with everyone in the comments or shoot them a DM when they engage with you.
The impact this has for me, for my clients, for my coaching clients is surprisingly powerful.
If you want to learn how to hack the LinkedIn algorithm, I’m not your person.
If you want to create irresistible content that actually opens doors to real relationships with real humans whom you can help in your industry?
This is my sweet spot. This is what we’re getting into today.
The biggest thing I want you to take away from this live is that it’s not about your numbers and going wider with your audience to get “more” -- instead, it’s about your relationships with the people who are touched right now by your message -- no matter if it’s just a dozen people.
We all start somewhere.
What kind of impact can you have on those dozen people? You have the opportunity to go deep if you want to.
Your competitors aren’t.
They look at those dozen people and say “I’m just going to wait until I have 1,000 people on my email list.”
They don’t see them as individuals with hopes and dreams and business objectives, but you do.
You can nurture those relationships and go deeper with those signaling to you that they support you and your message by turning them into sales conversations, business collaborations, or mutually beneficial relationships.
Kickstarting Your LinkedIn Engagement “the mango way”
What should you consider as you’re approaching your content and wanting to create engagement that leads to business growth?
There are some basics when it comes to LinkedIn specifically that we’ll talk about, but I’m not going to go into the nitty gritty details of character count, format, etc. That’s what I teach inside my programs, but it’s NOT as important as the mindset to how you’re approaching content creation.
#1 - Social Listening: Go Deeper
Listen to them on social media - pay attention to the words they use, the struggles they face, how they’re coping with things now, which solutions are working (or not) for them.
You have to understand the emotional component to why they think what they think
If you cannot tap into this, you’re going to get stuck in writing “how to” content that is just too tactical and never grabs them with the emotions they’re feeling.
Think about the people that are captivating - like a Brene Brown or an Oprah Winfrey - how many step-by-step articles do they write?
Not many. They focus on eliciting that emotional reaction from people and shifting their perspectives through the types of content they create.
They entertain. They challenge. They ask question. And they listen a LOT.
#2 - Speak Their Language: Not Jargon
Speaking their language shows that you care about them. Many of us tend to default to our industry jargon either consciously or unconsciously, which alienating our audience.
We all do it. We start to use phrases that are familiar to us. But either feel hard for our people to grasp, or they make us feel unattainable or out-of-touch with where they are.
You’re going for approachable with your content.
You’re not the high-falutin expert giving directions - you’re the one in the trenches with them working right alongside them to figure things out.
Use the words they use. When they use certain phrases, screenshot them so you know exactly how they say what they say and what the meaning is behind it.
Study, listen. Repeat.
#3 - Write for ONE Person: Not to Go Viral
Instead of trying to write or do a video for a GROUP of people, choose ONE.
When I craft my LIVE sessions, I usually picture one specific person from my Facebook Community of people eager to learn more about LinkedIn and create my content specifically for them.
When you approach your content this way, it has a feeling of vulnerability to it that you cannot get when you’re trying to write an announcement for a massive group of people.
Develop and cultivate that DEPTH of understanding, just like my program participant mentioned, in going deeper with her network rather than keeping things surface level and broad.
And guess who’s going to have more long-term success and work with the best clients and customers? You will.
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Tying this all together, your goal with LinkedIn engagement is to create meaningful 1:1 connections with your LinkedIn network around your areas of passion and expertise, not to try to get random comments from people simply because you wrote something that was “shareable.”
My challenge for you -- write one meaningful piece of content to ONE person in your network this week. Start tracking how many of your engagements in some way can map to a sales conversation… that’s where the magic is. I’d love to see what you come up with -- feel free to tag me in the comments or shoot me a DM to let me know.
Let’s recap the getting started process:
Always seek to go deeper with your content
Speak their language and avoid jargon
Write content for just ONE person, not a group of people
If you’re looking for that extra edge to get you started on the right path with LinkedIn to start booking your perfect-fit clients, get on the waitlist for the next cohort of The LinkedIn Accelerator kicking off in July 2022, which is tailored to take you through ALL of the sections on your LinkedIn profile in just five days flat - - one week, and you’re off to the LinkedIn races to start growing your network and getting conversations. If you’re interested, here’s the link to get on the waitlist and find out a few more details.
What additional questions do you have about kickstarting engagement on LinkedIn “the mango way”? Leave them below in the comments or shoot me a private message. I’m happy to answer them!
