Posted by LinkedSelling in Uncategorized
How often should I be sharing content with my network on LinkedIn?
It’s a common question, and one with different answers. As with many things, it depends.
That said, there are a few common rules of thumb you can follow.
There are a few different types of “updates” you might be thinking about. Status updates, group postings, and company page updates.
Let’s take a look at each, talk about what they are, and some basic guidelines for frequency of posting.
1. Status Updates
Status updates are the updates you post on your LinkedIn home page. These are seen by only your 1st degree connections.
They are NOT the same as a personal message.
And there is NO guarantee that your connections will see the update. In fact, you can rest assured that only a small percentage of your connections will ever see a given status update.
Why is that?
There are a couple key reasons.
For starters, people are becoming more and more connected on LinkedIn.
So even if they are logging into LinkedIn every single day, they still have hundreds or thousands of connections posting updates that are streaming through their home page feed.
Consider also that most people don’t use LinkedIn the same way they use Facebook. On LinkedIn, people aren’t spending time scrolling through their feeds seeing what their friends are up to. It just doesn’t work that way. So if you want to be seen, your post better be hitting the top of their page.
And the only way to do that, is to post frequently enough to increase the chances that they will see one of your updates every so often.
Now couple this with the fact that many people do not log into LinkedIn every day, and you can see why posting regularly is so important. (Even more so if your connections are international!)
Frequency Recommendation
For most people, we recommend posting a daily status update. This will increase the chances that your updates will be seen.
If you’re only posting status updates every couple weeks or so, it’s better than nothing. But you’re leaving a lot on the table.
2. Group Postings
If you’re not sharing content into LinkedIn groups, you’re just being a stinker. 🙂
LinkedIn allows you to join up to 50 groups. If you join the RIGHT groups (those where your prospects are hanging out), it can be an amazing tool for getting your message and brand in front of tens or hundreds of thousands. And technically, if you join the biggest LinkedIn groups, millions.
When it comes to sharing content on LinkedIn, the lowest hanging fruit, that will drive the most clicks, is sharing it out to all your LinkedIn groups. The first step is joining the groups where your prospects hang out.
Now, you might be wondering….Do people REALLY pay attention to the groups?
I’d be lying if I said that many people were actually going into LinkedIn every day and scanning through all the latest posts in their groups. No. That’s not happening.
HOWEVER, most people are receiving email digests of activity from the LinkedIn groups that they enjoy. The groups that have good, relevant content and conversations.
By sharing content into these groups, a good percentage of the members will see your name and content. It’s a great drip marketing strategy.
Suggested frequency for group postings
Once you join the right groups, share good and relevant stuff (stuff= blog posts, discussion starter questions, links to solid case studies, etc) into your groups every week or two.
Do it AT LEAST once a month, but don’t be the guy pounding your groups with links every day. It’s too much.
Scale it up, baby!
Consider coordinating with other people on your team to do the same thing as above. You can be in up to 50 groups. So the more people you have doing this (all in different groups sharing the content in a coordinated way), the more impact it will have.
3. Company Page Updates
One of the most common questions we receive goes something like this:
“Should I be spending my time on LinkedIn as my company, or as myself?” They’re really asking, “What’s better; utilizing my company page or my personal profile?”
Personal profiles and groups provide FAR MORE functionality, ability to connect, ability to message, and ability to market than company pages. Company pages are very static.
They’re akin to a marketing brochure. It sits there, but it doesn’t do much. The exception is Sponsored Updates.
Sponsored Updates (one form of LinkedIn advertising) can only be run from company pages…thus, making your company pages tremendously valuable. For more info on this, check out LinkedAd Academy.
The only people that see company page updates, are those who have followed your company. Growing followers is very expensive, with little value compared to other similar channels/investments.
But here’s why Company Pages ARE important, and why you should definitely have one (and maintain it).
These days, legit businesses have LinkedIn company pages. It’s kinda like a website. If you don’t have one, how legit is your business really?
If a potential client is researching your company, they might specifically look for your company page. For me, it’s one of the first things I do when I’m trying to get a feel for what a company is all about, what kind of people work there, etc.
And if this potential client finds zilch…that might not sit well, and could certainly taint their impression of you and your business.
So what should you do?
Definitely have a company page. And try to keep it looking fresh.
Frequency Recommendation
Some companies are going hog wild with their LinkedIn company pages. I just don’t see that much value in it right now (outside of brand legitimacy and sponsored updates).
Unless you’re Intel or Microsoft, you can definitely get away with sharing an update from your company page once every few weeks.
The truth is that VERY few people are paying attention to it. You just don’t want it to look like a ghost town for those occasions when a curious cowboy saunters on over to check out your steer. (one point for random cowboy mentions)
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Implementing these recommendations can yield a substantial return in terms of clicks and views. It’s an amazing amount of top-of-mind awareness, for not too much time invested.
A typical client of ours generates approximately 600 clicks per month and ~5,800 views during one month. And that is from this content sharing plan alone!
It’s certainly worth doing, and hopefully this framework will help you get things rolling. If you need some help with it, click here. We’d love to hear from you!
Hey Josh!
I really appreciate your contribution. I have just started to prepare a content plan for LinkedIn for our company and I found a lot of answers to my questions in your post.
Josh
I think your points are valid and I’ve pretty much stopped doing status updates in favour of publishing LinkedIn posts. These are attracting a reasonable level of attention.
It would be great if you could add your thoughts about these posts with respect to the other options you mention.
Hey Nick – I think they serve different purposes, but can work well together. Creating new, great content and distributing it to the right places will be a big win no matter if it is LinkedIn posts or from your blog. But if you are promoting your own stuff all the time, people will tire of it. Which is why it’s good to curate relevant content as well, and include those things in your content sharing plans as well.
I was looking for a recommendation for how often to post discussion questions in groups just the other day, so this is timely for me. I had settled on once a week for posting but daily, if possible, for commenting on other people’s questions.
I’ve noticed that my comments in groups and even if I like a discussion or someone else’s update will appear in the news feed. Sometimes I worry that too much will be in my news feed so knowing your thoughts on how little people see in their news feed is strangely reassuring.
Meanwhile, I usually post company updates twice a week.
Really good point Caryn. If you’re active in your groups, that activity will usually show up in your main feed as well. So, sometimes sharing into groups is just as good as posting a status update because all of your 1st degree connections still can see it.
I share a status update nearly every day, usually before 9am – most of these are what once was considered “curation” where I write a 50 word or so post to say why I’m sharing the post. Then I link to one of the posts on my blog.
In groups, I share an article on Tues/Fri and again, I’m sharing something from the archives on my blog. One thing I do for these is write a unique summary for each group, so it’s not just copy and paste the same thing to each group.
Currently 3 of the top 5 visited pages on my site are posts that I’ve shared this way… so it seems to be working. It’s also a very effective way for me to attract leads for my services.
Awesome Scott. Coming up with a unique summary for each of your groups, on a weekly basis, sounds like a serious investment of time. But one I’m sure is bringing huge benefits! Thanks for sharing man.
I blog so much Josh – most of this year was 5 days/week – so writing a quick 50 word summary is easy. But it does signal to group admins (who I’m sure monitor other niche groups) that I’m not just spamming their groups and I’m not posting though a sharing tool. Doing it manually does generate leads…
If I needed people to hear what I think on LinkedIn yes, I would post. the reality is that I use LinkedIn like a rolodex, I actually hate when people post info and expect a response. To me that is what Facebook and Twitter are for…
Hey Nicole. Content sharing is a massive part of LinkedIn. But there’s nothing to say you can’t just use it as a rolodex, like you’re doing. But that’s not going to help grow your business much.
Glad that you mentioned targeting groups. Groups are a great way to connect with an audience of peers, current/former co-workers, target audiences, and thought-leaders. Anytime a friend inquires as to how they can better leverage Linkedin for work I suggest taking a closer look at Groups.
I disagree with your suggestion to post often. This is not Twitter and the fact that people are not on LinkedIn as often as they are other sm platforms means that when they come to Linkedin that the information be interesting, engaging, and relevant; like Reddit, good content will get higher ctrs over time! Like Facebook, however, if posts don’t include tags to groups and individuals that might directly benefit from it there is little reason to post at all.
I also don’t believe that Company Pages are akin to marketing brochures. How often can marketing brochures update with the latest professional and cultural happenings at a company? The company Linkedin page, like any other sm platform should highlight business, culture, and employees professional and philanthropic accomplishments and these should be done as often as 2-3 times a week, so that when the cowboy comes over to check out a steer, he knows that the steer is fluent in python, works remotely from The Goat Farm, and tracks his lunchtime runs with runkeeper.
Thanks Francis, good stuff. I’ve read that 1% of your LinkedIn contacts will see a given status update. Thus, if you want more of your contacts to see your updates…you gotta post somewhat regularly. That’s why we recommend once a day.
As for company pages, I admit that my opinion is a bit controversial in some circles. Yes, it’s a “living, breathing” brochure. But one that very few people will see. And the marketing power behind your personal profile and groups far surpasses it. That’s why we recommend that you maintain your company page, but don’t get too caught up in posting every day. Once a week or so is fine.
Josh, I am somewhat constant about submitting updates rather it is our business personal pages, about my friends, or about an article I read which we feel others can possible benefit from.
As you want your business to grow you should always be thinking of ways to get your business noticed and your name recognition as a professional.
Even a simple connection can be the beginning of either a friendship and or a business opportunity or both.
Absolutely, thanks Robert!