Welcome to episode 257 where this week I want to cover a really important aspect of using LinkedIn in a productive and successful way… finding great content! As usual with LinkedIn we have an algorithm that makes choices (often the wrong ones) for us but we can take actions to help us find and engage with the best content.

Also covered in this episode;

• Main LinkedIn automation bot recommends it’s users to stop using it before their accounts get closed down!
• Another story about a fake account, easily created due to poor LinkedIn design that was used to con financial journalists
• A LinkedIn bug that allowed a fake job to be posted - CEO of Google!
• LinkedIn will be moving its servers to the cloud!
• Why is your post trending and is it something to celebrate?
• What exactly is a ‘Top’ comment?
• Do hashtags in comments count?
• Post of the week. A video post with over 350 Likes, 200 comments and over 17,000 views
• Question - Can you see the activity from someone from when they were blocked (after you unblock them)

 

Interesting Stuff I Saw This Week

• LinkedIn will be moving its servers into the cloud with MS Azure later this year. Can we trust both parties to get it right?
• Google CEO job posted on LinkedIn was fake and made possible by a LinkedIn bug
• How This Fake Financial Expert Tricked Outlets Into Publishing Her Advice
• Automated bot product LinkedInHelper can no longer guarantee it’s users won’t get their LinkedIn accounts shut down

How To Find Great Content

Finding great content is critical to your success on LinkedIn but how do you find it? A big thanks to listener Sara Gallagher for the inspiration for this topic

What makes content great?

• It’s highly relevant to your target audience
• It’s highly visible due to levels of engagement

 

Why do we need it?

• Increase our visibility by engaging with it - both human & algorithm visibility
• Commenting helps us maintain a healthy comment:post ratio
• Improves the quality of our feed
• Helps us learn more about relevant topics and the people that comment/post
• Stimulates ideas for our own content

 

What are we looking for?

• Highly relevant posts with a good level of engagement, especially comments.

What topics are of interest to your target audience?

Who writes about them?

Who engages with these posts and articles?

These issues were also covered in episode 241 - Who should you follow

Once this has been established you can now start searching.

Content searching should be conducted by two methods, Hashtag searching and Keyword searching.

Keyword Searching

Step One - Type in the keywords/phrase into the main search box. Ignore all suggested results and click on ‘See all results’ at the bottom

Step Two - Now select ‘Content’

Step Three - Scroll through the posts to find those worth commenting on. I would typically Like most posts but only comment on those that already have a strong comment thread. I find when searching this way that those that are considered most ‘relevant’ are those with higher engagement levels (see below). Note you can also filter the results by ‘Posted by’, ‘Date posted’ and ‘Author industries’

Step Four - Again Like all relevant posts and comment on those with a good comment thread. Check each popular post to see what hashtags they are using (usually you will find one that exactly matches your keywords)

NOTE : These results are often very different from a hashtag search. There will be a crossover but many LinkedIn users are still not using hashtags.

 

Hashtag Searching

There are two ways to do this. You can just simply type in the word(s) in the main search bar with a #in front of them - remember to leave no spaces.

Alternatively, especially if following on from a keyword search, you can simply click on the hashtag from within a post.

Let’s use Shay’s post as shown above

Clicking on the hashtag automatically performs a search. At the top of the page you can then follow that hashtag. This MIGHT mean you see posts in your feed but it’s mainly useful as a way of saving that search in your ‘Followed hashtags’ in the left-hand column. Once followed you can simply click on this link to perform the search again at anytime - I recommend once a week for popular hashtags.

People Searching.

As you go through your content searches, take note of those that are posting great content about subjects that are relevant and follow them. Also make a note of then so that you can occasionally strategically @mention them when you post.

In addition, you can also perform a keyword search of people.

This is the same as the content keyword search except for this time, select ‘People’ rather than ‘content in step two.

You may find some influential people in this result that are also worth following and engaging with their content.

Summary.

Visibility is critical to your success on LinkedIn and the best way to build this is by finding content and commenting. Once you are into the habit of doing this on a regular basis you will find it much easier to think of subjects to post about and you will also find that your posts will achieve greater organic reach

‘Your Post is trending” - what exactly does this mean?

The above subject really got me thinking about ‘top’ comments as well. I asked my friend John Espirian to help me test this and what we found out was somewhat surprising!

It would appear that ‘Top’ is potentially different for everyone. The ranking appears to be as follows;

1. A comment from a connection (in order of most engaged first)
2. Most engaged (replies+likes)

 

Hashtags in comments have very little value

Following a question on the above post, I did some research. In the comments thread of that post, two hashtags were mentioned. Each one formed a link to a search for that hashtag but my post did not appear in the search result.

Therefore it is safe to assume the same happens for the feed meaning that hashtags only count when added to the main text of the post.

 

I have a bit of a backlog of suggestions at the moment so this one is not a recent post. I’ve been wanting to feature it for some while though, I think Mark Gainsford delivers some great content and his videos are superb. This is a great example;

• Humourous and relatable
• Business topic but light-hearted
• Regular post ‘series’ is a great way to attract followers
• 352 Likes, 200 comments and 17,332 views at the time of recording
• This type of content builds a great relationship with the audience.

 

 

This question came from Giles Davis;

What happens when I block someone for a period of time and then unblock them. Is their content from the blocked period visible to me and vice versa and is this a way of ‘breaking’ the follow?

I tested this with another account and the surprising answer was yes! if you block someone because you don’t want them to see your content at a specific time, they will subsequently be able to see it via your profile or by searching.

The main question though was whether this would in effect ‘break the follow’ and it does! So if someone follows you and you don’t want them to you can block then unblock (under Privacy in settings). They can obviously follow you again but they are unlikely to notice that they are no longer a follower because they are not notified.

Great question!

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That’s all for this week.

Keep writing in and leaving voicemails with your questions and suggestions, it’s now become an integral part of the show!