As a successful content creator on LinkedIn, you can achieve great things, and anything from finding your dream job to finding new customers for your business becomes possible.
Your only problem? Nobody is engaging with your content!
If that's you, then this is the perfect article for you!
It will show you how to create amazing content that your audience loves, create huge amounts of engagement, and grow your network with the right people.
I highly recommend checking out my article: Best Content Ideas for LinkedIn, for a dose of content inspiration.
Also, check out my YouTube video about creating viral LinkedIn posts.
Play the long game vs. content virality
Many people want to create a viral post and believe that all of their problems are solved once they get one.
Once and for all.
Nothing could be further from the truth!
It is impossible to control all factors that make the difference between a regular post and a viral post.
Sometimes, the right content at the right time resonates just enough with the right people to trigger the algorithm. Sometimes, if just one of the factors is off, the same post might just stay a normal post.
Here is what you should do:
Think about long-term success by slowly and steadily growing your network with the right audience.
It is way more important to attract the right audience (even if it takes longer) than to create a viral post that attracts the wrong people. The wrong people don't resonate with any of your "real" content and the value proposition you bring to the table!
A good analogy is this, and yes, it is tweetable.
Become an investor who gets rich slow by working hard to make smarter investments daily, instead of someone who looks for shortcuts in life and ends up poor fast by wasting money on lottery tickets!
Who do you want to be? 🙂
Optimize for Mobile-First
Posts will be displayed slightly differently on desktop browsers and mobile phones.
Desktop computers will display slightly more characters than mobile devices.
To be safe, focus on mobile devices first. You can fit about 140 characters into your first line before the text gets cropped below a "... see more" button.
If you're using photos or videos, make sure that the image or first video frame looks great on mobile as well.
For example, if you want to display text on your image, use larger font sizes to increase readability on small screens.
If your text doesn't fit in with larger font size, shorten your title.
Another technique that you want to use to maximize readability on small screens is shorter sentences, shorter paragraphs, and line breaks (Insert one empty line between paragraphs).
I go into more detail regarding optimizing your text's design and visual flow further down the article.
Breaking Down Virality: Take Baby Steps
Don't try to do everything at once.
Think about small mico goals that only have ONE objective at a time.
Your intro's goal?
To stop people from scrolling their newsfeed and clicking the see more button.
Each subsequent sentence guides them from one sentence to the next.
Optimize your intro to get clicks on "read more"
The first 3-5 lines are the most essential part of each post. If your headline is interesting enough, it will stop people from scrolling and to click on "read more" to see the rest of your post.
To be on the safe side, keep your intro to less than 140 characters, followed by one empty line to look great on mobile and desktop computers.
The more you work on your copywriting skills, the higher the number of people who start reading the rest of your post.
This won't happen overnight. You have to practice, practice, practice!
As you get better, your views go up.
The intro text has to
- grab people's attention
- and create curiosity and mystery,
- communicating that the rest of the text contains either value or is entertaining. Ideally both.
- tease what is inside the full text without giving everything away
Optimize your core message for readability and comprehension
The main body should be optimized for the mobile experience and readability. Few people will read a big blob of text if you post it.
Use simple words and grammar.
Short sentences.
Try to simplify everything as much as possible. This way, more people will understand your message, get value from your content and engage with it.
Make it reader-friendly: Visually structure your post with emojis
Weave in emojis to structure your content or to emphasize important calls to action. Here are a few ideas.
- Section Divider
- ―――
- Use one empty line between paragraphs.
- Text dividers
- |
- /
- ⁞
- ¦
- Titles
- 🔥
- ⭐️
- ⚫️
- 🔴
- 🔵
- 🔶
- 🔷
- Do lists
- ✅
- ✔️
- Don't lists
- ❌
- 🚫
- Ordered lists
- 0️⃣
- 1️⃣
- 2️⃣
- 3️⃣
- 4️⃣
- 5️⃣
- 6️⃣
- 7️⃣
- 8️⃣
- 9️⃣
- 🔟
- Directions
- 👈
- 👉
- 👆
- 👇
- Contact me
- 📞
- ✉️
- Legal
- ®️
- ©️
- ™️
- Other
- ☁︎ Cloud
- 🦄 Unicorn startup
Tag relevant people, companies, and groups - get them to spread the content
Make use of the tagging feature to dive into new audiences.
Here is a great approach.
Tag all the people you met at a conference and write something nice about them. If you say nice things, you almost guarantee that the people you tagged will either like or comment, which will then be shown to their audience.
Have a Strong Call to Action to Encourage Engagement
At the end of each post, include at least one call to action. For your post to go viral, the ideal scenario is to get each reader to do an action, whether it's a like, comment, or share. The post shows up in their connections' feed when a person does that. That means your post's visibility widens.
Like your post
Let's begin with low-commitment activities first. Anyone can like a post with the click of a button.
The best thing you don't have to ask people to like your post.
If someone enjoys your post, they naturally want to hit the thumbs-up button to show their appreciation, in the same way an audience will start clapping if an artist has given an outstanding performance on stage. 🙂
If you want to get more people to engage, you can ask them to like your post.
A great approach to boost your likes counts is to ask people to like IF...
- Like if you agree
- Like if you want to see more kindness in the world
Sometimes, especially if you're talking about a heavy subject, "liking" can feel awkward. In those cases, it is important to redefine the act of liking, to remove the awkwardness.
Otherwise, you'll have less engagement, and your message to promote a positive change wouldn't reach as many people.
- Please hit the like button, if you want to support the fight against cancer
- Like this post if you think we should all work together for a better future.
Leave a meaningful comment to strike up a dialogue
Comments require a more significant commitment than likes. As such, they are often fewer in number.
People will naturally comment if they feel strongly about something, positively or negatively. If you have polarizing opinions and beliefs and frequently share them with the world, your comments thread will always fill up quickly.
If you want to get more people to comment on your post or want to have a more guided discussion about something, direct the conversation by asking a specific question and telling people to answer it in the comments section.
- Let me know in the comments if you agree with me or if you have a different opinion.
- What is your number one recommendation for making a perfect first impression?
- If you want to get a copy of my new LinkedIn Cheat Sheet, please let me know in the comments.
The key to receiving many meaningful comments is to ask for something easy and quick to answer, for example, "Which animal is your favorite? Cats or dogs". Most people don't have to think about the answer. They just know it.
Try to avoid complicated questions that require a long thought time to answer (What do you think about the meaning of life?) and anything that might lead to embarrassing answers that most people don't want to share with everyone (Who is your least favorite co-worker in your current job? 🙂
To get even more people to actively comment, make sure that you meticulously reply to every single comment and ask follow-up questions.
The more comments and especially sub-comment threads you get, the more people will see your post!
Tag someone in the comments
A hybrid form of commenting and sharing is to ask people to tag someone in the comments. The tagged people will receive a notification that they have been tagged and usually check out the post.
Tagging happens naturally in two situations. Your post about something very specific that is perceived as very useful or controversial.
If readers perceive your post as helpful, either for themselves or for someone they know. They will tag people they believe would benefit from learning about your content.
If they perceive your post as controversial or simply as new and surprising, they will often tag someone they perceive as an authority figure in that matter and ask for their opinion.
To get more people to tag others in the comment, ask them!
- Share this with someone who is also interested in AI.
- Tag someone in the comments who has to know about this.
Get people to share your post with their network
The strongest engagement signals in the LinkedIn algorithm are shares!
They have the highest impact on views and are the most challenging to get.
Not everyone is aware that the act of liking or commenting will be seen by people who follow them.
For shares, on the other hand, there is no confusion that their network will see this. They are putting their name on the line to endorse your content, so it better be fricking good!
To get the highest possible number of people to share your post, you cannot just ask them to do so. There has to be more.
Your content has to be outstanding in terms of quality and value and trigger strong emotions.
The best way to create share-worthiness posts is to think about how you can create positive a-ha moments for your audience.
Another approach is to be the first person to share something new, for example, your commentary and thoughts on a breaking news event.
The last and most important factor is how you ask people to share. I highly recommend giving people a reason to share
- Please share this post with someone who could benefit from this
Visit your personal profile
Asking readers to visit your LinkedIn profile is always a good idea.
An optimized LinkedIn profile works like a well-oiled machine for generating leads.
It informs new visitors about who you are, your background, what you have to offer them, and how they can get in touch.
Make sure that you give readers a reason to visit your profile, for example:
- Check out my profile if you want to learn more about my services.
Connect with you on LinkedIn
You can also ask people to connect with you. It's important to qualify people so you're receiving a connection request from the right people.
One way of doing this is by asking people to connect with you if they have a specific business challenge and are looking for a solution.
- Please connect with me on LinkedIn, if you want to improve the revenue of your e-commerce store.
The biggest benefit of being connected to someone is the ability to send each other messages for free, without the requirement of paying for LinkedIn InMails.
Follow your personal profile
If your account runs low in connection slots (LinkedIn has a built-in limit of 30,000 direct connections), you might better ask people to follow you instead.
Another reason you might want people to follow you is the protection of your privacy and accessibility.
Followers cannot send you messages without paying for InMails. They also cannot download your contact information, including your email address.
This is great if you have a specific process for people to contact you. On my profile, I ask people to get in touch via the contact form on my website.
By just asking people to take one extra step, you're filtering out 99% of the usual spam messages.
You can contact LinkedIn support and ask them to replace the default "Connect" button with a "Follow" button instead.
To get more people to follow you, it is a great idea to tell them what kind of content they can expect from you.
The more relevant your topics, the more likely they will take action.
Follow your company page
We already talked about the unique capabilities that you can only do with LinkedIn pages, including the ability to run ads to followers or to specifically target specific segments of your followers, for example, different languages, etc.
If you want to grow the follower count of your LinkedIn company page, ask people to follow your page by tagging it.
First, type in @, then wait a moment. A new drop-down will appear on the screen. Slowly type in the name of your company page.
Once it appears in the drop-down, click on it.
There you go, a clickable text element with your company's name that will take anyone who clicks on it to your LinkedIn page.
You will get more people to follow your page if you explain what kind of content, themes, and topics you will post on your company page.
Join your LinkedIn or Facebook group
LinkedIn groups have long been horrible places with tons of spam messages and little or no real engagement. This is about to change. LinkedIn has dedicated a new team to replace the old group system with a completely new and modern solution.
The best part is you can tag your LinkedIn groups inside of posts by typing in the @ symbol and then slowly entering the name of your group.
To get more people to join your group, have a strong value proposition.
Subscribe to your newsletter
LinkedIn is a great platform to build an audience of highly-relevant professionals.
With 1.1 billion users and counting, more and more people seize the opportunity and become active content creators. We already saw a huge drop in organic reach for LinkedIn content creators in 2018. And as with any social media network, this might just be the beginning.
To ensure that you will always be able to talk to your audience, get them out of LinkedIn and onto your email list.
The best way to do this is to use a lead magnet or opt-in bribe. This is usually a downloadable item that people will receive as a reward for joining your email list.
I wrote an entire article on how to grow an email list from scratch, where I go into much more detail on how to set this up on your website. Make sure to check it out.
Here are a few ideas on how you can ask people to join your newsletter.
- Sign up for my weekly newsletter and get a notification when I publish new articles and videos
- Join my Inner Circle and get my "How to create a viral LinkedIn Post" cheatsheet for free.
Tap into viral power: The best way to get LinkedIn members to visit your website
LinkedIn is very limited when it comes to lead generation and audience qualification.
You can write about your products and services on your personal LinkedIn profile and company page, but you don't have much control over it.
Even if you invest $10,000+ per year to get access to LinkedIn career pages, you can only do so much.
A much smarter place to be is your own website.
Here you have total control and can guide new users step by step from discovery to closing the deal.
The problem? LinkedIn doesn't want you to leave! (Kind of like a jealous ex-bf or gf 🙂
When you share a direct link to any external website or page, you will notice that the number of views is extremely low!
LinkedIn actively deprioritizes any external content in favor of native content.
There are a couple of ways around this.
You can include an external link within the text of your post. Important: LinkedIn will extract the first link and attach it to your post whenever you start typing.
This turns a text-only post, which the algorithm favors, into a post with an attached external link, which is the worst content type on LinkedIn with the lowest organic reach.
To prevent this, you have to click on the X in the top right corner of the "link attachment" and remove it before posting.
A safer way of sharing external links is to paste the link in a comment.
You can either
- tell people to check out the first comment.
- Or copy the link to the comment that contains the external link and paste it into your post text. This way, you avoid LinkedIn penalties for external links. If the link to the comment appears to be too long, don’t worry! LinkedIn will shorten all links with their own URL shortener.
The Art of Engaging Your Audience
By explicitly mentioning what you would like readers and viewers to do, you increase the amount of engagement on your LinkedIn posts.
It always helps to combine each request for action with a condition, such as "Hit like, if you agree" or "share with someone looking for a new job".
