Linked to Influence

by Stephanie Sammons

  Examples of personalizing your updates include sharing your thoughts, opinions, or personal tidbits about yourself to enhance your status updates.

  For example, one time I shared an article on LinkedIn about how the practice of yoga can benefit your business. Given that I practice yoga frequently and am very passionate about it, I included a comment about how powerful the practice of yoga has been for improving my business.

  Making that personal connection with your network is what really fosters engagement.

  How many updates in your LinkedIn news feed do you see that are not personalized? Most LinkedIn members aren’t taking the time to infuse their personalities into their status updates. They are simply blasting out content, much of it being overtly promotional!

  Being more personable and authentic with your LinkedIn status updates will drive engagement and help your connections better understand who you are, how you think, and what you believe in. Personalization builds personal influence.

  Be Consistently Active…

  Nearly every activity you engage in on LinkedIn creates a visible update that can potentially be seen by your network.

  When you post a status update, contribute to a group discussion, publish a long-form post, make a new connection, follow a company or a publisher, and like, share, or comment on posts, these actions can be visible to your network. (Updating your LinkedIn profile also creates a visible action unless you turn this off in your settings.)

  Consistency builds trust. If you aren’t consistently active on LinkedIn, you will be out of mind. Your connections are not going to think of you first if they aren’t seeing you frequently. Furthermore, if your competitors are more active on LinkedIn than you are, this can hurt your business.

  Being consistently active on LinkedIn will earn you what I call network mindshare.

  If you are consistently active in earning network mindshare on LinkedIn, your connections are going to think of you first when they need help or someone they know needs help.

  I can’t tell you how many of my current clients said to me in our initial business discussions, “I see you on LinkedIn all the time.” Staying top of mind with your LinkedIn network works, and most LinkedIn members have a tough time being consistent. You can be the one to earn the majority of network mindshare and stand out with your network!

  …But Don’t Over-Share

  LinkedIn has suggested that twenty status updates per month can reach 60 percent of your unique audience (that would be one status update per weekday). Given the news feed algorithm update, this may not continue to be the case.

  Over-sharing occurs when you are posting too many status updates on LinkedIn and some of your connections begin to hide you from their news feeds. This does happen! I have hidden a good number of my connections because they either post too much, or what they post isn’t valuable.

  Another common practice I see is that some LinkedIn members have another individual deciding what to post for them. These posts are not personalized and many times are overtly self-promotional while lacking in value.

  At the very least, you should be the one deciding what gets posted to your LinkedIn network. This is your professional reputation, after all!

  If you post a valuable LinkedIn status update no more than twice a day, this is probably a healthy frequency. If you don’t seem to be getting any engagement on your updates, increase your frequency. If you still are not getting engagement, you are most likely not sharing valuable enough information.

  Seek to inform with your status updates, but also seek to inspire.

  The Practice of Proximity on LinkedIn

  The practice of proximity is sharing the right messages with the right people at the right time(s). It is difficult to achieve all three of these with your LinkedIn status updates, which is why I refer to it as a practice. Proximity is both an art and a science.

  Remember, it may work best for you to share status updates with your network that highlight the common problems and desires that they face in growing their business or careers. I’ll focus on what to share more specifically in the remainder of this chapter.

  When to share status updates is more difficult to decipher. LinkedIn doesn’t provide much insight into the number of views your status updates receive other than the most recent one you’ve completed. I suspect this will be going away altogether at some point.

  What you can see is the level of engagement, which is much more valuable than views. You can see the likes, shares, and comments that your status updates receive.

  To determine the best times and days to share status updates, you will need to experiment and see which updates are getting more engagement.

  I recommend posting status updates to LinkedIn at different times, both day and night, in order to determine what works best for you.

  The right timing of a status update can also help you achieve significant engagement.

  An example of great timing is when Content Marketing Institute shared a video post of highlights of a Kevin Spacey keynote from their most recent conference on the same day that his wildly popular series House of Cards launched a new season on Netflix.

  Think about current news and events you can share to get your network engaged. Make sure you are adding value in the process by explaining how these current happenings are relevant to your connections!

  Leverage LinkedIn Pulse

  LinkedIn Pulse is a powerful and professional content hub that lives on LinkedIn. Here you can easily discover high-quality content to share with your network. Essentially, LinkedIn is doing the aggregating and curating for you.

  The best way to keep tabs on content that would be relevant to you is to follow the official LinkedIn Influencers, topical channels, and media publishers on LinkedIn Pulse.

  When you follow these sources on LinkedIn, you will see their published posts in your news feed. Look for posts that are achieving high levels of engagement (comments, likes, shares) to share with your network!

  Click the LinkedIn “share” button on any post you want to share. You will see a box where you can customize your message and even publicly @mention the author of the post by name. (Normally you can only @mention a 1st-degree connection.)

  For the time being, it appears as though you can @mention anyone who has published a Pulse post on LinkedIn. This is a great way to publicly promote the author of the post and get on his or her radar!

  LinkedIn Pulse is also available as a mobile app. Not only can you discover timely and valuable content through this app, you can share these curated articles from your device with your network in one click.

  Checking in on the Pulse mobile app is something I do each morning to start my day. I especially pay attention to the content that is trending in my network and look for interesting and valuable updates to share.

  Consider Using Status Update Formats That Work Well

  Some status updates will perform better than others based on their format! Below are a few ideas to consider with your updates:

  Ask a question—Asking questions on LinkedIn invites your connections to comment. People love to give their answers and feedback.

  Share links to articles—Link posts will pull in an image, title, and description from the original article.

  (Note: When you share videos from YouTube, presentations from SlideShare, and even podcasts from SoundCloud, each of these will automatically create an image with your status update.)

  Share image-based posts—When you upload an image to your status update (you are still able to include some introductory text and a link), the image item will appear much larger in the news feed than it would if you simply allowed LinkedIn to pull in the image for the article you are sharing.

  Share videos and slide decks—YouTube videos and SlideShare slide decks that are shared as status updates will show up more prominently in the news feed. They will also be viewable within the LinkedIn news feed.

  With every update you share on LinkedIn, don’t forget to personaliz
e with your own comments!

  Share Your Own Content

  One of the key components to building your personal influence is by revealing how well you understand the needs and desires of your ideal clients or customers. Sharing your message through the content you create is perfectly acceptable if it truly adds value and can help the members of your network get smarter, solve a problem, or achieve more of what they want.

  Be careful about sharing updates that overtly promote your products or services. If you do promote a free offer, such as an educational guide or webinar, you should do so thoughtfully and strategically.

  The more effective method for ultimately selling your products or services is to give as much knowledge and guidance away to your network as possible. Not only does this method establish your credibility, it also provides value.

  If you are creating blog posts, podcasts, and/or videos that teach something valuable, I absolutely recommend sharing that content with your network.

  Top influencers promote their own content. You can only get into trouble with this if your content is selling. Building your personal influence will take care of all of your selling in the long run.

  I recommend sharing your own content anywhere from 25 percent to 50 percent of the time on LinkedIn, depending on how much content you produce.

  Sharing articles from third-party sources where you have been featured or interviewed can also work well. In this case, you are involved in the piece but not the original contributor or creator.

  It’s also okay to share existing content that you have created more than once with your network. Simply spread out your timing on recycled status updates and change up your introductory text.

  Consider repurposing existing content into different formats and share again.

  For example, I’ve published a podcast that I had transcribed into a blog post. The first time I shared this content, I shared the audio podcast directly from SoundCloud, where it could be easily accessed by my network. The second time I shared this content, I shared the actual blog post from my website, which included a written summary of that same audio podcast.

  Creating and sharing different formats of your content can also help you appeal to more members of your network. We each have our own preferences for the types of content we like to consume, whether it is in written, audio, or video form.

  Post Status Updates to Twitter Simultaneously

  If you connect Twitter to your LinkedIn account, you can post a status update to both your LinkedIn network and Twitter followers at the same time.

  Keep in mind that you are limited to 140 characters for a tweet while a LinkedIn status update can include up to 700 characters. Anything beyond the 140 characters for Twitter will be truncated.

  This is a simple strategy for being more efficient with your time!

  Participate in Group Discussions

  Group discussions are ideal for sharing more of your subject-matter expertise in the form of answering questions, giving feedback, and pointing to valuable resources across the social web. Your group participation also posts to the news feeds of your LinkedIn connections.

  You can build your personal influence within groups while also showcasing your participation to your network. This is another great way to create “passive” visibility with your network and potentially get some of your connections engaged in the conversation.

  I go into great detail about how to leverage LinkedIn groups in Rule #6.

  Use the @mention Feature in Your Status Updates

  The @mention feature provides an opportunity for you to publicly recognize any of your 1st-degree LinkedIn connections in your status updates. This feature works extremely well for building your influence, and it is underutilized. The @mention feature is one of my favorite tools for building personal influence with important people on LinkedIn.

  The person or people you @mention in a status update will be notified by LinkedIn in an e-mail. This encourages the person you @mention to engage with your post. (I’ve rarely had someone not engage with my status update when tagging him or her with an @mention.)

  When you share a post that one of your network members has published or shared, @mention them in your status update. Typically, it makes sense to frame your @mention in the form of a compliment.

  For example, I shared a blog post published by an influential 1st-degree connection. In my status update, I tagged him with an @mention. Most important, I included a comment about why I believed his article was so valuable.

  Not only was my 1st-degree LinkedIn connection flattered that I had mentioned him, but he was very appreciative of my words. When you use an @mention in this way, you must be genuine and sincere.

  You can also @mention anyone who has published an article on LinkedIn’s publishing platform, whether or not you are connected to them. I recommend clicking the LinkedIn “share” button to share the article with your network. Here you can customize your message and @mention the author of the article! Want to get on an Influencer’s radar? This is the way to do it.

  Another way to leverage the @mention feature is to stay informed about your 1st-degree connections. Newsle is a killer software application owned by LinkedIn that you can sign up for, and it’s free (visit www.newsle.com ). Newsle will analyze your LinkedIn connections and send you e-mail alerts any time one of your connections publishes new content online or is mentioned in the news.

  I frequently will share the articles that Newsle sends me about the people in my network and include an @mention for my connection in the status update.

  Engage with Status Updates Posted by Your Network

  A simple way to stay highly visible and valuable on LinkedIn without having to constantly come up with your own ideas to share is to engage with the status updates posted by your network.

  Whenever you like, share, or comment on someone else’s status update, this activity can be just as visible to your network as if it were your own update.

  There is another significant benefit to engaging with the status updates from your network. It gives you the chance to build rapport with the person who has shared the update. It is a subtle way to acknowledge, promote, and even give feedback, or start a conversation through commenting on the post.

  You may be wondering if it is better to like, share, or comment on status updates. This depends on the update. For example, one of my connections published an insightful article for marketers who run digital agencies. I liked the update and also left a comment to acknowledge his work, but it wasn’t relevant to share with my entire network.

  When you share someone else’s status update, you have the ability to add your own commentary as well.

  You could decide to like, share, and comment on the same status update if you wanted to. All three of these actions will show up in the news feeds of your network. Also, the person who posted the update will be notified of your actions.

  The engagement action that gets the most traction is a share. When you share someone’s status update, your personalized text shows up at the top of the update. In a sense, you take ownership of the content while still giving credit to the person who originally posted the update.

  Whenever you engage with a status update in your news feed, the person who posted the update will be notified by LinkedIn. Depending on their notification settings, members can receive e-mails each time you like, share, or comment on one of their updates.

  Engaging with status updates posted by your LinkedIn connections is an easy way to stay active, strengthen relationships, and build influence simultaneously.

  LinkedIn Notification Settings

  In order to be notified about the engagement happening with your network, make sure to review your notification settings on LinkedIn.

  Visit your “Privacy & Settings” area and look for “push notification settings.” Customize these settings to receive notifications when LinkedIn members engage with your status updates, @mention you, follow you, like your group discussions, and more. You
will receive these notifications via e-mail, and they will also show up under the flag icon at the top of your LinkedIn homepage.

  If the e-mail notifications get too overwhelming, you can always uncheck some of the boxes within your push notification settings.

  It is most effective to respond quickly to engagement that happens around your activity on LinkedIn versus responding several days later or not knowing about it at all.

  LinkedIn Tools for Increasing Your Efficiency

  LinkedIn’s primary mobile app is a great tool for engaging with updates from your network on the go. You can keep up with what’s happening in your LinkedIn news feed, and you can post status updates from the app.

  You can also participate in group discussions and quickly engage with status updates from your network. You can conduct searches, make new connections, and see who has been viewing your profile. The LinkedIn mobile app is invaluable for networking and engaging on the go.

  LinkedIn’s Pulse mobile app works best for sourcing interesting, insightful, and inspirational content to share with your network. You can also comment on any of the Pulse articles from the mobile app.