Nobody hands you a dictionary when you join LinkedIn. You pick up broetry, and dwell time the way you pick up slang in a new city: by embarrassing yourself first. So here is the first part of my LinkedIn dictionary, A to M.
A is for Analytics
Analytics gives you visibility on impressions, follower growth, likes, comments, reposts, shares and the audience you're reaching, right down to their seniority and job titles. It's the most effective way to see if your aura is reaching the right people.
B is for Broetry
Broetry refers to those LinkedIn bros who cannot stop giving unsolicited advice to anyone and everyone on the internet. This unsolicited advice is very much the basis of why LinkedIn is so widely hated across Reddit and other platforms. It's annoying, unwanted and completely undesired.
Credits - LinkedIn Lunatics
C is for Comments
Comments are the most underrated part of LinkedIn. They happen to be the easiest way to get your account in front of your future buyers (and the influencers you look up to). Just to illustrate how important comments can be, one of my clients went on holiday and stopped commenting. His posts were scheduled and kept running on his account, everything was going according to plan, yet his impressions still dropped from 1,000 on average to 600. The only change was that he stopped commenting. It tells you how much commenting can impact your reach.
D is for Dwell time
Dwell time is one of the most crucial metrics on LinkedIn today. It measures how much time people spend reading your post. It is also one of the most crucial signals LinkedIn uses to decide whether your post deserves reach. So really focus on making your post interesting to read, or make them want to learn more via your post. Even better, make them reread your post. It's a metric that is definitely not spoken about enough.
E is for Engagement
Engagement = Likes, comments, reposts and saves. Basically any action your audience takes on your post. Most people optimize for likes, but what LinkedIn REALLY enjoys is you creating and retaining conversation. Which brings us back to Commenting. (I will keep bringing us back to Commenting.)
F is for Frequency
There's a lot of debate about this online. Should I post daily? Should I post weekly? Should I post three times a week? Should I post twice a day? The algorithm will keep changing (roughly 1530937 times since you started reading this), rewarding and taking away depending on how the platform performs.
All we know is that too much content is becoming a bit tiresome for the LinkedIn audience. You don't have to post daily, but ALSO if you don't post weekly, your reach will probably be punished. The real balance is consistency in posting and consistency in what your brand and your personality on LinkedIn represent.
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G is for Games
LinkedIn wants to keep you on the platform and it will do whatever the hell it can to make that happen. Games are a colossal waste of time in my and everyone else’s opinion.
H is for Hooks
One of the most important parts of writing a LinkedIn post is a hook. Hooks are the first three lines visible to your audience when they're scrolling their feed. A good hook creates a curiosity gap and makes the reader wonder ‘hey, what's next, I want to know more.’ Think about the posts that grabbed your attention. What did their first three lines say, and how can you use that in your own content?
Writing a good hook is one of the most challenging parts of writing a LinkedIn post.
I is for Impressions
The reputation of Impressions has been dicey over the years. They continue to be important but my focus has now shifted to look at the ‘Members Reached’ metric.
J is for Job title
The most underappreciated tool on the platform. If you want to target an audience on LinkedIn, the best way to do that is job titles and what they do as a profession, because no other platform has this piece of information. Yes, you can search for job titles in your network, but you can also put them in your profile headline and about section: For example: I help marketing managers and founders create their personal brand on LinkedIn. People really associate themselves with the identity of their job title, and LinkedIn is the only place where that identity is openly and proudly shown. So use it, and use it a LOT.
K is for Keywords
Another aspect of optimizing your LinkedIn profile is having the right keywords so people can easily find you. For me, I use ghostwriter, because that's one of the key terms people use when they're searching for someone to help with their LinkedIn profile.
For my client in the SAP world, it's SAP terms, the projects he works on and the challenges he helps solve. Choose what you like, as long as your audience is actually searching for it.
L is for Likes
A lot of people on LinkedIn focus on optimizing this metric, which I think is great, because it gives you a decent indication of how well your post is doing.I would say they are important, but not that important. (See C for Commenting. Again.)
M is for Members reached
Impressions ≠ Members reached. Impressions show how many times your post was shown. Members reached shows how many people actually saw it, both inside and outside your network. That's an absolutely crucial distinction when the goal is getting your message across to more people. I'm so glad LinkedIn introduced this.
That's the first half of the alphabet. N to Z is coming next week, and yes, I found a way around X (a slightly shameless one). In the meantime, a very quick question, What letter do you rely on most for LinkedIn? Just reply with the letter.
Grow-th Architect is where I (Shreya Vaidya) think out loud about brand-building, positioning, and surviving on LinkedIn. If this resonated, subscribe, or share it with someone who needs to hear it.