In this week’s episode of the Social Selling Show, Daniel and Will discuss how to get attention, and most importantly, sales leads from posting content in the LinkedIn news feed.
They explore the different social media features of LinkedIn, including polls, stories, lives, hashtags and reveal the right time to post content on LinkedIn.
Featured on this episode:
Resources:
- The Daily Sales LinkedIn Page
- The Million Pound LinkedIn Message by Daniel Disney
Transcript
Will Barron:
Welcome to The Social Selling Show with myself, Will Barron. I’m the founder over at Salesman.org, and the king, the king of social selling, Daniel Disney. Daniel. How’s it going, my friend?
Daniel Disney:
It is going very well. We’re excited to be back for another episode, and today to dig in a bit deeper into the world of content. Our last episode, I loved recording. So, I’m excited to go a bit further into content and really unlock some of the other secrets.
Will Barron:
Amazing. Well, this is definitely a part two. If you’ve not listened to part one of, I guess, LinkedIn content feed breakdown and analysis by myself and Daniel, it’ll be in the show notes or the comments below this video, wherever you’re consuming it, because it’s going all over the place. And so, it would be below this video. So, make sure you check out that episode first. So, let’s get right to it. because I feel like we can go almost rapid-fire through some of these.
How Effective are LinkedIn Polls in Driving Engagement? · [00:45]
Will Barron:
LinkedIn polls. Should this be part of our weekly content mix on LinkedIn? Or is this monthly? Are they effective? Does it need to be a great poll or can we just throw a question out there? How effective are polls to get an engagement with our potential or our ideal buyer persona?
“You need to be asking questions that are genuinely sort of exciting and engaging to your audience. You want them to, A, either want to contribute, or B, want to see the results. And this is one of the most clever things that LinkedIn has done, for you to see the results of a poll, you have to vote.” – Daniel Disney · [01:17]
Daniel Disney:
Polls are performing really well at the moment, Will. And I mean, it’s something I would do probably no more than once or twice a month. I think if you’re doing it every week, unless you’ve got really great engaging questions to ask, it’s probably going to be quite tricky. But that is the key. You need to be asking questions that are genuinely sort of exciting and engaging to your audience. You want them to, A, either want to contribute, or B, want to see the results. And this is one of the most clever things that LinkedIn has done. For you to see the results of a poll, you have to vote. So, they have created it in a way that is going to drive engagement. So, either create a poll where people have a strong opinion and will want to add their thoughts, or that they’re going to be so curious to see what the results are and what everyone else is voting for that they’re going to vote to see the results.
Daniel Disney:
So yeah, polls are really good. But again, make sure that they’re engaging, they’re valuable. And what I’d recommend is, again, look at the two types of polls. Have polls relevant to your industry, so that you can gather insights and data that either might help you identify customers or might give you some data that you can share as valuable content in the future. And then, create some polls on a slightly more rarer basis that are purely there to drive engagement, but in a fun way. I did a poll on a company page the other day. And it was, “If you had to give up one, what would you give up?”
Daniel Disney:
And there was Facebook, Apple, Amazon, nothing relevant to the product, but it drove huge engagement. And it just got people talking. Whereas, I might then do a post a couple of weeks later saying, “Do you use sales navigator? Yes or no?” And I can look at all the people that voted yes. And try and promote to them a sales navigator course. And I can look at the people [inaudible 00:02:36] and promote to them something else. So, lots of value. It’s all about doing it right.
Will Barron:
That’s so smart. And one of the [inaudible 00:02:41] about this show is, every time we record, we come up with 17 more episode topics. So, I feel like another episode topic could be, how to measure engagement, how to AB test what works, so that we can suss out for our own audience, because every audience is going to be different, what we should be posting. So, perhaps we’ll do that in a future topic.
Everything You Need to Know About LinkedIn Stories · [03:05]
Will Barron:
Next up, and we covered this very briefly in part one, but… And I’ve never actually seen them. This is how crazy it is. Right? There’s so much going on on LinkedIn. I don’t have the app on my phone, so I’ve never seen a LinkedIn story. What the heck is the LinkedIn story? Is it exactly the same as an Instagram story? Should we be using it? And what should we be posting on there?
Daniel Disney:
It is exactly the same as an Instagram story. So, on the mobile app, when you look into LinkedIn, it’s got the little circles, exactly the same as Instagram with people’s faces, you click on them, and the people share stories. Essentially, they’re micro content. Now, when they first launched, there was quite a bit of popularity. There was also a lot of people that hated them because it is more personal social media type content, as opposed to the professional stuff. And the LinkedIn police work were quick to criticise it. But they have their place. I have seen them die out significantly since then. So, they’re not getting much attention, but there is still a benefit. I’d recommend utilising them. I think a lot of it depends on the type of person that you are.
“The general rule of thumb with the algorithm on LinkedIn is to post once per day. With stories, you can post several a day because they’re micro-content, they’re snippets. People will literally skip through them.” – Daniel Disney · [04:02]
Daniel Disney:
What I will say, and we covered this in the last episode, the general rule of thumb with the algorithm on LinkedIn is to post once per day. With stories, you can post several a day because they’re micro content, they’re snippets. People will literally skip through them. And you could post four to five a day and that’s not going to be seen as intrusive because it’s not appearing in the feed. They’d have to click on it and skip through it. They get control. They can do it quickly. So, it is slightly different rules. But again, it definitely, I think, aligns to your personality. If you’re quite outgoing, if you are quite a content creator, then stories can work well, but they’re not in any way to sort of take attention away from core content.
What to Post on LinkedIn Stories to Engage Your Audience · [04:37]
Will Barron:
Sure. So, am I right in thinking that an example here should be that… And I should be doing this. When I sit down to write the show notes, I’m making it for this episode, because it’s so based around LinkedIn, I should be documenting that, I should be documenting juvenile code review, I should be documenting when you say at the end of the show, “Goodbye”, and the slogan that you’re bringing up here, Daniel. Are these examples of what we should be putting in our LinkedIn story?
Daniel Disney:
Yeah, exactly. You’re documenting your day. So, you might do a screenshot of you and I having this chat. Then, you might take a photo of the notes you’ve got on paper. And you might record a little selfie, lots of different things like that, where people are then really seeing what you’re doing and learning more about you and that. And it does help build personal brand and help… You’re going to be reaching another pocket of people.
Will Barron:
Yeah. Because I know this doesn’t translate totally, but on Instagram, maybe I get, say, a hundred likes on a post, whatever. I don’t focus on the Insta… The only thing I care about is really YouTube podcasts. And then, number two, which can become more positive over time, as we kind of do a behind the scenes kind of posting content that the audience will see in the next few months, it will become LinkedIn. That’d be the next most important platform for me. But I know, on Instagram, if I post it, it may be 100 likes, 200 likes. But if I post a story, it immediately, within like minutes, has thousands and thousands of views. So, I it’s down to LinkedIn now as to what they want to prioritise over time.
How to Use LinkedIn Live · [06:13]
Will Barron:
But clearly, there’s people who do like that kind of a short to the point of content. Okay. This is probably, again, a story for… a content piece for a full episode on its own right, as it becomes more and more important, but LinkedIn live. So, I don’t have access to this. I think there’s a form you can fill out and I’m pretty sure I’d get access to it with the amount of video content that we produce. But should we be doing LinkedIn lives? Because that’s a way bigger time soak than writing posts and be able to schedule them ahead of time.
Daniel Disney:
Yeah. LinkedIn lives are great. You are right, Will. You have to apply first. So, you have to go to linkedin.com and there’s an application form for you to fill in. I had to apply, I think, four times before it got approved.
Will Barron:
Oh wow.
Daniel Disney:
It seems to be a common thread. Most people have to apply anywhere between three, six plus times, before they get approved. And it’s mainly because LinkedIn is inundated with these applications, and obviously trying to filter through them in the best way possible. So, do keep at it. The other key thing to note with it is, it is not done through LinkedIn. So whereas on Facebook, you log into Facebook, you click go live, and your live. With LinkedIn, you have to do it through a third party platform. So, I use something called stream yard. LinkedIn literally gives you a list of recommended platforms you can use.
Daniel Disney:
I will look into stream yard, click “go live”, and then it streams it through LinkedIn. And you can connect it to your other platforms as well. But live content is super engaging. It’s video to the next level. It’s you there. You could do interviews with experts. You could discuss things internally, have someone, like a product expert from your company, share some insights. It’s engaging content. It does drive good views. It can drive great engagement when you’ve got people asking questions and commenting, and should definitely be a part of the content strategy. But you need to be confident on video. You need to be competent on video. You need to have the right things set up to do it. So, it’s not something necessarily that every sales rep in an organisation should be doing. But definitely, as a company, you should have some live presence.
Will Barron:
So, on this show… And both yourself and your training and my training as well, we’re all about being real about this. It’s now the beginning of February as we record this episode. I’m going to apply for LinkedIn live today, and probably tomorrow, from the sounds of things, and probably the week after, until I get on. And as soon as we’re approved, me and you can do a live Q&A. I’ll host it from the Salesman.org studios. And so, just to document the journey of getting on LinkedIn live, it’s the 3rd of February today. I’ll apply later on. And we’ll see when we get in, if we get in [inaudible 00:08:22]. Because clearly, live is important. And it’s only going to become… I feel like live is important and it’s going to become more important as a opportunity to stand out. Because you can look great reading from an Autocue, when it’s all chopped up and there’s B roll footage put over the top.
Will Barron:
But when you’re live and people can ask you questions, and you can’t really hide from an audience… Especially if there’s even a couple of hundred people watching, the chat just gets… Because we do YouTube lives and we see this. The audience in the chat gets so riled up if you ignore a question, if you try and dodge something, that they just spam and you can’t avoid it. So, I think that’s for the real pros for LinkedIn live and live concerts in general. It gives them an opportunity to really stand out. So I said, I’ll do that. I’ll apply today. And we’ll jump on a live chat, perhaps a Q&A session, when that rolls out.
Is LinkedIn Just Copying What’s Working On Other Social Media Platforms? · [09:13]
Will Barron:
Okay, hashtags. Before we go to hashtags, is LinkedIn just copying what’s working on every other platform? Even though, for example, Twitter is just a small amount of text hashtags and has really niched down into that specific thing, and has really tried to dominate it, is LinkedIn just taking everything and throwing it at the wall and seeing what sticks here?
“One of the biggest traps I see is people think they’re going to hack LinkedIn by putting in 10 to 20 hashtags, tag it in 10 to 20 people, and that’s going to guarantee them good engagement. And you might see a small increase, but beyond that, the negative impacts dwarf the positives.” – Daniel Disney · [09:51]
Daniel Disney:
Maybe. LinkedIn is a social media network, so they’re going to be doing things very similar to others, but hashtags have their place. I think, one thing to understand, every social media network is different. So yes, they will have hashtags, but the way you use them will differ vastly on each network, and LinkedIn especially. One of the biggest traps I see… And we’ll discuss tagging in a minute. People think they’re going to hack LinkedIn by putting in 10 to 20 hashtags, tag it in 10 to 20 people, and that’s going to guarantee them good engagement.
“Hashtags are great because, A, it makes your content searchable. So, people follow hashtags on LinkedIn. People will search keywords. And if it’s within the hashtag or within the text, then your post is going to show up. So, it makes it visible, but it doesn’t have a huge impact on engagement. Having hashtags isn’t going to drive more likes and comments. The post will do that. Have a good post. The hashtag is just to make it sort of trackable and searchable.” – Daniel Disney · [10:09]
Daniel Disney:
And you might see a small increase, but beyond that, the negative impacts dwarf the positives. Hashtags are great because, A, it makes your content searchable. So, people follow hashtags on LinkedIn. People will search keywords. And if it’s within the hashtag or within the text, then your post is going to show up. So, it makes it visible, but it doesn’t have a huge impact on engagement. Having hashtags isn’t going to drive more likes and comments. The post will do that. Have a good post. The hashtag is just to make it sort of trackable and searchable.
Will Barron:
Sure. And I know this obviously can change at any moment, but I know last year the team over at SalesHack… In fact, it might’ve been a couple of years ago, so maybe this totally evolved right now. They found, from their own posts and content, that two or three hashtags performed better than like 27 hashtags, which makes sense. Right? Because LinkedIn knows if you’re trying to spam things and you’re trying to kind of get more juice from a post by just throwing a load of keywords, so that makes sense. So, that may be something to bear in mind when we’re hashtagging our posts. Okay. Right. Next up, how much our focus needs to be on business content or expertise? And how much of it can be on just personal stuff? And I’ll give you an example here. As we record right now… And the show will come out in a couple of weeks, so it might be wrapped up. It might be even bigger news then.
The 80/20 Rule of Creating and Posting Content on LinkedIn · [11:22]
Will Barron:
Right now, wall street bets on Reddit is going up against wall street. They have pumped up the price of GameStop, I think the stock is. And they’re going head-to-head with these hedge funds. And they’re not going to win because the hedge funds have way more tools and way more ways to kind of beat individual investors than what we can even comprehend. Right? Way more influence. But with that said, I posted on LinkedIn, the other day, kind of almost a meme of what has become this now more global better understood meme of wall street bets and what they’re doing. And it got a few…
Will Barron:
It did quite well. But then, people were commenting underneath, “This is nothing to do with business. Why are you posting this in here?” And then, people started fighting back. And there’s almost like a back and forth in the comments of people saying, “Well, I’m interested in this. If you don’t like it, don’t post.” And you mentioned in a previous episode, you used the word, “the LinkedIn police”, that they were on full force, kind of, or tried to show their full force in this post. So, how much content should we be posting from like… even like a meme perspective, a personal perspective, versus more kind of suit and tie B2B corporate business content?
Who Are The LinkedIn Police? · [12:31]
Daniel Disney:
That’s a great question. I’m going to first just explain who the LinkedIn police are because I talk about the LinkedIn police a lot. And in some of my classes, I’ve had people come up to me and say, “Well, who are they? What? LinkedIn has their own police department?” People are envisioning LinkedIn’s own uniformed officers policing the social media network. LinkedIn police is just an entertaining way of referencing trolls and online bullies mostly, overly negative people that will often try and correct you and say that, “This is Facebook content, not LinkedIn content,” even though the post itself might drum up value. So often, there’s minimal things you can take away from those type of people. There is no benefit in writing those sort of comments. It has more negative impact on them than it does on you and your post. So, that’s the LinkedIn police.
“I personally try and preach the 80/20 split. 80% of your content should be valuable to your audience. 20% can then be promotional.” – Daniel Disney · [13:18]
Daniel Disney:
But in terms of that balance, I personally try and preach the 80/20 split. 80% of your content should be valuable to your audience. 20% can then be promotional. And I know you mentioned in the last episode that you like to go kind of more a hundred percent valuable instead of asking. And both can work very, very effectively. But there’s no reason you can’t share your own opinions, just try and make sure it’s kept on brand. And sometimes, as you kind of just highlighted, you can post something that maybe is a bit different to what you would normally post. Some people might find it that they don’t enjoy that, but you’ve got a bigger audience that are going to come and defend you and will probably align to it.
Daniel Disney:
You’ve just got to play it cautiously. Sometimes, if you go too much into an opinion that’s not relevant… And you see it sometimes when people share political stuff, or even some sports stuff that just is going to create more aggressive debate than anything. Maybe think twice before posting it.
How Long Does Content Last on LinkedIn? · [14:15]
Will Barron:
Sure. That makes total sense. Okay. So, next up… And again, we’re going to go rapid fire for some of these now. Content. How long does it live on LinkedIn? Now, we’ll talk about the feed here as opposed to articles, which might have a bit of a longer life. But do they die off in a day? Can they come back to life after a week? If someone, I don’t know, Elon Musk, re-posts your content, can they come back to life after the fact?
Daniel Disney:
I mean, content lives forever, Will. I can go on your page now and literally search through pretty much all of your content as far back as I want. And people will search at different lengths. In terms of more recent content, how long it lasts, at the moment, it’s kind of extending. So, it used to be really within the first sort of 24/48 hours. That was your core engagement time. And then, it would probably drift off into the distance. But now, we’re kind of seeing that extend to up to about a week, sometimes even just beyond a week.
Daniel Disney:
And posts are still getting good engagement over that duration of time. And that’s part of LinkedIn changing the algorithm. So yes, it lasts. Yes, it’s going to make a lasting impression. And any time people engage in it, then it’s going to continue reaching more and more audiences. So, yeah. It will last, but probably nothing beyond two weeks at the moment. I don’t think LinkedIn will push it that far.
Can You Delete Posts on LinkedIn? · [15:28]
Will Barron:
Sure. I think that’s a really fair point and an important point that you said there of why the stupid things that you say now on your LinkedIn forever. Is it possible to delete posts?
Daniel Disney:
Yes. Yeah. You have full control. So, if you change… And I’ll give you one story, Will. I did it once. And I can’t tell you the stress it caused me. It was two years ago and I spoke at the sales innovation expo in London. And a friend of mine, Chris Marie, fellow sales author, and speaker, amazing guy, we went and had a glass of champagne at the end of the day, big talk, busy day. And I posted on the daily sales. There’s an Elmo meme where he has like a bowl of fruit or a pile of cocaine. And he dunks his head into this pile of… I’m assuming it’s cocaine, anyway. Anyway, I don’t usually share stuff like that. I try to keep it family-friendly content. But I used that post and I can’t remember if I used the term cold calling and social selling to try and provide a sales funnel.
Daniel Disney:
Anyway, I posted it. I felt so guilty, Will. I really didn’t feel comfortable sharing it. Anyway, by coincidence, LinkedIn crashed for about 15 minutes, but I thought I’d been blocked. I thought that meme had suddenly made LinkedIn delete my account and everything was suddenly gone. Chris will attest to this. It was the most stress I think I’ve ever been. And I felt for him because, for those 15 minutes, I was not in a good place. So yes, you can delete. Because all I wanted to do was go and delete it. I felt so bad, I was like, “I need to delete that post.” But LinkedIn wouldn’t let me. So yes, you can delete posts. And hopefully, LinkedIn won’t crash when you choose to delete something.
Will Barron:
I love that. I love that. And I’ll just add another layer on this of, when you delete a post, it might not be visible on LinkedIn, but it’s on the internet. So, there’s a website called waybackmachine.com. And if you were to go back to that moment in time, they could very well have snapshotted the daily sales page. Because it obviously gets so much attention, so much traffic, way back machine will be documenting it. And so, if you go back to that, it will probably still be on there in that snapshot, just as a mental note for anyone who is talking about politics, or who’s talking about even sports, or, as I did, talking about maybe one of my customers in the future will be hedge funds and I’m here encouraging people to bet against them. So, all that is there. And even if you delete it, it is somewhat documented. And so, don’t post anything…
Daniel Explains Why It’s Okay to Reuse High-Flying Content · [18:01]
Will Barron:
I think what you did there is a meme. It’s not end of the world stuff, is it? But if you do post it something that might be more political, if you do it after maybe a few more glasses of champagne and you regret it in the morning, just double check it before you post it. Cool. On that then… And this ties into the length of time that a post lives for, even if it’s just in the feed, as opposed to in the backend of LinkedIn. Can we reuse posts? If we have a post that does really well, can we reuse it a month later?
Daniel Disney:
100%. Content is an asset and you should be storing all your posts. Now, there’s a few different ways you do it. So, I’ve got a few clients that I consult with and we literally copy and paste their posts. Usually, I tend to have a rule no sooner than sort of three months. If you post it sooner than that, you are going to potentially reach the same people. But after that period of time, if you are actively growing your audience, which hopefully you will be doing, you’re going to have a whole load of new people. And it’s going to reach new people. And actually, what we found in some of the occasions is the post has performed better the second time round than it did the first time round.
Daniel Disney:
So yes, it can definitely work. Personally, I haven’t, to date, copied and pasted a post of mine, which I think is quite an achievement for sort of five years of active posting. But I will tell similar stories in different ways. So, I’ll find different ways to share a tip or a bit of advice, try and sort of dress it up in some slightly different way, so it’s still similar things, but it’s just presented in a different way. So yes, you can reuse, reshare, retell. Either do it the same way, but leave at least three months before you do it, or just find different ways to tell that story.
Will Barron:
Sure. That makes total sense. And I’ve done this. I had a post do well the other day, I think it’s about 15,000 views on it, load of comments. And it was the verbatim copy and pasted, because I found a spreadsheet of LinkedIn posts that I was trying to document so I could put this into practise. And I just lost… I lost the document. It was in Google drive somewhere. So, I tested that one particular post and it did well. And it was exactly the same as what I posted in the past. Still relevant, it still had… with context to all of my audience.
The Best Time to Post Content on LinkedIn · [20:01]
Will Barron:
But you’re right. I never thought about it like that before. Even if my audience has gone from say 6,000 to 8,000 over the past few years, that’s 2000 new people, which is a huge percentage of new individuals that have never seen that post before. So, there is value in reposting old content. I love that. I never thought about it in that context before. Okay. So, you touched on this in the previous episode, part one of LinkedIn content feed, but let’s maybe debunk some of this right now. Is there a preferred time of day? Is there a preferred day of the week to post? Does it really matter?
“A lot of people ask, “when is the best time to post?” Thinking that if they post it that specific time slot, it’s going to guarantee engagement. And it really is less about the when you post and more about what you post. Focus on what you’re saying, not when you post it. Because quality posts will do well any day.” – Daniel Disney · [20:14]
Daniel Disney:
So, this is a yes and no answer where we kind of tease this a bit in the last episode. A lot of people ask when is the best time to post, thinking that if they post it that specific time slot it’s going to guarantee engagement. And it really is less about the when you post and more about the what you post. Focus on what you’re saying, not when you post it. Because quality posts will do well any day. And I’m testing this all the time, days of the week, weekends, mornings, lunch, afternoons, evenings. And it’s been unanimous. If the post itself is good quality, then it can perform well at any time. And again, I’ve mirrored this like for doing on a Sunday, doing it on a Thursday. Good quality content will always reign supreme. There are slight increases. And think about this again from a psychological perspective.
Daniel Disney:
Your Monday to Friday, you’re 9:00 AMs, you’re sort of half eight to half nine slot where people are arriving at work and probably logging into LinkedIn and checking. You see little peaks. You get your lunch time peaks between sort of half 11, maybe one o’clock, where people are, again, checking in LinkedIn during their lunch breaks. And then, you get that sort of between four o’clock and six o’clock peak where people are finishing their day and, again, logging in, you will see slightly increases in those, but I wouldn’t focus too much on worrying about posting at those times. Make sure the focus is on the quality of the post.
Will Barron:
Yeah. I guess the message is to schedule your time to post, so you don’t forget it, as opposed to worry about the LinkedIn algorithm. Is that fair enough to say?
Daniel Disney:
Yeah, that’s well said.
Should We Be Aiming For Viral Content and Is There a Formula For Creating Viral Content? · [21:35]
Will Barron:
Cool. So, this ties into the next point here on viral content. Now, because clearly we all want a post to go viral. We all think that one post is going to go viral and it’s going to make our career. And there’s people who that has happened to. I guess we’ll be going into just social media history going through them. So, I won’t run through them. But I listened to a podcast called… hosted by a guy called the true Jordan. He had a couple of viral posts, posts go viral, where he was just complaining about the state of Newcastle United. It were done on a video on his phone.
Will Barron:
And he’s built his career on the back of those videos. And now, he’s a talented content producer in his own right. And there’s plenty of other people who’ve done this. But should we be aiming for a viral video, or a viral content post? Is there a formula for that? Or is this something that just happens so rarely that it’s basically randomness?
“There is a lot of value in viral content, but the thing you need to appreciate is having a post go viral doesn’t guarantee business, doesn’t mean your inbox is going to suddenly fill with leads and opportunities.” – Daniel Disney · [22:25]
Daniel Disney:
So, there is a lot of value in viral content, but the thing you need to appreciate is having a post go viral doesn’t guarantee business, doesn’t mean your inbox is going to suddenly fill with leads and opportunities. Two things to think about. Number one, it needs to be, you want the right content to go viral. It is easy on LinkedIn. There are so many ways you can game-ify to get engagement. But it’s not going to convert to business because it’s not relevant to your industry, not relevant to your audience. It’s not going to make you look any more credible or trustworthy. It’s just going to show that you can drive a little bit of early engagement.
“What you want is the right content to go viral, where people are going to read it, actually see you in the way you want to be seen, and then hopefully convert into inbound inquiries.” – Daniel Disney · [22:56]
Daniel Disney:
And I see this time and time again. What you want is the right content to go viral, where people are going to read it, actually see you in the way you want to be seen, and then hopefully convert into inbound inquiries, and obviously the sort of other sub effects of that. But again, viral content isn’t something you should massively pursue. It is something that will happen. It kind of ultimately boils down to right time, right place.
“No one gets viral content on a daily basis. So, don’t chase it, just focus on the quality. And if you focus on that, you might be able to get that sort of right time, right place.” – Daniel Disney · [23:17]
Daniel Disney:
Anyone who gets viral content, you will see they’re not getting it every day. No one gets viral content on a daily basis. So, don’t chase it, just focus on the quality. And if you focus on that, you might be able to get that sort of right time, right place.
Will Barron:
Excuse me. And I know… I guess he’s posted about it publicly now. But our friend, Jim Keenan, he just spent a tonne of money creating what he thought was going to be a viral video and was kind of perhaps misled. He’s doing a series of blog posts now over at salesguy.com. As my voice disappears, I’m just going to grab a swig of water. Sorry about this, Daniel and audience. And so, it’s not even… A viral post is not something that you can even guarantee by throwing thousands of dollars of ad spend and thousands of dollars of video production at it as well. I feel like a lot of viral content is… It comes across via survivor bias in that 20,000 people try and create viral content. Three people have a viral video.
The Benefits of Consistently Producing and Posting Valuable Content on LinkedIn · [24:30]
Will Barron:
And we only listen to and pay attention to the people who had success. And we tend to discount and ignore the thousands of people who probably did the same content, the same thing. It was just at the wrong moments, the wrong time, the wrong political thing had just happened, or the right political thing had happened for someone else. So, I guess that’s… I guess where I’m going with this is, consistency is the important thing here, isn’t it, as opposed to just one-off, that kind of out of the park, big swing successes?
Daniel Disney:
Massively. Yeah. You might get lucky with viral content. By all means, really… If you’re going to get viral content, it’s because you’re going to be immersed in creating good, engaging, valuable content, which you should be doing anyway. Keep the focus on that. And then, just keep your ear to the ground. You will find opportunities where you think, “Do you know what? Actually, I’m going to post that today.” And then, it may just perform slightly better than others and may even go into that viral territory. But keep your motivation authentic. Focus on creating, engaging, valuable content for your audience. That should be the focus.
Is it Fair to Say That There’s No Point in Creating Viral Content If It’s Not Going to Generate New business? · [25:30]
Will Barron:
And you said something earlier on, in the previous answer, Daniel, which I really want to double down on. Right? You said that… And this brings the conversation all back down to earth. You said… and I’m kind of paraphrasing here, that there’s no point in creating viral content if it’s not going to generate new business. Because that’s what we’re here for, right? We’re here to drive revenue, to get those commissioned bonuses in. Is that a good kind of rule that we should have at the back of our mind of, “Yes. A viral piece of content might build a bigger audience. But if that audience isn’t going to be relevant to our product or service that we’re selling, what’s the point?” Because if you want to become a social media superstar, there’s other content. There are other shows to listen to.
Will Barron:
It should be always at the back of our mind that, “Is this content going to build an audience that can then convert into potential customers, or be part of a network that can introduce me to potential customers in the future?”
Daniel Disney:
Yeah. We all see it, Will. We all see the Instagram influences that buy or manage to get these huge audiences. And then, when they try and sell them something, they’ll buy it. There’s a value in that audience, unless you want it for the sheer ego factor. And if that’s what you want, then it’s not for me to judge that. For most people, and certainly sales people, business owners, et cetera, they’re going to want to see a positive return. So, it needs to be the right audience that do buy into, that you’ve earned that ability to influence them, which you can’t buy [inaudible 00:26:37]. So yeah, you might get that quick engagement. It might make you feel good.
Daniel Disney:
“Yeah. My post went viral.” It might make you feel that you’re a celebrity. Unless you can convert into business, that’s where the real challenge lies. So again, go at it with a genuine, authentic approach. Make sure you are focused on it. But we always need to wear those sales hats. We have to have that sales heart. That doesn’t mean you’re going out and trying to pitch and sell to everyone. But it means you’re always trying to look for opportunities to create conversations because you’re helping people. That’s what you’re doing. You’re not selling. You’re helping people. And you’re focused on doing that.
Is There Any Value in Using LinkedIn Ads To Drive Traffic To Your Own Content? · [27:22]
Will Barron:
Love it. And this is definitely an episode for another time, but you mentioned buy audiences there. So clearly, I think, I think I can say for both us, that’s never going to work. It might’ve worked on an… And it works on new platforms. You can do all kinds of blackout stuff to build a growing audience. But legitimately, LinkedIn does have its own ad platform. Is there any value in using LinkedIn ads to drive traffic to your own content, for example?
Will Barron:
Is the value of doing that… I know LinkedIn had to probably… from my experience, incredibly expensive versus over Facebook ads and things like that. But is that a potential strategy?
“Right now, LinkedIn is kind of the social media network for organic reach. So, you’d be silly not to capitalise on that first and invest heavily in the organic reach.” – Daniel Disney · [27:42]
Daniel Disney:
It is. But right now, LinkedIn is kind of the social media network for organic reach. So, you’d be silly not to capitalise on that first and invest heavily in the organic reach. But yeah, absolutely. Sponsored ads work. What I would recommend is you really seek out professionals because it is complicated. I see a lot of people throw away a lot of money on LinkedIn, Facebook, spending on ads when they have no experience, so they’re not using the right strategies with it. So, do it right if you’re going to do it. But LinkedIn, right now, is where Facebook was sort of 10 years ago, where organic reach is at an all time free accessibility opportunity. So, capitalise on that.
Audience Question: Is There Any Harm in Adding Outbound Links to LinkedIn Posts? · [28:10]
Will Barron:
I love it. I love it. Okay. So, let’s answer one audience question and then we’ll wrap up the show. So, I assume you’ve got it right there, so hold up. But if you send in a question, either to myself or Daniel Disney, [inaudible 00:28:25], because there’ll be a form and a website over at socialsellingshow.com. Daniel will very kindly send you a signed copy of his book, The Million-Pound LinkedIn Message.
Will Barron:
So, today’s question comes in from, as I pull up the doc again… It comes in from John. And John asks, “Daniel, Will, should I be linking out from my feed content posts to other places? Or should I keep everything organically within the LinkedIn platform itself?”
Daniel Disney:
I love this question because I see so many other, I’m going to say experts, some of them are genuinely experts in other fields, but other self-professed LinkedIn experts saying, “Don’t link. It’s going to damage it.” And I can tell you for a fact, if the post is good, the link is not going to have a negative impact. I’ve had plenty of posts with links do huge numbers because the post is good. So, the link itself isn’t damaged. Yes, there is some logic to it because LinkedIn doesn’t really want you going to other platforms. But that doesn’t mean they’re going to be able to stop a good post delivering good results.
Daniel Disney:
So, don’t stress too much about it. It doesn’t mean you should have a link in every single post. It’s hard to justify the relevance of that. Only have a link in where it genuinely is relevant and obviously valuable for the audience. So Will, when I share our posts, I tend to include the link in the post. Sometimes, I might chuck it in the comments. But by no means will there be a significant difference in either way of doing that.
Will Barron:
I’ve been putting it in the comments because I’ve again been led to believe that that was the best way to do it. But from a user experience… So, you might be gaming the algorithm slightly of… Then, the user’s got to go through all the comments. And there’s more dwell time on the post. And you’ve got to find it. But from a user experience perspective, I want people to see a video. And because, I can’t host this video on LinkedIn, because it’s going to be longer than 10 minutes, obviously a live, perhaps we could do the show live at some point and it could live on there, from that perspective. But I want to user to be able to click the link and get off the platform as quick as possible. And I had someone pose a similar question to me in a LinkedIn comment recently. And he was asking, “Why don’t you break up content to post on LinkedIn more? Why do you always link to YouTube?”
If You’re Going to Add Links To Your LinkedIn Content, Where Should You Insert Them? In The Post or In The Comment Section? · [30:55]
Will Barron:
And the answer, for me… This is less relevant for a sales professional, as opposed to content creators. I get thousands of dollars a month from YouTube ad revenue. Why am I going to post a bid for… I’ll link it on YouTube and then… I’ll link it on LinkedIn and then post it, the link, out to YouTube. [inaudible 00:30:48] YouTube? Because they pay me for it. So, that is exactly why I do it, barring the kind of requirements of length of post and file size and things like this. But that explained it to him. And so, yeah. Let me ask you this then, Daniel. Should I just be putting that post… the link in the post itself from, again, a user experience perspective, where people are more likely to find it, more likely to click on it, and more likely to have a better experience with my content?
Daniel Disney:
We talked about this in the last episode, Will. Test it. Let’s share the results. Go and test it. We’ll both do it. We’ll both do the next couple of episodes. We’ll do one with it in the post one, with it in the comments. And we’ll share our response. Certainly from experience, the differences are often quite minimal. So, I wouldn’t stress too much about it. But let’s do this. Let’s practise what we preach, Will. Let’s go and test it. And we can deliver results in a future episode.
Will Barron:
Yeah. And very literally, what I’ll do is I’ll send you a trackable link. Whether it goes to your YouTube profile or my YouTube provide, it doesn’t matter. But we use the same link. And then, we can literally track the number of clicks. We will do that. And we’ll report back in next week’s episode. So with that, Daniel, anything else you want to add to this? I feel like in quite depth in the part one and part two from these two episodes on LinkedIn feed content. Is there anything else you want to add on top of this? Or have we covered all the bases here?
“Go and share content, give value to your audience, but make sure you have that authentic heart. Make sure you’re genuinely motivated by giving value to your prospects, your customers, and your network. That’s where success lies. Don’t do it for the likes. Don’t do it for the comments. Don’t do it to try and sell something. Do it because you want to give value.” – Daniel Disney · [32:06]
Daniel Disney:
I think we’ve covered everything, Will. It’s been a great couple of episodes focusing on content. Again, the core moral of the story with this is go and share content, give value to your audience, but make sure you have that authentic heart. Make sure you’re genuinely motivated by giving value to your prospects, your customers, and your network. That’s where success lies. Don’t do it for the likes. Don’t do it for the comments. Don’t do it to try and sell something. Do it because you want to give value
Will Barron:
Amazing stuff. And I’ll just add one late start of consistency. That is something I’ve liked. That’s something I see you do very well, Daniel. And we’ll talk to you about it, on how to schedule, how to plan ahead, tools we can use to auto post and stuff in the future. But consistency is the thing that I feel the people who really crush it on LinkedIn, like yourself, have really got down.
Will Barron:
So, with that, everything we talked about on the show, everything we talked about, is available in the show notes over at socialsellingshow.com. That was Daniel Disney, the king of social site. My name is Will Barron. I’m the founder of salesman.org. And we’ll speak with you again on next week’s episode of The Social Selling show.
Daniel Disney:
See you next time.
