Without awareness, nothing can happen. Apply this thinking to any circumstance and you'll realise that awareness is the first step toward driving and igniting action. Considering I'm sharing this article on LinkedIn, the world's largest professional network, let's consider the scenario in which you are trying to generate leads or the circumstance in which you're trying to be headhunted for your next position. In both scenarios, you need the following to occur with your target person(s):
Awareness that you exist
Connect with one another
Educate and engage the target person(s)
In its most simplest form, that's the process that needs to occur for you to achieve your objective. The semantics of each stage may vary depending on the nature of your objective (I.e. Trying to get hired VS trying to qualify a lead).
On the LinkedIn marketplace to raise awareness about who you are, what you do and what you offer (which is your brand - personal and/or enterprise) you must optimise your efforts to be discovered. I'm forever preaching that the single most effective way to increase the rate at which you are discovered is by producing digital content assets and deploying them into the LinkedIn marketplace.
To clarify, a digital content asset is simply information collated in a medium. Distribution mediums supported by LinkedIn include photos, written copy, video, articles, and documents.
Often when I'm coaching individuals and enterprises, individuals in particular, gasp at me when I let them know that deploying digital content assets is the single most effective way to organically grow your presence on LinkedIn. Some people even go so far as to refute my thinking.
To provide a transparent context that speaks volumes about my passion for this conversation, let me tell you a bit about my LinkedIn growth journey and why I firmly believe that with a strategic approach, many people can achieve the same.
In the second [calendar] quarter of 2018, I decided to start producing highly personalised video content assets for LinkedIn. Upon starting, my LinkedIn profile had been active since 2013 with a total of 1398 direct connections and ZERO activity. I didn't visit the platform and most certainly didn't use it. When I got started, the videos I shared revolved around topics of interest to me. I recall my second video being on the topic of "going beyond your call of duty", by way of example. Initially, I was sharing videos sporadically, maybe once a week or maybe twice per week. As I started to analyse what was actually happening, I became OBSESSED with understanding the metrics available to me in the way of content engagement and profile views. Several weeks in I had started work on correlating the performance between different metrics and analysing how and why certain metrics didn't correlate from a trend perspective. Circa 18 months later? My profile is where it is at today and my business is what it is - this has all been realised organically.
Now? I spend on average 3 hours per day analysing LinkedIn. Not consuming, I mean deeply analysing. Who knows, maybe your profile and content are in my "to analyse bucket" ;)
Okay, back to business.
To clarify, being "discovered" on LinkedIn means that your profile or a subsidiary of your profile is rendered on a user's screen. A subsidiary of your profile includes things like your own content assets or engagement actions (I.e. Your comment on someone else's content asset). Remember, that your rate of discoverability on LinkedIn is what will enable you to raise awareness, connect, educate and engage with your target person(s). Why do you want to do this? Because you want to grow! Maybe you want to grow in a corporate hierarchy or maybe you want to grow your lead list - either way, it's all about growth. Conversely, if you don't want to grow then maybe this article will pivot your thinking.
There are 3 key ways you are generally discovered on LinkedIn:
1. Via search results (someone tenders a search word or term and you appear in the list somewhere)
2. Via the homepage ["Newsfeed"] (someone is scrolling and they come across a content asset of yours or an engagement action of yours)
3. Miscellaneous (includes via a company page or mention in someone else's post)
In an egotistical world, it would be amazing to think people are just seeking out our profile at a mass scale deliberately but this is seldom the case. I'd respectfully add that if the only way your profile is being discovered is every time you meet someone and they say "hey, I'll connect with you on LinkedIn" - then you're going to have to meet ALOT of people and this typically isn't feasible if you're a big thinker.
Okay, so we now understand the 3 key ways that you are generally discovered on LinkedIn, and when looking at that list I'd encourage you to do a quick mini-audit on your efforts to understand how your current actions align to those facts. For example, do you have your profile optimised with keywords to ensure you're showing up in search results efficiently? Do you deploy content assets and/or engage with content deployed by others? Do you have other LinkedIn pages and websites linked to your profile to optimise traffic diversion?
If you're typically quite a passive participant, then the learnings of this article might not be for you. Conversely, if you're a proactive participant, willing and able to put in the work to generate real results for your business/career - then put your spectacles on and focus on what I'm about to show you.
I ALWAYS tell people that the deployment of content assets is the SINGLE MOST EFFECTIVE WAY to grow your presence and raise awareness. I think I already said that... BUT it's important, so please don't forget it.
I'm about to reveal my private profile performance results to you, so you know that I'm not conveying crap. I've never revealed this data before so I trust that you appreciate my transparency here given the sensitive nature of this data to me and my business.
Before I share the data, let's regroup to ensure we're on the same page in terms of the key learnings from this article. I'd be disappointed if we went through this and you didn't have actionable insights to implement in an effort to propel your growth.
1. To achieve your objective on LinkedIn you need to embrace the ACE strategy: Attract, Connect, Educate & Engage.
2. You will be discovered on LinkedIn in search results, the news feed or via other pages/websites (subsequent to mentions).
3. Content is the single most effective way to ORGANICALLY enable the ACE strategy to be in full-swing (Don't take my word for it, check out the data).
Now, it's time for us to look at the data extracted directly from my profile.
Does this make sense?
Let me do a quick example calculation to show you what this data means.
Let's assume I had exactly 700 profile views per day. This would mean that 406 of those views were because users saw my name in the news feed because I published a piece of content and/or reacted to someone else's content (comments are the most effective and meaningful). It would also mean that only 259 of those profile views were subsequent to users tendering in search words/terms. Can you see where the honey is?
Also, consider the value of a profile view subsequent to being discovered in the news feed VS a profile view via search results - the value proposition is distinctly different. A profile view via search results doesn't mean that the viewer has actually clicked through to your profile. Conversely, a profile view via the news feed means the viewer has actually rendered your profile on their screen. It is with this in mind as to why I'm always preaching that the three most important elements of your LinkedIn profile set up are your Name, Profile Photo, and Headline - these are the only three information elements that a view sees whenever they discover your profile before having clicked-through to it. Without rambling on, your headline should be optimised to the effect of a click-bait approach to entice the viewer to click-through to your full profile. I've got a free profile mastery course you can access here if you want more insight.
Some people might suggest that "profile views don't matter because they're a vanity metric" BUT consider this. YES, profile views in isolation will probably just make your head big(ger), but if you compare those insights with the performance of other metrics on your profile you'll be able to make more informed decisions about how best to move forward at any time. For example, what % of daily profile viewers are opting to "follow" or "connect" with you ("conversion rate")? [consider a buffer for viewers that are already connected to / following you]
It's a strategic and calculative approach as such that will enable you to leverage LinkedIn in a logical and ROI orientated way.
Now, we could chat for hours about this entire dynamic so I'll save the following insights for our next conversation. In the meantime, please use this article to your advantage! I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments below and please do share this article with anyone who may benefit from the contents within. Have a great week on purpose, chat soon.
Best, Sally