Over the last few years, LinkedIn has become much more than just a place to apply for jobs and for HR professionals to hire.
LinkedIn is now a full-blown social media network that bridges the ever-shrinking gap between our business and personal lives. It’s unique in the way that it brings people from across industries and generations together as they all try to figure out how the heck to leverage it.
And asking how to best leverage it is a very good question. While LinkedIn has a lot of things in common with the other social media platforms we have come to know and love, it also has its own little quirks that can make getting reach and impressions easier, but more time-consuming at the same time.
That being said, I cannot stress enough how much opportunity there is for organic reach on LinkedIn
So whether you are a business owner looking to make connections or a salesperson looking to make more sales, here are our tips to get more reach on personal LinkedIn accounts.
Engage with others and build a network of people who engage
That’s right, it all starts with how you interact with others.
At the end of the day, LinkedIn is all about networking and making connections. The first step in increasing your own engagement is to engage with others and build your network.
Simply look through your newsfeed and like, comment on, and share what you see. If the person you are leaving a comment for isn’t already a connection, try and connect with them referencing their post and you how you want to continue to engage with one another.
When LinkedIn first started, people were very uptight with who they connected with. Now, people are much more open to meeting new people and connecting with them on LinkedIn.
This is how you create a base for yourself. In order to get the most reach possible on LinkedIn, you need engagement and in order to get engagement, you need connections that are more likely to engage with your content.
LinkedIn is still in its early stages as a social media network and because of it, they don’t have the same flooded newsfeed problem that platforms like Facebook have. In fact, it’s the exact opposite. LinkedIn has a shortage of content. This means that LinkedIn is looking to fill the user’s newsfeeds with anything and everything that is relevant to their audience. The best way to find that content? See what most people are engaging with and push it out to more and more people. That is the value of building a network full of high-engagers. You increase your chances of posts going way beyond your initial network.
So dedicate 5-10 minutes to engaging with others every day and you will be amazed how quickly the reach of your posts increases.
Create content that encourages conversations
Now that you have a good base of connections who are ready to engage with you, it’s time to make it easy for them to do it!
LinkedIn is very different than most social media platforms when it comes to the type of content that performs well. It seems to be far less about what type of content you put out there (video vs. photo for example) and more about creating a post structure that makes things easy to engage with.
What does that mean? Let me give you an example. Below is a post I recently made that got a lot of engagement despite not having an image or a video.
Why did this post do so well? It encouraged engagement. I always encourage people to start their posts asking a question. Even if you aren’t looking for a real answer, a question at the beginning of the post grabs attention and puts someone in the right mindset to look for an answer.
This post also makes use of LinkedIn’s natural “see more” line break. We start with the question and provide a simple answer right away in order to set the stage for the rest of your post. But the answer I gave isn’t really enough… it leaves the person asking themselves, “Is that it?”
The hook has been set.
Think about each of your posts in the same way. Are you setting the stage for someone to be interested in reading more about your perspective? Are you giving them the opportunity to engage?
Oh and one last thing… please, for the love of God, reply to every comment on your posts. How can you expect others to engage with your posts when you won’t even take the time to say “thank you” for their comment?
Be sure to be consistent with how much you post
Lack of consistency is a killer.
I get it, you get busy and posting on LinkedIn is FAR from your number 1 priority, but if you are really trying to get results from using LinkedIn, you need to make the time.
Not every post needs to be a complete masterpiece, it just needs to be something. Even asking a very simple question or sharing something random that you heard on your favorite podcast on your commute home can be enough to remind people that you exist.
I made this mistake in late 2019 where I let LinkedIn posting fall down on my priority list. It took me quite a while to get people used to seeing my content again and nurture my connections vs. If I would have just made time to do SOMETHING every day.
Use hashtags
There are hashtags on LinkedIn? Yep there sure are!
The launch of hashtags on LinkedIn was a quiet one, but those that noticed it and are using them effectively are reaping major benefits over those who aren’t.
Hashtags on LinkedIn work exactly the same way as on other platforms. They are used to organize posts into topics that make it easier to find content around that specific thing.
LinkedIn users are able to “follow” hashtags which tells LinkedIn that they want to see more content around that topic in their newsfeed. If you create a post that gets good engagement out of the gate using one of the hashtag options, LinkedIn might drop your post into a person’s newsfeed that you aren’t connected to in any way. You’ll know when that is happening when you get a notification like this.
Now are hashtags as important on LinkedIn as they are on Twitter or Instagram? Definitely not. They are still too new and not as many people are using them to find content yet, but that doesn’t mean you can’t get additional reach by using them.
How to grow your personal brand on LinkedIn is a HOT topic in the industry right now. Everyone hears rumors about the amount of reach people are getting on their posts and how many sales they are making because of it… and I am here to tell you the rumors are true… as long as you are willing to put in the work.
If you set time aside for yourself to engage, connect, and post every single day, I promise you will be amazed at how your personal brand grows and how many amazing new connections you can make!