9 ways to increase your LinkedIn post engagement
LinkedIn is all about online networking and building connections who will benefit your business. The old saying about business is true: It’s all about who you know!
When I first started my own business in January 2020, LinkedIn was a great way to follow up with people I was meeting at in-person networking events and spread the word about my new venture.
I also used LinkedIn to get back in touch with old colleagues and contacts and let them know I’d started my own marketing business.
Please connect with me on LinkedIn here - Kelly Cookson.
The thing about LinkedIn is it’s a social media channel just like Facebook and Instagram and that means you are a slave to the algorithm just as you are on those other channels.
Making the LinkedIn algorithm work for you isn’t a complete mystery though, as LinkedIn has published some helpful guidance on what to do to increase the engagement with your posts.
What does the LinkedIn algorithm want?
LinkedIn has stated that the stream of posts that you see on your Home page (https://www.linkedin.com/feed) is made up of: “People you know, talking about the things you care about.” To deliver this, the Linkedin algorithm prioritises showing what your personal connections are posting, based around interests that you have.
The LinkedIn algorithm works in this way because its aim is to prioritise relevant content and promote engagement. This of course makes sense as to keep people on its platform, they need to be shown stuff that they like, mainly from people they know or choose to follow. This is the content that will get the most likes and shares. Flip it around and understand that no one wants to see irrelevant content from total strangers.
The LinkedIn home feed is automatically set to show you ‘Top’ content (most popular) but you can change this to show most recent posts by clicking on the drop-down arrow and choosing ‘Recent’:
Now that I’ve covered how LinkedIn chooses what content to show, let’s look at what you need to do to get your posts in front of the right people on LinkedIn.
I’m going to run through 9 ways to increase your LinkedIn post engagement. This is what you need to do to get your content on LinkedIn in front of your connections (1st level) and connections outside of your inner circle (2nd and 3rd level).
Make personal connections and interact with them
LinkedIn prioritises content from people you are personally connected with. Of course it doesn’t know for sure if you’re friends with a LinkedIn connection in real life but it can make a guess based on how you interact with that person on LinkedIn.
The LinkedIn machine will analyse who you’ve interacted with directly, through comments, shares, and reactions. It also considers information on profiles, such as interests and skills, and who members work with, among other signals to determine if you are real life BFFs.
By knowing this, it makes sense to be regularly interacting with people on LinkedIn to be seen more. Like their posts, share them with your connections (and write a sentence or two to qualify why you are sharing) and comment. Reply to others’ comments on your comments and like them. The more LinkedIn sees you interacting with people, the more those people will see your posts. Simple!
This of course takes some time and effort but here’s a pro tip for you: Install the LinkedIn app and next time you’re waiting for the kettle to boil or for your toast to pop, open up the app and have a quick blast of liking, commenting and sharing. Make it easy and a regular habit. Maybe it’s not the healthiest habit to have but it’s the one that’s going to get you noticed! Just stay away from that blue screen at bedtime.
2. Follow relevant hashtags
If, like me, you want to appear in front of prospective clients and other key players in your field, you need to signal to LinkedIn that you have shared interests with those people. One of the things you can do to tick this box is follow the same hashtags as your desired audience.
Next time you see a post from someone you’d like to interact more with, take a look to see what hashtags (if any) they’ve included in their post. Some might be a bit obscure so perhaps don’t follow those but if they are using something broadly adopted such as #digitalmarketing (over 27m followers!) - that’s a good one to follow to show you are like-minded.
Try sharing some interesting articles related to this field using the popular hashtags that your connections follow. In your posts, don’t solely use hashtags with massive followings - try to choose a couple that are a bit more niche but not so small that no one is following. An example of this in my field is #marketingstrategy with just over 83,000 followers.
3. Follow the same companies
If you’re trying to get more eyeballs on your LinkedIn posts from a particular organisation, follow that company:
It’s also a good idea to like and comment on relevant updates from that company. Show some affinity!
4. Tag people and companies in your posts
A nice way to do tagging is to mention people or organisations that you’ve collaborated with (use @ then type their name) to give them a shout out in a post. Doing this notifies the person who has been tagged, increasing the likelihood of them responding and starting a wave of interactions and comments. Nice!
Don’t forget to include a few (3 is the max number recommended by LinkedIn) hashtags at the end of your post to broaden reach further and signal relevance to your audience.
5. Comment on your own LinkedIn posts to gain some initial traction
LinkedIn states that: “the model also takes into account timely feedback to content creators”. This means that if you post an update and it’s tumbleweed for the first 24 hours, it’s as good as dead.
There’s a simple tip you can use to prevent tumbleweed posts: ask a question. Posts with questions at the end invite people to comment. If someone does answer your question, respond to them! This builds up the number of comments on your post and thus the likelihood of it being seen elsewhere. Obvious but often overlooked advice.
Here’s tip number two to prevent a post being doomed to silence: tag someone in the comments if you think they would be interested in it. Don’t just leave their name hanging there, frame it in a question: “Hey, @JoeBloggs, have you seen this article? I can’t believe this is still happening in 2022!” If Joe Bloggs replies, you have gained some initial interest and your post has more chance of being seen by others and thus more opportunity to get some likes and comments.
It’s also rewarding for you as you can get involved in a two-way conversation which is what all this effort is about!
6. Copy what’s working for you
LinkedIn wants to share relevant content with your connections. It’s sometimes hard to know what’s relevant without undertaking a tonne of market research but there is a clue as to what’s been well received: LinkedIn analytics.
To see what engagement your posts have had, do this:
Go to your profile
Scroll down to Articles & activity
Click on See all activity and then filter by posts.
Every post you put out there will have the number of post views to date at the bottom.
Scroll back through your posts and if there are some that have outperformed others, you know what kind of content to try again.
7. Get visual with your LinkedIn posts
People like to look at pretty images over plain, boring text. I did some Googling and trusted sources state that:
Posts with images get twice as many comments as text posts.
Videos are five times more likely to get comments.
Overall, LinkedIn videos earn three times more engagement than text-only posts.
Posting popular content formats is going to give you a boost in the ‘relevance’ and ‘engagement’ rankings of the LinkedIn machine.
8. Post at the right time
Chances are that less people will see your post and interact with it in a timely fashion if you share it at 3 o’clock in the morning. Unless you are in an industry where you know your audience is up and active on social media at that time of night.
A quick Google will give you a myriad of different times and days that are best for posting on but my advice is to try it for yourself and make a note of what days get the best results and whether it’s morning, afternoon or evening. Don’t discount weekends - some of the best engagement I have had has been at 6pm on a Sunday.
9. Be real
Yes, LinkedIn is a social media channel for business professionals and you as an individual will be representing your business or company there. However, that doesn't mean that you need to interact on it as a corporate automaton. There’s very probably a line you don’t want to cross when it comes to swearing (perhaps swearing is fine if your brand is cool with that) and as with all social media channels, it shouldn’t be a place for downright antisocial behaviour.
Try to communicate as if you are talking to, emailing or texting your friends but your boss will probably see it. Hooray for freelancers like me where I’m my own boss - BUT, I still want to be seen as the professional that I am. Starting and participating in discussions as a real life human being with real thoughts and opinions will garner the attention of your connections and encourage that engagement that we are aspiring towards.
This is the perfect opportunity to share the brilliant Dolly Parton Challenge meme:
Conclusion
For the skim-readers, here’s the lowdown on what you need to do to please the LinkedIn algorithm to increase your LinkedIn post engagement:
Make connections and interact with them regularly.
Follow the same hashtags as your connections and use them in your posts.
Follow companies you want to see your posts and like and comment on their stuff.
Post stuff that’s relevant to your audience and tag people and companies in those posts so that they see them.
Talk to yourself. Comment on your own posts, tagging relevant people to get the conversation flowing.
If it works, do it again.
Use nice photos in your posts and even better, VIDEO.
Don’t post when your audience is asleep...
Don’t talk like a robot. Be yourself but on your best behaviour.
If you have a particular strategy for getting your posts visible on LinkedIn using organic methods that I’ve not mentioned here. Please do share it in the comments.
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